Category Archives: Post Human

Scientists have analysed the entirety of the novel coronavirus' genomic sequence to assess claims that it may have been made in a laboratory or been otherwise engineered.

The coronavirus outbreak first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December and has caused an international pandemic, infecting more than 198,000 people and leading to over 7,900 deaths.

International blame around the COVID-19 pandemic has incited conspiracy theories about its origin.

Without evidence Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, suggested on Twitter that the virus could have been brought to Wuhan by the US army.

While he may have been insincerely provocative in response to American officials describing the outbreak as the Wuhan virus, stressing its beginnings in China, he received thousands of retweets.

Rumours linking the virus to the Wuhan Institute of Virology - based on geographic proximity, and without any endorsement from qualified epidemiologists - have also circulated.

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Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of the virus and made the data publicly available for researchers worldwide.

Even the integrity of these scientists and medical professionals has been called into question by conspiracy theorists, prompting an international coalition of scientists to sign a joint letter of support for them and their work, published in medical journal The Lancet.

The value of the genomic sequence could prove vital for those developing a vaccine, but it also contains key details revealing how the virus evolved.

New analysis by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in the US, UK and Australia discovered that the virus has proved so infectious because it developed a near-perfect mechanism to bind to human cells.

This mechanism is so sophisticated in its adaptions that the researchers say that it must have evolved and not been genetically engineered in their paper, titled "COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin", published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Dr Josie Golding, the epidemics lead at the Wellcome Trust in the UK, described the paper as "crucially important to bring an evidence-based view to the rumours that have been circulating about the origins of the virus causing COVID-19".

"They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution, ending any speculation about deliberate genetic engineering," Dr Golding added.

So how do they know? One of the most effective parts of the virus are its spike proteins, molecules on the outside of the virus which it uses to grab hold of and then penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells.

There are two key features in the novel coronavirus' spike proteins which make its evolution a certainty.

The first is what's called the receptor-binding domain (RBD) which they describe as "a kind of grappling hook that grips on to host cells", while the second is known as the cleavage site, "a molecular can opener that allows the virus to crack open and enter host cells".

If researchers were actually going to design a virus to harm humans then it would be constructed from the backbone of a virus already known to cause illness, the researchers said.

However the coronavirus backbone is radically different to those which are already known to affect humans, and in fact are most similar to viruses which are found in bats and pangolins.

"These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for [the coronavirus]," said Dr Kristian Andersen, corresponding author on the paper.

Another study of the genome by researchers at the Wuhan Institute for Virology reported that the virus was 96% identical to a coronavirus found in bats, one of the many animals sold at a Wuhan seafood market where it is suspected the virus jumped to humans.

However the new research was unable to determine whether the virus evolved into its current pathogenic state in a non-human host before jumping to a human, or if it evolved into that state after making the jump.

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Coronavirus: Scientists tackle the theories on how it started - Sky News

Buildings are not unlike a human body. They have bones and skin; they breathe. Electrified, they consume energy, regulate temperature and generate waste. Buildings are organisms albeit inanimate ones.

But what if buildings walls, roofs, floors, windows were actually alive grown, maintained and healed by living materials? Imagine architects using genetic tools that encode the architecture of a building right into the DNA of organisms, which then grow buildings that self-repair, interact with their inhabitants and adapt to the environment.

Living architecture is moving from the realm of science fiction into the laboratory as interdisciplinary teams of researchers turn living cells into microscopic factories. At the University of Colorado Boulder, I lead theLiving Materials Laboratory. Together with collaborators in biochemistry, microbiology, materials science and structural engineering, we usesynthetic biologytoolkits to engineer bacteria to create useful minerals and polymers and form them into living building blocks that could, one day, bring buildings to life.

In one study published in Scientific Reports, my colleagues and Igenetically programmed E. coli to create limestone particleswith different shapes, sizes, stiffnesses and toughness. In another study, we showed thatE. coli can be genetically programmed to produce styrene the chemical used to make polystyrene foam, commonly known as Styrofoam.

Juliana Artier, a University of Colorado Boulder postdoctoral researcher, works with a flask of cyanobacteria thats been genetically altered to produce building materials.The University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science,CC BY-ND

In our most recent work, published in Matter, we used photosynthetic cyanobacteriato help us grow a structural building material and we kept it alive. Similar to algae, cyanobacteria are green microorganisms found throughout the environment but best known for growing on the walls in your fish tank. Instead of emitting CO2, cyanobacteria use CO2 and sunlight to grow and, in the right conditions, create a biocement, which we used to help us bind sand particles together to make a living brick.

By keeping the cyanobacteria alive, we were able to manufacture building materials exponentially. We took one living brick, split it in half and grew two full bricks from the halves. The two full bricks grew into four, and four grew into eight. Instead of creating one brick at a time, we harnessed the exponential growth of bacteria to grow many bricks at once demonstrating a brand new method of manufacturing materials.

Researchers have only scratched the surface of the potential of engineered living materials. Other organisms could impart other living functions to material building blocks. For example, different bacteria could produce materials that heal themselves, sense and respond to external stimuli like pressure and temperature, or even light up. If nature can do it, living materials can be engineered to do it, too.

