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Showing posts from January, 2016

#startupindia

Many days back my uncle  +Bhoo Thirumalai  received an invite for an event called Startup India and asked me if I was interested in tagging along. He would make the necessary arrangements for the acquisition of an invitation for me, he said. I was more than just happy to say I was in on the plan. After all, who would miss an opportunity to visit Delhi? :D So I did as he asked me to - sent a few emails and voila! A week and a half later I was invited to the event. So I started planning my Delhi trip. Called up a friend of mine and made plans to meet with her when I was in the city, found out that a school friend of mine who I had not seen since 2010 was also in Delhi. So made plans to meet her too. I was excited to go! For my folks at home, the agenda was, "He's going to listen to the Prime Minister speak" but for me it was primarily, "Delhiiii!!" :P So when my college deigned to let me go home for Pongal, I took the chance to fly out to Delhi the very day I lan

Social behaviour

Politics. The one topic that will get that random stranger’s tongue wagging – wherever it may be. The tea shop. The saloon. The bus stand. And the discussion very often revolves around one theme – corruption. We all lambast the system that feeds us. People don’t pay taxes, they steal, etc. What if I were to tell you that such misdemeanors of social behavior are not restricted to the human species alone? Bacteria also have social behavior. They cooperate with each other. They work together to build a community. But not all of them live in harmony. Some cheat the system. There are counter measures in place to sideline such cheaters. Contrary to traditional thought, bacteria also have such societies and exhibit “human tendencies” of social behavior. A recent paper published in Frontiers of Microbiology suggests just that. The group provides experimental proof that bacteria exhibit such traits and show that such cooperative behavior is essential to some of their functions. To explain th