Diya Sharma

10th May 2010' Our first official day of class, I was absolutely clueless, unanswered questions were still dancing at the back of my mind, there was no formal announcement as to what we will be doing for the next few months. The only thing I understood in the first class was ‘’E-COLI’, probably the only thing I was clear about. Once the class got over, I was preoccupied with thoughts as to how things will fall in place.

11th May 2010 Today was a little clearer, after watching bbc-‘the cell’ video, we brushed up our basic terminologies, and we started following a sequence of watching video lectures by David Sadava. Readings kept coming our way; the one, which interests me most, was life ‘what a concept’.

12th May 2010 As days past by, I kept catching up on details about the cell, nucleus DNA, functioning of organisms and microorganisms (essential biological terms) etc. Something which had a defined working we could relate better, like Mendel’s pea experiment, Moore’s law etc, I saw people in these classes sitting with their eyes wide open, and not falling asleep. Thus it was concluded sitting in a practical class people paid unasked attention.

17th May 2010 We started brainstorming on our abstract bacteria/organism/product .it took us hardly few minutes to come up with an initial idea. Each day we kept modifying it, and thought of other possibilities, what we discovered by the end was all of our ideas were practically possible to an extent; we could carry it forward to the next level.

Become a lie detector: Introducing the all-new lirteutheria!

Warning: sometimes ignorance is bliss, after using lietrutheria; you may be hurt when its obvious that someone is lying to you.

Body: lie detector lietrutheria consists of a round plastic transparent lid, 4 cockroaches, 2 facing each other, other 2 in opposite directions. These four-legged organisms are attached to the lid.

Working: Lietrutheria, as a whole, moves in a particular direction, if a person says the truth i.e. cockroaches will coordinate and move, if one organism moves frontward the other will move backward, and the ones at the bottom will move sideward, to make the round lid move If a person is lying, each organism will move in the direction to which they are facing, i.e. each of them move in different directions, which results in no movement, the lid starts wobbling.

Durability: This product will remain with you throughout your life, the cockroaches keep reproducing. When a couple of cockroaches mate (front two pair), they begin to battle with each other using their antennae. The male will then bring up his wings and ruffle them. The female feeds on secretions in the male’s dorsal glands, located on his abdomen. The male will follow by going behind the female and will touch her reproductive organs. Once that is done, they will both face each other; their back ends will come in contact and the reproduction begins. This process will take about one hour. The male will send his sperm directly into the female. Female cockroaches will either store these cases away in a safe corner of confined areas or they will carry them inside or outside their bodies until the eggs are born. Initial 2 months the babies don’t work, once they are on their feet they help the parent cockroach.

Storage: The cockroach is among the most cosmopolitan of all pests and insects. They are often seen and inhabit human home, therefore the product can be stored anywhere in the house. Preferable if kept in small, dark places. They prefer coming out only at night, therefore avoid using it in daytime. Keep them in the kitchen so that they can clear of the junk as their daily food.

Safety: They do not sting or bite, Roaches have a unique figure that allows them to run away quickly and to successfully hide themselves by contracting their bodies to fit in tight spots. The cockroach will not use its wings to escape but will instead dart into holes and cracks. Therefore lietrutheria is human friendly!

Usage: Often used by police and security experts. This product is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help -prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions. Therapists, to test their patients, also use it.

18th May 2010 The bbc-‘the cell’ documentary was informative yet not boring, therefore we decided to download the 2nd and 3rd part to it.

19th May 2010 The grand day, where we practically did something with our hands, we extracted our DNA, with the help of pril (washing liquid), alcohol, and human spit. It was exciting to perform your first practical experiment even though it was at a small scale. It took me back to the school days where we used to fight for the seat next to the lab assistant just to see how the experiment is being performed.

22nd May 2010 The day when I thought I would take an off as the weather was not in my favor of attending today’s class, I received a call demanding everyone in class, we had zack’s talk on genetically modified organisms, which later lead to gender bias discussion, that’s when all the girls of the class raised their voice. I was glad I didn’t miss that day in particular.