It also take less energy to produce living buildings than standard ones. Making and transporting todays building materials uses a lot of energy and emits a lot of CO2. For example, limestone is burned to make cement for concrete. Metals and sand are mined and melted to make steel and glass. The manufacture, transport and assembly ofbuilding materials account for 11% of global CO2 emissions.Cement production alone accounts for 8%. In contrast, some living materials, like our cyanobacteria bricks, could actually sequester CO2.

Teams of researchers from around the world are demonstrating the power and potential of engineered living materials at many scales, includingelectrically conductive biofilms,single-cell living catalystsfor polymerization reactions andliving photovoltaics. Researchers have madeliving masks that sense and communicate exposure to toxic chemicals. Researchers are also trying togrow and assemble bulk materialsfrom a genetically programmed single cell.

While single cells are often smaller than a micron in size one thousandth of a millimeter advances in biotechnology and 3D printing enable commercial production of living materials at the human scale.Ecovative, for example, grows foam-like materials using fungal mycelium.Biomasonproduces biocemented blocks and ceramic tiles using microorganisms. Although these products are rendered lifeless at the end of the manufacturing process, researchers from Delft University of Technology have devised a way toencapsulate and 3D-print living bacteria into multilayer structuresthat could emit light when they encounter certain chemicals.

Living building materials can be formed into many shapes, like this truss.The University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science,CC BY-ND

The field of engineered living materials is in its infancy, and further research and development is needed to bridge the gap between laboratory research and commercial availability. Challenges include cost, testing, certification and scaling up production. Consumer acceptance is another issue. For example, the construction industry has a negative perception of living organisms. Think mold, mildew, spiders, ants and termites. Were hoping to shift that perception. Researchers working on living materials also need to address concerns about safety and biocontamination.

The National Science Foundation recently named engineered living materialsone of the countrys key research priorities. Synthetic biology and engineered living materials will play a critical role in tackling the challenges humans will face in the 2020s and beyond: climate change, disaster resilience, aging and overburdened infrastructure, and space exploration.

If humanity had a blank landscape, how would people build things? Knowing what scientists know now, Im certain that we would not burn limestone to make cement, mine ore to make steel or melt sand to make glass. Instead, I believe we would turn to biology to help us build and blur the boundaries between our built environment and the living, natural world.

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Wil Srubaris an Assistant Professor of Architectural Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

Image: Reuters

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New Research: There May Be a Way to Turn Cells into Mini-Factories for Materials - The National Interest

Over last several decades, vaccination has saved millions of lives. Vaccination is one of the most effective ways to prevent diseases and illnesses.

A worldwide vaccination programme helped eradicate smallpox in 1977. In 1796, an English physician, Edward Jenner, observed that milkmaids who had contracted cowpox from cows were not getting infected with smallpox. He inoculated an 8-year old boy with the pus from cowpox blisters and the concept of vaccination was born. Jenner coined the term vaccination aftervacca, the Latin word for cow. Vaccines come in many forms. Jenner used a live virus in his vaccine. Another type of vaccine uses viruses rendered inactive chemically or by heat or by radiation. The most famous example of this is the polio vaccine.

The vaccination is now a beacon of hope against novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that is rampaging across the globe spreading fear and death.

How Does Vaccination Help Fight Diseases?

Pathogens, the collective name in medical jargon for viruses, bacteria, microbes and all such nasty organisms responsible for our suffering, have proteins known as antigens on their outer surfaces. When pathogens invade our body, the immune system recognises these antigens and start preparing for a battle to get rid of the invaders. Vaccines are biological preparations of targeted antigens, which when introduced into our body, confer immunity, often lifelong, against a specific disease. Vaccination helps the immune system remember what to do should the real virus appear. A high vaccination rate in a community also confers protection through the phenomenon of Herd Immunity. 25 vaccines are currently available against deadly diseases like chickenpox, rabies, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, rubella, hepatitis.

Vaccines made from the whole pathogens, live or dead, were very effective in provoking the desired immune response in our bodies. But they were not completely safe. A new class of vaccines, called subunit vaccines, solved this problem by using only a part of the pathogen, specifically a protein derived from it. Conjugate vaccines linked this isolated protein chemically with a carrier protein and because of their high safety levels became the mainstay of infant immunisation programmes. The improvement in safety, however, came at a loss of efficacy. To boost the effectiveness, ingredients called adjuvants are added to vaccine formulations. Another important requirement of vaccines is their thermal stability during transportation and storage. This requires a reliable refrigeration system.

Also Read |Goliath The Germ: Where Does India Stand In Humankind's War Against Corona

The progression of a vaccine from development to commercial production is arduous and strewn with failures. Vaccines have to go through a daunting process of pre-clinical and clinical trials. Pre-clinical trials are carried out on animals. Clinical trials are in 3 phases. The first phase establishes its safety. During phase 2 trials, scientists determine if the vaccines really protect and if there are any side reactions. And in phase 3, the viability of large scale manufacturing is established. All these trials have to be carried out under the watchful eyes of the regulatory authorities.

Large-scale manufacturing of vaccines is a complex process consisting of many steps. It starts with growing the selected animal or bird cells through a process of fermentation in a series of bioreactors under a precisely controlled environment. When the cells have grown to a desired number, they are infected with the target pathogen. When the pathogens have multiplied adequately, they are harvested from the growth medium. Next comes a series of stringent purification steps. Vaccines are administered to millions of perfectly healthy people and hence the quality requirements are exceedingly stringent. Impurities from the glass of vials in which they are finally filled and their rubber stoppers are also a matter of concern.

