To Assaf and Nivi

As I promised on Friday, its time to write about the my friends Assaf and Nivi. Assaf works with me in my lab,a great..great scientist and Nivi is his girl friend, who is a wonderful artist and two of her books, kids cartoon book will be released soon. It would have been impossible for me to handle the 'Cultural lag ' problems(during my first few rough days in Paris /Sometimes even now :-( ) without them. In a Hindi Movie "Munna Bahi MBBS" they often talk about The 'Jadu Ki Japi' (The Magic Hug), a hug which can cool down any emotionally stressed person. I understood/experienced the real meaning of this 'Jadu Ki Japi' only because of them. Now to the Exciting Part, this friday, with after the big emotional arguments about love (as an impact of JK's quote on Love) I checked my mail and I saw Assaf's mail, saying, By the time I read the mail, he would be crossing the ocean to meet Nivi in New York (which was a surprise for her) and to propose her, Today he was back in the lab with successful and exciting Love Story...Wow! Now! Its time for me to pack up and be ready to go to Israel for their wedding....! Yeah ! Thats Assaf and Nivi in the picture, taken during a party in Chris's (My Boss) house.

In spite of Hindi Movies famous for many many crappy sentimental stuff...this 'Jadi Ki Japi' sentiment is really really good....If you have not watched this movie "Munna Bhai MBBS" yet...the first thing you guys should do is, to go and see this movie and the next step is,when ever you see someone down, give a 'Jadu Ki Japi' and say ' tension nahi leneka.. apun hai na' ( Dont Worry! I am there!) Believe me it really..really works!

Men build too many walls ...

"Men build too many walls and not enough bridges." - Issac Newton. I read this nice quote today in the Paris souvenir book that we got for Assaf... Today is Assaf's farewell, we had a party in a friend's bar, with a nice Moroccan dinner. We got him few gifts, one was this book with nice pictures of Paris and beautiful quotes, we signed in different pages. I signed in the page which had the above quote and photo of one of the oldest bridge built during Napoleon's period in Paris. I felt this page was just made for me,to express myself to this man who build bridges instead of walls, Assaf is the first person who helped me as I took my first step into West! He helped me to build the bridge between East and West, Today, he is confidently leaving me behind with this beautiful bridge, lovely friends of him and wonderful memories to join Nivi in New York!

Hamburg

Saturday morning, left to Hamburg with Doron, the person who made me have second thoughts about reincarnation and Aaron, his (also Assaf’s) Phd advisor. The plan was to have a quick and dirty overview of the city but the debate was whether to do it on a bike or in a city tour bus, in spite of having my and Doron’s vote for bike, we ended up seeing the town in a open top city tour bus! When it comes to boss, they are always right! I was always scared that tour buses like this can steal a traveler’s freedom but finally it was not that bad. Well Aaron didn’t just remove my fear over such buses but also beautifully gave reasons for many more fears in my life (more updates on this later). After an enlightening ride around the city, came the most disgusting thing of life, ‘to say good bye’. Doron reduced the weight of the heavy ‘good bye’ by a the usual Assaf's magic hug. Aaron and Doron left to Israel leaving me to discover the rest of Hamburg. That’s not all; I have more stories to share, but till then check out few photos from Hamburg!

And also friends! say hi to Doron! taken at the top of St. Michaelis church.

My First...

Yeah! Long silence! This is the reason! Adobe photoshop..Microsoft Power point ..Microsoft word..pdf..ppt..doc files...These stupid guys are just driving me nuts..…just one month to go for the summer vacation….deadline for two article submission ..Hmm! Phd is really not easy..may be I should have believed my friends and family…research may be not my cup of coffee…my confidence level is almost hanging close to zero…..got a small encouragement. my first research article (after joining phd) got published this month. Yeah! Its Anton’s paper, if you carefully search my name among the 27 authors in the below abstract, you will find my name in the 10^th position….

After naming my blog as "Diatomist" I should write something about diatoms right? so here it is...

Journal of Phycology Volume 43 Issue 3 Page 585Issue 3 - 604 - June 2007 Anton Montsant, Andrew E. Allen, Sacha Coesel, Alessandra De Martino, Angela Falciatore, Manuela Mangogna, Magali Siaut, Marc Heijde, Kamel Jabbari, Uma Maheswari, Edda Rayko, Assaf Vardi,Kirk E. Apt, John A. Berges, Anthony Chiovitti, Aubrey K. Davis, Kimberlee Thamatrakoln, Masood Z. Hadi, Todd W. Lane, J. Casey Lippmeier, Diego Martinez, Micaela S. Parker, Gregory J. Pazour, Mak A. Saito, Dan S. Rokhsar, E. Virginia Armbrust, Chris Bowler (2007) Title: Identification and comparative genomic analysis of signaling and regulatory components in the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana Diatoms are unicellular brown algae that likely arose from the endocytobiosis of a red alga into a single-celled heterotroph and that constitute an algal class of major importance in phytoplankton communities around the globe. The first whole-genome sequence from a diatom species, Thalassiosira pseudonana Hasle et Heimdal, was recently reported, and features that are central to diatom physiology and ecology, such as silicon and nitrogen metabolism, iron uptake, and carbon concentration mechanisms, were described. Following this initial study, the basic cellular systems controlling cell signaling, gene expression, cytoskeletal structures, and response to stress have been cataloged in an attempt to obtain a global view of the molecular foundations that sustain such an ecologically successful group of organisms. Comparative analysis with several microbial, plant, and metazoan complete genome sequences allowed the identification of putative membrane receptors, signaling proteins, and other components of central interest to diatom ecophysiology and evolution. Thalassiosira pseudonana likely perceives light through a novel phytochrome and several cryptochrome photoreceptors; it may lack the conserved RHO small-GTPase subfamily of cell-polarity regulators, despite undergoing polarized cell-wall synthesis; and it possesses an unusually large number of heat-shock transcription factors, which may indicate the central importance of transcriptional responses to environmental stress. The availability of the complete gene repertoire will permit a detailed biochemical and genetic analysis of how diatoms prosper in aquatic environments and will contribute to the understanding of eukaryotic evolution.