25th May 2010 Finally our picnic trip to ncbs (national centre for biological sciences), a place where someone would dream to work, explored the place for while, and then got involved in a discussion with an educator, the debate was wether the present education system does any good or not. Another topic of his concern was we being designers took up synthetic biology for this term. It was shocking to see, how people without demanding money are making efforts on their own just bring the best output possible from the present generation.

27th may 2010 Time to create another hypothetical machine, mind boggling took place along with clash of ideas. While I as thinking, I clipped my hair and handful broke, and that minute I wondered what if there exists a machine, which could fix the hair that fall, and continue to grow them in the same manner.



28th May 2010 When scientists were out of the game, artists came in for a while, we read about Stelarc, Orlan, Adam zerestky, Petricia Piccinini and Eduardo Kac. I personally liked petricia’s work she uses hyper realistic sculpture of customized life form. Patricia piccinini examines the relationship between science, nature, science and technology. She challenges our classification of life by displaying the relationship and differences between the organic, natural and our constructed material world. Gives an idea that stuff is actually happening and is therefore representative of the world today.

31st June 2010 Practical working begins, everyone is off on an all new journey with their yet to be built sculptures. I am working with extracted tooth, which disgust me to the extent that I can vomit. Teeth, which have accumulated germs and dirt. The bacteria that cause tooth decay utilize sugars (glucose, sucrose, fructose, lactose, or cooked starches) as their food source; therefore if we apply the above in liquid form it will help the bacteria survive longer. The waste products created during the digestion of these sugars are the acids (especially lactic acid) that cause the demineralization of tooth enamel and dentin. Dr kashinatha shetty, cosmetic dentist near our locality, helped me gain the above knowledge.

1st June 2010 Entry to the lab. Hurray! We started growing yeast in three different ways. Our group followed the technique of dry yeast pallets in agar water, and then the yeast was left to grow in the lab for a day. Though this is not required on an immediate note, but the names of the chemical compounds marked on the test tubes made me go back to my 10th class chemistry classes, few of us started asking each other the full forms, it lead to a quiz and also brushed up our organic chemistry. It was fun.

2nd June 2010 Thanks to Avni, for exposing us to a very interesting talk at NIAS (national institute of advanced studies) on theory of evolution by Charles Darwin. The presenter was bombarded with questions, asking whether there exists a creator or not. Some strongly believed there was no requirement of a creator. An example of an eye was given, stating even an organ like an eye, progressed with the help of evolution.

3rd June 2010 Brain storming along with research was our first step to build our very own lab. We listed down the materials required to build an incubator and a centrifuge, it was difficult to gulp the fact that one could build such stuff with absolute junk. Documentation also tagged along all this while.

23rd June 2020

The soma bacteria

This idea of the soma bacteria is primarily inspired by the popular Hindu myth of the samudra manthan, commonly known as “the churning of the ocean“. The phrase “soma bacteria” comes from the drink of “soma”, which is a drink primarily behaving as an anesthetic in the famous mythical incident of Samudra manthan.

Now we come to the working of the bacteria: The soma bacteria are not just one bacterium but a pair of bacteria, which are co- dependent, and they are unstable in the absence of each other. One bacterium is harmful in relation to the human body, whereas the other one is harmless, but it is to be noted that it is not of a curative nature. The habitat of these bacteria is common rust. While they live in their rusty habitat, they live in colonies but there is no activity of exchange taking place. The minute it comes in contact with the human body, the bacteria get activated at once. It commutes throughout the human body, causing harm. The minute it comes in contact with a WBC, the two bacteria start exchanging their genetic material rapidly. While the WBC recognizes that one bacterium is harmless, it also realizes that the other one is harmful. But due to the rapid state of exchange of genetic material, the WBC is unable to recognize the harmful one and try and kill it. While the harmless bacterium contains a protein, which the WBC cannot counter, it cannot kill either of the bacteria. Thus, the WBC can never destroy the soma bacteria at any given time.