First-generation vaccines were very effective, but we did not fully understand their mechanism. With improved knowledge of molecular biology, the science of vaccines has evolved. In 1980s, genetic engineering was used to make a recombinant vaccine. This involved introducing the DNA from the target virus into another virus to produce the active ingredient for the vaccine. This technique was successful for the vaccine against Hepatitis B. The logical advancement of this approach was to consider introducing the DNA or RNA containing the requisite genetic information to build the antigen in our body itself. Our bodies could be converted into in-situ vaccine factories. The advantages of such an approach are enormous. These include improved immunity response, better thermal stability, absence of infectious contaminants and relative ease of large-scale production.

Also Read |From Critical Drugs To Auto Parts, Zips To Solar Panels, How Coronavirus Has Hit Supply Chain

Vaccine Trials for Coronavirus

Trials are underway in more than a dozen laboratories across the world to develop a vaccine for coronavirus.

Though none of the DNA or RNA based vaccines have been granted a commercial license so far, they are our best bet against the ravaging SARS-CoV-2 virus. Many of the current trials underway have adopted this approach. Moderna Therapeutics of USA created an industry record by identifying the vaccine candidate just 42 days after the genomic sequence of the virus was announced. The companys product is a synthetic RNA that will persuade our immune system to create antibodies that will fight SARS-CoV-2. Other biotech companies are trying out techniques that are very similar to that of Moderna. A Japanese company is attempting to make a vaccine out of antibodies harvested from the blood of those who have recovered from COVID-19. These novel approaches to fight the novel coronavirus could be the harbinger of a new vaccine technology that will save the human race from similar scourges in the future.

(The author is a chemical engineer and a science writer.)

FROM THE MAGAZINE | Meet the Corona Warriors

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Vaccine Trials To Fight Coronavirus Offer Hope, Could Be Harbinger Of New Technology - Outlook India

It was 1980, when there was no kind of help for social work, nor were there any non-governmental organisations in place. Dr Lagoo and Ram Apte set up the Samajik Krutadynata nidhi (a corpus fund to give a monthly honorarium to cover the basic needs of social workers). This was set up to support fulltime social activists.

He came up with an appeal to bring actors from film and theatre together to devote time for this good cause. He brought famous actors like Nilu Phule, Reema Lagoo and Sudhir Joshi together and staged Lagnachi Bedi, written by playwright Acharya Keshav Atre and took it across Maharashtra.

After the play, Dr Lagoo would walk with a jhola (bag) and appeal to the audience to donate for this fund. He used his strength as an actor for social causes and even volunteered, and it showed his passion for social causes. All these plays in far-out, small villages, where there were no good hotels, were co-ordinated by my father. None of the actors raised any compliant but went along with Dr Lagoos idea of raising funds.

This is still continuing today because Dr Lagoo set the tone. Actors make time to volunteer and continue this fund. This funding was also the beginning of a friendship between my father and Dr Lagoo. They had a common stream, a rational outlook towards life. While Dr Lagoo was an aethis and, my father was an activist running the AndhaShraddha Nirmulan Samiti, they still had common ground. They then decided to hold a debate Vivek Jagarache Vadh Samvadh, which would travel across villages in Maharashtra. Dr Lagoo would drive in his own car to the villages through out 1992-1993. During these debates, Dr Lagoo used to put forth his radical atheist argument, with a case for the retirement of God, and my father used to argue the case for opposing what was exploited in the name of God and religion.

They even faced angry mobs together, people who broke down the stage, interrupted their debate and even blackened Dr Lagoos face, but he never gave up. What he did in life was always with a rational outlook towards life and always lay emphasis on his beliefs through the faculty of reason.

After my fathers killing, Dr Lagoo was shaken and he was present for the protests that followed.

Dr Lagoos passing has created a vacuum. His legacy stands for truth, which is a rare thing. He performed in both theatre, and the social movement, leaving his footprint behind.

- Hamid Dabholkar, son of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar who was murdered by right-wing fundamentalists, remembers Dr Shreeram Lagoo as not just an actor, but a very sensitive human being with a scientific mind. Dabholkar is today a member of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (Mans), the organisation formed by his father.

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Dr Shreeram Lagoo: The sensitive rationalist always on the social beat - Hindustan Times

Shriram Lagoo, who died on Tuesday in Pune at the age of 92, was an astute tightrope walker, constantly balancing his passion for theatre with his love for cinema. His artistry ensured that he left a rich legacy on both the stage and the screen.

Lagoo was born on November 16, 1927, in Satara. He described his childhood self as a bathroom actor, caught between a desperate love for theatre and a deep fear of audiences. An experience of crippling stage fright as a child had left Lagoo so wary that he had renounced the thought of acting in plays. But he was deeply inspired by Hollywood stars such as Paul Muni, Spencer Tracey and Ingrid Bergman, and would declaim classical Marathi monologues performed by the likes of Nanasaheb Phatak, Keshavrao Daate and Mama Pendse in the style of British and American actors while locked in his room. These early influences shaped Lagoos approach towards acting: he could convey deep emotions with little more than a glance or gesture.

