Gravity, down-to-earth on life - Unexplored!

'Gravity and life' has been my greatest interest in science. Lot of questions come to my mind when I try to relate gravity to our existence. Earlier blog on biological relation and microgravity tempted me to blog on some of the gravity related life aspects...

Most of the time gravity on earth and its influence on existence of life is less appreciated, possibly because of  its ostensibly insignificant nature. It's amazing that such an attractive force that pervades this universe or many such universes in space does not find appreciable interest among biologists, except for microgravity experiments in space shuttles or inside microgravity simulators on earth. One reason could be that it is very difficult to simulate gravity variations circumventing the existing gravity on earth. But then questions related to the possible effect of continued gravitational exposure on earth on life, have not been raised.

One question that immediately comes to my mind and that we discussed during tea club (erstwhile!) 6 months back at our lab is the 'position effect' caused by earth when it comes to the positioning of different organs or parts in life forms. Even a child knows that roots grow down due to gravity. For plants, position on earth is fixed (immobile) and so may have greater influence by the gravity. One hypothesis, however crazy it might appear, is that plants are tall because of gravity or moving creatures are shorter because of lesser influence (don't know how less, maybe too less, but definitely lesser than plants or Seqouia!) due to movement.

What is the effect of gravity on the evolution of humans (Homo sapiens) and their present levels of intelligence? This was the question we discussed at the tea club meeting. If the question is put the other way around - Are humans more intelligent than their ancestor because of their erect stature? While the question might appear very general and abstract, if we compare humans to other less intelligent life forms with similar neuronal networks if not identical, then it may find some appreciation.

There are many interesting aspects of Nature that are unexplored. But these would still be too basic and useless in the eyes of people who matter - the funding agencies. Gravity can never influence them, something other force may be necessary!

Biological Relation on Microgravity

Symbiotic Nodulation in a Reduced Gravity Environment (SyNRGE) used a biological model system consisting of one species of plant and one species of bacteria that form a symbiotic relationship. They looks at how plants and bacteria that form a beneficial relationship on Earth interact in microgravity and worked with two different sets of experiments.

In one set of experiments, after reaching orbit the crew inoculated some of the five-day-old plants with beneficial bacteria while others were not. Before returning to Earth, a chemical fixative was added to Mpreserve both the plants and the bacteria.

In the second experiment, bacteria cultures and plant seeds were allowed to germinate on orbit in microgravity, while an identical set of bacteria cultures and plant seeds were simultaneously germinated on Earth in normal gravity. At the end of the mission, plants and bacteria from space and from the ground control were stored in the cold.

After returning to Earth, plants and bacteria grown on orbit and on the ground were placed in plant growth chambers to see if microgravity affected the ability of either bacteria or plants to form a symbiotic relationship.

The experiment verified techniques for seed germination and inoculation on orbit, and initial results suggest that the first steps in forming the symbiotic interaction leading to nitrogen fixation do occur in microgravity. The experiment also revealed significant differences in gene activation and expression between ground and space cultivated plants and bacteria. They are currently analyzing the gene expression data to identify the genes that may be involved in these differences."We were very pleasantly surprised that the seed germination rate in the flight experiment was 100 percent",as Roberts said.

                             Preflight                                                                      Postflight

Climate, Science, Conference and Alcohol

At a time when conferences prefer to utilize 'transmitted presence' (I mean conferencing through video or Skype), we still find scientists jetting around the globe to share scientific ideas and results, in spite of the awareness about the substantial contribution of jet travel to carbon and global warming. Ironically, 'Climate' conferences are the major contributors to climate change in recent times due the increased fascination for climate research. Well, many of the scientists are often hypocrites and perhaps hypocrisy is a way of doing science in the modern scientific society! Science tells, 'Alcohol is bad for health in many ways'. I have read about scientists (like Newton) who forgot even food when they were immersed in thought process. Today I see self-proclaimed scientists who forget science to indulge themselves in food and alcohol and there is no conference without alcohol.

Alcohol has become an important ingredient to cook 'science diplomacy' at present. Some people may even prefer to call it 'bottle diplomacy', but that is too general. This kind of diplomacy prompted me to think (not under the influence of alcohol - I'm a bad scientist!) about alcohol in science itself! I could recollect many examples from conferences referred to in some of the books written about great scientists. Perhaps alcohol is an integral part of Western culture that it spilled over to science conferences too. Whether it is a conference in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory or in Keystone Symposia, alcohol follows a seriously scientific discussion and alcohol influenced discussions also have (or at least had from what I read) some scientific flavour. Such discussions are considered to facilitate networking in certain cases. Unfortunately, in a majority of cases (except for a few) science is a conspicuous absence both during and at the end of a conference conducted in India. Again, I refer to the present-day scenario in India. I've also read about great conferences conducted in India that produced quality scientific discussions in the past.

Alcohol can have only one effect in the brain: getting rid of inhibition or remove bias (?) or thoughtlessness or numb neurons. Such an effect would result in two possibilities in scientific field: 1] Evoking a new line of thought leading to a solution for a complex scientific problem ( in a real scientist) 2] Stimulating a suave and manipulative thought that results in favours. While the first possibility is a rarity in Indian science society, the second possibility generates funds for research that is unscientifically pursued, papers or patents that are useless (both for science or society), and undeserving fame and wealth. Positive effect of alcohol on scientists or creationists like poets and artists could well be a new research idea to explore if the subject (the person) indeed is worthy. Alcohol's negative effect on scientific field could also be a research study for sociologists if it can result in good recommendations. But then, for both a 'bottle diplomacy' might be needed to get the funding. 'Ethanol'gate in science funding is much bigger than 'Coal'gate in India with the only difference being the absence of CAG.

"Osmometry" a new technique to quickly access Plants' Drought Tolerance

Hallo All,

When I was running through the ScienceDaily website to know about the recent happenings in Plants and Animals, I came across this new technique which I thought will be useful for our team as most of us are working on the filed of abiotic stress tolerance of Plants.

In this article, the scientists from UCLA in collaboration with XTBG, China, have found out a new technique called "Osmometry" to quickly access the Plants' Drought Tolerance ability and it takes only 10 mins for a leaf.  It is based on an important trait known as "turgor loss point." During drought, the leaf cells' water becomes harder to replace. The turgor loss point is reached when leaf cells become so dehydrated their walls become flaccid. This cell-level loss of turgor -- or swollenness -- causes the leaf to become limp and wilted, and the plant cannot grow.

For more information regarding this can be downloaded from
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2012.00230.x