The eldest son of a successful doctor, Lagoo studied medicine at BJ Medical College in Pune, while also acting in five full-length plays and 15 one-act plays in a five-year span. Despite his passion for the stage, Lagoo decided to continue his medical education, and acquired a specialisation in ear-nose-throat surgery before moving to Africa.

In an interview to Doordarshan, Lagoo confessed that he might have quit medical college if an institution like the National School of Drama had been available to him at the time. But there was absolutely no prestige associated with actors then, he recalled.

An undeterred Lagoo quit medicine in 1969 at the age of 42 and returned to India, determined to pursue a career in theatre. After a few months of struggle, he bagged the role of Sambhaji, the son of the Maratha king Shivaji, in Vasant Kanetkars Ithe Oshalala Mrityu. Although his initial plays were not commercially successful, Lagoos obvious talent attracted attention.

His career in theatre reached a high in 1970 with VV Shirwadkars Natsamrat, in which he played Ganpatrao Belwalkar, a thespian who retires from the stage after portraying Shakespearean characters but is unable to escape the drama of familial clashes. The demands of the character were so intense, and Lagoos immersion in the part so complete, that the play was regarded as the cause of his deteriorating health at the time.

Felicitated with the Sahitya Akademi Award, Natsamrat ran successfully for more than four decades, and was remade in 2016 as a film starring Nana Patekar.

Other acclaimed plays, including Kachecha Chandra and Himalayachi Saawli, earned Lagoo the lead role in V Shantarams Pinjra (1972). With a nuanced performance as a principled village teacher in his very first film, Lagoo showcased his ability to mould his talent to suit the cinematic medium.

Lagoo was associated with the turning points of the careers of several stalwarts in Marathi theatre and cinema. He acted and directed the long-running Gidhade. Vijay Tendulkars play is an early example of the acclaimed playwrights trademark style of delivering incisive social commentary in unadorned but impactful language. Lagoo was also a protagonist in Saamna (1974), the debut film of celebrated director Jabbar Patel.

Brazenly political and deeply insightful, Saamna depicted the clash between self-satisfied and corrupt sugar baron Hindurao (Nilu Phule) and a righteous, Gandhian drunkard known as Master (Shriram Lagoo). Lagoo modified his voice and body language to suit Masters languorous personality, acting as the perfect foil to Phules pompous Hindurao. Lagoo also acted in Patels political drama Sinhasan (1979), in which he was memorable as a wily and sophisticated minister.

Lagoo was meant to make his debut in Hindi cinema with the Jaya Bachchan starrer Aahat, but the film was never released. Instead, he appeared in Suresh Kumar Sharmas Mere Saath Chal. Although he acted in several Hindi films, including Hera Pheri, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Laawaris, his characters in these movies were not written with the depth and nuance that his talent deserved.

Bhimsains Gharonda (1977) was an exception. Lagoos performance as a canny and self-serving businessman earned him a Filmfare award for Best Supporting Actor. He also shone in a brief role as Gopal Krishna Gokhale in Richard Attenboroughs Gandhi (1982).

Despite several successful films, Lagoos dedication to theatre never wavered. When asked by television anchor Tabassum if his increased involvement in cinema would hamper the Marathi theatre circuit, Lagoo shook his head with great regret. I dont know if they will miss me, but I miss theatre, he told Tabassum. When I was absorbed in cinema and couldnt act on stage for two and a half years, I felt like something very wrong was happening in my life.

Lagoo remained resolute in his disdain for the division between theatre and cinema and commercial and experimental art. This disavowal of binaries reflected in his performances. Although he remained sensitive to the differences in the mediums, and adopted subtler mannerisms in cinema, Lagoos basic style never wavered. His acting prowess hinged on his clear and captivating voice, which he painstakingly modulated. Lagoos piercing gaze was also a vital element of his performances.

Raised in a politically inclined household, Lagoo had great belief in the subversive potential of art, and maintained that actors must become instruments of social change. A vocal rationalist, he worked to debunk myths about religion and spirituality, often openly rejecting the idea of an all-powerful god and ruffling many feathers in the process. He was closely associated with the anti-superstition movement in Maharashtra championed by social activist Narendra Dabholkar.

Inspired by Bengali thespian Shambhu Mitras advice, Lagoo believed that an ideal actor should be an athlete as well as a philosopher. Consequently, despite an early heart attack, he remained physically fit enough to continue acting well into the eighth decade of his life. He returned from a sabbatical with a wrenching performance as the aged politician Nana Chitnis in the Marathi political drama Nagrik (2014).

Lagoo was awarded a Padma Shri relatively early in his career, in 1974. He went on to win a number of awards, including the Kalidas Samman presented by the government of Madhya Pradesh, the Dinanath Mangeshkar Smruti Pratisthan for his contribution to Marathi theatre, and the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship. In his autobiography Lamaan (Carrier of Goods), Lagoo describes his tendency to win awards as a bad habit, but he never could break it. He was awarded the lifetime achievement award by the youth theatre group Thespo as late as 2016.

Shriram Lagoos equanimity is evident in his autobiography. As he narrates his triumphs and failures without modesty, ego or self-absorption, Lagoo is often sweetly emotional and sharply critical much like his performances.

He writes, When one is lucky enough to chase their most deeply desired dreams, even the scant few pleasures afforded by life have the capacity to humble lifes mountainous burdens of pain. Audiences who have watched him perform will be glad he chased his dreams, and helped them weave their own fantasies in the process.

Also read:

Classics revisited: Sinhasan is Marathi cinemas own game of thrones

Gharonda remains one of the most resonant films about Mumbais housing woes

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Shriram Lagoo (1927-2019): Acting legend and rationalist leaves behind a rich and complex legacy - Scroll.in

The editor at the New Rationalist, a wonderful progressive news site, recently interviewed me and I would like to share it with my readers at Thrive Global:

Howard Ross is a lifelong social justice advocate and the founding partner of Cook Ross, a leading Diversity and Inclusion consultancy. Hes considered one of the worlds seminal thought leaders on identifying and addressing Unconscious Bias. His new book,Our Search for Belonging: How the Need for Connection Is Tearing Our Culture Apart, describes how to bridge the divide in our increasingly polarized society. Today we ask him a few questions on his work and the political climate in general.

In your own words, what is social justice?

In my mind, social justice is a societal structure in which justice is consistently applied to all, regardless of racial, cultural or gender differences, socio-economic status or other identities.

What does a social justice advocate do?

In my role as a social justice advocate, I endeavor to act and speak in a way that addresses removing any barriers to justice for all, or that establishes policies and practices that achieve justice for all. This also includes being an active ally toward people outside of their own group who are being treated unjustly.

Why did you choose this line of work?

I became an activist as a teenager, inspired by being in a family that had a significant loss during the Holocaust, and also had activist roots. After studying organizational development work, the two merged in the 1980s when the diversity movement began.

What has been the most challenging professional role you held? Why?

Probably my most challenging role has been owning and leading a company in which Ive had to balance the needs of staff, clients and the bottom line.

Disagreements are omnipresent in politics and daily life. Lately, it seems to have taken on a more malicious face. Or has it always been this way? What are the reasons for so much vitriol in political discourses these days?

I think its reasonable to suggest that the polarization were experiencing is more intense than the past, though its always challenging to compare different eras. As with any complex system, there are a number of contributing reasons. The pattern of political consolidation in both parties has moved us from a historical dynamic in which people were issue-oriented as in, I might agree with you about gun rights and foreign policy, but I disagree with you about civil rights and domestic policy to one in which were now identity oriented Youre one ofthem!

The polarization is exacerbated by international conflicts between nationalist and globalist perspectives, and the bifurcation of media sources that create distinct streams of information and blur the line of whats considered true.Of course, politicians who take advantage of these differences and feed the fear by demonizing people on the other side throw fuel on the fire. Finally, underlying racial tension has contributed to the dynamic, especially since the parties have become increasingly racially defined.

Tell us about your book.

The book is an attempt to help readers understand how human beings are drawn to be part of groups, and why were so impacted by the groups that were a part of. We look at how these dynamics impact race, religion and politics, and how it shows up in organizations. Finally, we investigate ways that these dynamics can be addressed.

In the preface of your book, you posed a paradox: our compulsion to connect with other human beings often creates greater polarity, leaving us deeply connected with some, yet deeply divided as a society. Can you illustrate this with an example?

If we look at the current political situation, we see many examples. Given that both the left and the right have moved towards more doctrinaire positions, its almost become necessary to reject one group in order to fit into the other group.

Do you think that the media, online and offline, is only adding fuel to this fire?

No question that this is the case. We used to get virtually the same information from three basic media sources: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now, between cable news, social media and online news sources we get completely different streams of information. In addition, the news is now dominated by punditry. Sources dont share information as much as they share opinions about the information. We might say were not watching the news anymore as much as were watching people who are watching the news and analyzing it for us.

From religious to workplace communities, politics has seeped into every sense of community that humans have built. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

There arent many advantages. The major disadvantage is that its made it more difficult for a broad range of people with different ideas to work or pray together.

Multinational companies and several universities have come under attack by trolls as a result of their efforts to ramp up diversity and inclusion. What causes people to attack such initiatives?

Often a lack of understanding, but its fair to say that failed diversity approaches have contributed, as well. The propagation of a Us vs. Them mindset seems aimed at certain people and an attempt to fix them. This has caused a backlash effect. In addition, many people in dominant groups have a false sense of how fast these changes are happening and feel threatened.

In your opinion, what is the most important factor that influences the way we see the world the way we do?

We see the world through the lens of our experience. The mind then interprets whats happening through that lens. We might say that we see the world not as it is, but as we are.

Echo chambers have existed since long before Facebook became what it is today. How has social media made the situation worse?

Its omnipresence in our lives only exacerbates the echo chamber in which we often choose to live. It follows us throughout the day and we can pick and choose who we interact with so that most people only end up interacting with people who agree with them.

What are the signs that you are living in an echo chamber?

When everything and everyone around you seems to have the same point of view that you do. Although our natural pattern is to live inside relatively homogeneous communities, we will have to be willing to consciously reach out to others outside our inner circle and invite them in. That means people of different races, cultures, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, and disabilities and, yes, even different political orientations.

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In Conversation with Howard Ross Social Justice Advocate - Thrive Global

Source: Pavlenko Volodymyr | Shutterstock

A mystic is anyone who has the gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradictions, and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner1

As a psychiatrist, I routinely hear about all sorts of unusual perceptual experiences, and not just from people who are psychotic. A wide variety of psychiatric, neurological, and other medical conditions can cause distorted perceptions. Some of these conditions involve disordered or diseased states affecting the brain; some are transient; and some occur in otherwise healthy, normal peoplefor example, trancelike dissociative states, and perceptual distortions associated with hypoglycemia and sleep deprivation, among other factors.2

Some distorted perceptions are entirely normal phenomena but are outside the range of most people's usual life experiences. There is also the simple but potent power of suggestion, as well as numerous sources of perceptual illusions, and very many powerful cognitive biases that affect how people interpret and recall their experiences.

Seeing is believing3

It is said that seeing is believing. But actually, believing is seeingwe often see what we believe to be there, misinterpreting our senses in illusory ways. Moreover, our senses sometimes creating perceptions out of nothing at all. When people experience perceptions of non-real things in ways that are indistinguishable to them from other aspects of their actual reality, the last thing they are willing or able to believe is that those perceptions could have been due to their own brain malfunctioningtheir mind playing tricks on them.

People tend to trust their physical senses and to believe what their own brain tells them, no matter how bizarre. They will layer explanations on top of their perception of reality to explain away contradictions. Since we experience the external world entirely through our senses, we find it hard to accept that these perceptions are sometimes entirely subjective and not necessarily reliable experiences of objective reality. After all, what else can we trust and depend on more thanour own senses?

Subjective perception can seduceeven hardened skeptics

American author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich, who describes herself as "a myth buster by trade," wrote earnestly about an unusual subjective perceptual experience she had that serves as an excellent example of the way we give our subjective experience too much credence. I consider it a good illustration precisely because I admire Ehrenreich as a very intelligent and critically-minded person.

She has persuasively argued elsewhere for evidence-based, reality-based thinking. It is therefore ironic that she would be so captivated by her own subjective perceptions, as described below,and take these so seriously. If such an astute skeptic can be overwhelmed by the power of her own subjective perceptions and emotions, then the rest of us ought to have less confidence in our own rationality, and to be very wary of the power of emotion and subjectivity to skew our critical thinking.

A furious encounter with a living substance

Ehrenreich wrote about this particular experience decades after it happened to her one morning in 1959 at age 17, on a ski trip:4The experience "shook my safely rationalist worldview and left me with a lifelong puzzle. Years later, I learned that this sort of event is usually called a mystical experience."

She recognizes that because of poor planning and insufficient money she was sleep-deprived and probably hypoglycemicthat morning in 1959, when:

"I stepped out alone, walked into the streets of Lone Pine, Calif., andsaw the worldthe mountains, the sky, the low scattered buildingssuddenly flame into life. ..just this blazing everywhere. Something poured into me and I poured out into it. . .It was a furious encounter with a living substance that was coming at me through all things at once, too vast and violent to hold on to, too heartbreakingly beautiful to let go of.5

She felt a kind of unity with all of nature, living and nonliving, all recruited into the flame and made indistinguishable from the rest of the blaze. She felt ecstatic and somehow completed, but also shattered.

Mystical experiences represent some sort of an encounter

Ehrenreich hadpreviously had other unusual but less intense experiences and had been medically assessed as having a dissociative disorder (commonly associated with perceptual illusions and feeling detached from reality or having dreamlike states). She was also the type of child who habitually spent a lot of time absorbed in her own thoughts and internal world during her difficult, unhappy childhood.

An avowed atheist since childhood, Ehrenreich rejected a theistic explanation for her experience but is open, all these years later, to considering that the universe might be suffused with some sort of vaguely mystical Otherness or animistic energysome as-yet-unidentified pervasive life-form permeating all of nature, possibly conscious and possibly very powerful.

She postulated that mystical experiences represent some sort of an encounter, giving us tantalizing glimpses of other forms of consciousness, which may be beings of some kind. She wondered if the universe is pulsing with a kind of life, which might be capable of bursting into something that we might momentarily experience like the flame she thought she saw that day.

She suggested that science should not dismiss mystical experiences as mental phenomena and should take seriously the possibility that these experiences really do represent some sort of encounter with some unknown, vital, conscious force in the universe. She proposed that we need more subjective accounts.6

Considering that in her other writings Ehrenreich has stressed the need for realistic and unbiased thinking, it is all the more striking that she should regard her own subjective perceptions as a reliable source of evidence for the nature of objective reality. This illustrates just how compelling subjective perception can bethe only thing that makes Ehrenreich's experiences remarkable and impressive to her is that they are hers.

Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow

Subjective experiences of seemingly unexplained mystical-type encounters, as well as experiences of eerie coincidences, are among the most powerful reasons why people are prone to religious or spiritual beliefs. William James, the father of American psychology and an influential philosopher, published a wide variety of firsthand accounts of subjectively powerful mystical experiences and revelations collected from people from all walks of life.7 The experiences typically led to strong, long-lasting, even lifelong religious convictions, because they usually reinforced belief in a divine cosmic order.

James wrote, Whoever possesses strongly this sense comes naturally to think that the smallest details of the world derive infinite significance from their relation to an unseen divine order8in other words, everything happens for a reason.He referred to the difficulty in overriding these irresistibly convincing subjective perceptions with logical thought:

I spoke of the convincingness of these feelings of reality, and I must dwell a moment longer on that point. They are as convincing to those who have them as any direct sensible [sensory] experiences can be, and they are, as a rule, much more convincing than results established by mere logic ever are. . .If you do have them, and have them at all strongly, the probability is that you cannot help regarding them as genuine perceptions of truth, as revelations of a kind of reality which no adverse argument, however unanswerable by you in words, can expel from your belief.9

According to James, people's reasoned intellectual philosophies are often formed as ways to rationalize their irrational subjective-intuitive experiences. Once formed in this way, these beliefs cannot easily be shaken by rational counterarguments:

The truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and our reason work together. . .The unreasoned and immediate assurance is the deep thing in us, the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibition. Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow. If a person feels the presence of a living God after the fashion shown by my quotations, your critical arguments, be they never so superior, will vainly set themselves to change his faith.10

More willing to doubt the laws of physics than to doubt our own minds

Clearly, we find our own subjective perceptions arrestingly compelling and are more willing to doubt the laws of physics than to doubt our own minds. People underestimate the capacity of our brains to create their own convincing realities. They underestimate how powerfully realistic some dissociative experiences, hallucinations, and other well-recognized mental/neural misperceptions can seem.

Come and sit in my office for a week and listen to people argue passionately (and even seemingly rationally) that their demonstrably implausible perceptions or beliefs are real. Then judge for yourself which explanation is more plausiblethat the bizarre experiences that you will hear described are actually real, or that the human brain can easily fool us into believing weird things.

Original post:
The Varieties of Mystical Experience - Psychology Today

The domino effect of protests over fee hikes and citizenship law shows that a mass student movement may be possible

The protests over the new Citizenship Act, which promises religion-based acceptance of refugees and excludes the concerns of minorities and indigenous people, may congeal as a mass student movement thats rearing its head across the country in a manner reminiscent of the anti-reservation stir of the 90s. As the young Assamese stood up for their linguistic and cultural pride, one that has been threatened since colonial times by waves of privileged Bengali-speaking settlers, their marginalisation has found echoes across the country. Students at various colleges and universities, even in faraway Delhi, are out to challenge not just the autocracy of the ruling regime but occupy the space for balance, humanism and logic that has been vacated by civil society, Opposition leaders and rationalists. This confluence of students, therefore, comes from generational solidarity, from their stakeholdership in an India that is being created by selfish politics but will leave them suffering the consequences and unlearning what we have raised them to believe, to hold the establishment to account. Perhaps, it is getting endorsement because of the silence from a coopted majority. For the new Citizenship Act is not about reimagining India in a positive way but about reconstructing on ruins and relics of our civilisational foundations. It is not about denying immigration rights to Muslims but the selective culling of whom we want on our land that goes against the grain of the Constitution, one of the best documents that guarantees our citizenry equality. It is about creating a fear psychosis among the majority community that for the first time believes it has been a victim of parasitic minorities, no matter how small their numbers. It is about a One India based on Hindu nationalism that disregards, as in the North-east, the emotions of locals who have over the years reclaimed their political rights as national parties have merrily played around with demographics, encouraging immigration for votebanks, first Muslim, now Hindus. It is about upending stability that has been hard-earned in a diverse India. In that sense, the BJP has, by fomenting disunity, probably gifted a plank of unity that might just lead to a transformative and revolutionary student movement. If the mass coalescence following the Nirbhaya rape, the Dalit atrocities, the Rohith Vemula suicide and fee hikes at institutions is any indication, then the young are getting restive. If the 90s fed the drive for economic empowerment in a globalised world, then millennials are looking at value-creation of a different kind, one that keeps them connected to their identity than be submerged by the homogeneous hold of power. One that is not intellectual fadism of campus politics but can be carried into the real world, one that is not just anger against the system but about claiming it.

Perhaps this is the reason why students in Assam, unlike the anti-outsider movement of the late 1970s and early 80s, are spontaneously coming together as an amorphous force. They have demonstrated peacefully by and large through blockades, gatherings and processions. It is the police clampdown which has been harsh in comparison, both in the State and even in Delhi. The All Assam Students Union (AASU) may be leading the protests like the old times but has been joined by university students and even farmers and tribals. And so far they have decided to stay away from politicisation by national parties, be it the BJP or the Congress. Technology and media outreach have helped mobilise support, scale up the new law as a transnational issue and has even inducted peers in the diaspora. Student movements in India today may begin local but then draw traction in the broader context. This is the reason why the JNU fee hike agitation spread to all other institutions and became a swell of anger against fee hike in the higher education system in general. The Hok Kolorob movement in Jadavpur University, against the abrasive arrogance of the VC, had a domino effect with demonstrations being staged across India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. But in recent times, it is the Hong Kong students protest, with human chains, night vigils and Nelson Mandela songs, whose innovation and energy have even compelled a totalitarian China to take a step back. The good part about this non-violent resistance against the regime was that it could not be demonised by the establishment but weaponised the entire worlds sympathy. In the same way, the new wave of home-grown student movements could very well capture the national imagination. Once young people have freed themselves from State fear, then we may yet reap a true democratic dividend.

See the article here:
Take the lead - Daily Pioneer

By PTI

PUNE: Eminent theatre and film actor Dr Shriram Lagoo died due to age-related ailments at his Pune residence on Tuesday evening, family sources said.

He was 92.

"I spoke to his son-in-law. He passed away due to age-related complications," playwright Satish Alekar told PTI.

Lagoo, who was a trained ENT surgeon, played important role in the growth of theatre movement in Maharashtra in post-Independence era alongwith Vijay Tendulkar, Vijaya Mehta and Arvind Deshpande.

As an actor, his roles in Marathi plays such as "Natsamrat" and "Himalayachi Saoli", and films such as "Pinjra" made him popular.

In Hindi, he essayed memorable roles in films such as "Ek Din Achanak", "Gharonda" and "Lawaris", to name a few.

Lagoo, affectionately known in theatre circles as `Doctor', was also known for his progressive and rationalist views which he expressed without fear.

Original post:
Theatre and film actor Dr Shriram Lagoo passes away at 92 - The New Indian Express

Completing teacher training at Melbourne Teachers College and Melbourne University with TPTC, BEd and later BA, his first appointments were at Yea and Seymour.

His fledgling career however, suffered successive setbacks. In 1953, on a holiday in Europe Mac was hospitalised in Bern, the Swiss capital, with TB and quickly repatriated back to Australia and into the Melbourne Sanatorium. He spent most of 1954 recovering in Tallangatta.

Malcolm 'Mac' Ronan.

In 1957 while a teacher at Macleod High School and driving home from school one day, he was involved in a head-on collision with a truck that left him comatose for the two weeks, resulting in hampered mobility and a permanent limp. The truck driver was jailed for drunken and dangerous driving.

In 1955, he was appointed teacher at his childhood Tallangatta school, the year before the planned relocation of the town. The school was transported to its new location over the Christmas period, and Mac found himself teaching in the same classrooms two months later but five miles away. He cherished that experience.

With loyalty, tact and resourcefulness, Macs outstanding qualities of scholarship, and leadership, augmented his professional skills as a teacher. His gentle disposition and adaptability saw him through often trying situations.

By the time he joined the Victorian Institute of Colleges in 1969, he had taught for 20 years with the Victorian Education Department, administering in English, history, and mathematics. He served as senior master and as acting principal on several occasions.

Mac had become aware his teaching was increasingly infused with current social issues, and also aware of the new discipline sociology, common in the US. He took a teaching position with the Victorian Institute of Colleges and set his goal of graduate studies. The college also felt a need for growth in the social sciences and made possible Macs travel and enrolment in a masters sociology program at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the US.

He graduated MA in 1971 and continued into doctoral studies in sociology for two more years, graduating as PhD in 1974. This culminated in his appointment at Caulfield Institute of Technology as head of department of applied sociology, later absorbed by Monash University.

Under his 10-year guidance the department attracted and trained able and well-qualified staff, developed a wide range of innovative courses and gained a highly regarded reputation for applied social research.

Macs principled and compassionate nature led him to play a prominent role in the evolution and betterment of Melbournes gay community with his founding of a grassroots organisation that helped in the subsequent gains of the gay minority.

Minorities had been his main area of focus in his academic pursuits, just as the gay rights movement was emerging in the 1970s. Macs embrace for minorities and, in the case of the gay community, led to the important social and support organisation he founded in 1980 ALSO (Alternative Life Style Organisation). The goal was to encourage the use of resources to improve prospects for gay people. He believed in gay people taking charge of their own futures and not as second-class citizens.

With his dulcet tones, Macs friendliness had a certain magnetic quality that drew people to him enabling a competent team of which he was president for 10 years.

ALSO was instrumental in the establishment and development of a wide range of gay organisations including the Victorian AIDS Council (Thorne Harbour Health), Radio Joy Melbourne, the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard (Switchboard Victoria), the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and Midsumma Festival. He was proud that ALSO helped a lot of people find a place in the sun.

A rationalist and proud Australian, he was delighted when secular Australia voted decidedly on the plebiscite of 2017 and that justice was done in the court of public opinion.

Mac paid tribute to his forebears who had risked all and made audacious, often treacherous journeys to the other end of the world, to become pioneers of this country, with two award-winning family histories, Across The Threshold (1993) A Ronan Family History, from Kilkenny to Victoria, and Up and Down the River (1998) the Butlers from Benenden.

He honoured his hometown with the celebrated Old Tallangatta a Town to Remember (1995). Seeking to recapture the flavour of the first 100 years, when Tallangatta had its exciting day in the sun, through the daily lives of the people who lived far from the citys crowds in the lush valleys of the Mitta River and the Tallangatta Creek.

Two more hometown tributes are Hearts in Stone the saga of Tallangattas war memorials (2000) and The Century Book Old & New Tallangatta (2001, with Harold Craig).

A fine pianist, he shared with partner Geoff a love of music, the cinema, stage musicals and travel. He propagated and raised peppercorn seedlings for tree lovers, created cryptic crosswords and puzzles, for The Senior and Coast and Country and in later years taught English to adult migrants at local community centres.

Meeting Geoff at the Princess Theatre, in 1948, while attending The Skin of our Teeth was the beginning of a devoted 72-year partnership and they were still together, in shared accommodation at their Kew nursing home.

Peter Jacovou was a friend of Mac Ronan and is executor of his estate.

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From small town boy to significant contributor - The Age