Last few days!

All the nice things have an end and specially when some evil eyes are constantly staring at you, it can be a bit of an unpleasant end too. After the fun-filled days in Eilat, we started driving towards Jerusalem, thanks to Doron, it was beautiful drive along the desert and dead sea. On the way as we stopped in the world's lowest point and the only place where we can float in the water, my mobile jumped out of my bag and fell into the dead sea. Dreaming about the Jerusalem, i just put the mobile aside and didn't want to think about it till i am back in Paris.

www.flickr.com

Jerusalem: I have never dreamt of such a place in my life, holy place of three religions, people with different beliefs living in such a close proximity, I was lucky to get lost in the old town and discovered both pleasant and unpleasant quarters of this holy place. In India people believe that the religious place have high energy, that's when people with problems (low energy) feel nice when they go to such energy rich place. now if that belief is true, we can say that the old city of Jerusalem strictly follows the second law of thermodynamics "energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy".

www.flickr.com

Tel aviv : Just 40 minutes drive from Jerusalem, a very modern city with many sky scrappers. Meeting some of Assaf's friends, staying with them, knowing the history of the place, playing with Itai, Doron's son (when did i last had a four month old beautiful baby in my laps), walking around the oldest port in the world (Jaffa) put my legs into the Mediterranean, watching people doing surya namaskar in the beach (you can never see even in India) . End of the trip, I felt that I have never seen so much of love for India any where else and specially I admired the confident and daring way of expressing their love. Now I know where to go, when my confident level goes down and not happy with my identity.

The carp learns to grow!

Since Assaf stopped in Paris on his way to Israel from New York for his wedding, we are having lots of outings and picnics, as I wrote in my earlier blog; he always has a special way to get people closer and builds bridges between people. Today we had lab’s day (evening out) next to the river seeing beautiful sunset with some food, drinks and with some serious food for thought. As I was explaining him how my days went after he left Paris, I realized that I have stopped dreaming, and trying to protect myself from disappointments and that made me think a lot about dreams, and it’s a mere coincidence that I read this following story by Paulo Coelho, just few minutes back as my bed time story and above are the photos, that I clicked today evening. Now…here comes the inspiring story…” The carp learns to grow!

The Japanese carp or koi has the natural ability to grow according to the size of its environment. Thus, in a small tank, it usually grows to no more than five to seven centimeters, but if placed in a lake; it can grow to three times that size.

In the same way, people tend to grow according to their environment, although we are not talking here about physical characteristics, but about emotional, spiritual and intellectual development.

While the carp is obliged, for its own well-being, to accept the limits of its world, we are free to set the boundaries of out own dreams. If we are a bigger fish than the tank in which we were bred, instead of adapting to it, we should go in search of the ocean, even if the initial adaptation period proves uncomfortable and painful

Sophisticated Diatom Language..

Advancement in technology have improved, fastened and made our ways of communication more sophisticated. Do we, the humans sitting in the top of the food chain, use these communication methods to spread good will? What about the tiny little organisms like my diatoms sitting in the bottom of the food chain do? Do they communicate? My lab’s latest research work was published in today’s PLoS Biology issue.It is about how Assaf and other scientist of my lab decoded the sophisticated Diatom Language. These unicellular organisms communicate using chemicals signals to alert the neighboring cell, when they are attacked by the predators. The wounded cells produce chemicals, which is harmful to the enemies, but alerts (triggers the immunity in) the neighboring ‘healthy’ cells. Yeah! This language is spoken by the Diatoms in death bed and it is nothing but the blessings and good wishes for the well being of its fellow diatoms. Wow! What a wonderful way of ‘chemical’ communication.

Zooming into the bloom: cell-to-cell signaling in the sea. (Illustration: Nivi Alroy)

Nivi's Day!

It’s Nivi’s B’day Today! Happy B’day Nivi! But unfortunately she was not in Paris to celebrate it together…busy in her Art School in New York. But we got great news that her phytoplankton,Diatom cartoon titled 'zoom into the bloom was accepted for publication, along with Assaf’s Research Paper in one of very good Biology Journal. Yeah! That’s the phytoplanktons, zoomed in by Nivi’s artistic hands.

End of a very hectic week, I was completely brain drained and dead, I was about to leave the lab, just then Alcidio dropped in with his friend Micha, and had a very nice Japanese Dinner, with three very cheerful men (Iam Just posing with the sticks for the photo,never able to eat with that ;-), Brain is now completely charged up with their laughter, and excellent sushi, for a rocking weekend... Bon weekend!

It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

My first Christmas in Europe and Santa Crash-landed in my home. I got many Christmas gifts from my friends. A nice cap from Alcidio(check the photo in flicker), a nice sweater and a valvet jacket from Poonam( made in her fashion boutique), Assaf and Nivi gave me ‘Mary Poppins’ dvd. So, I am now out of Disney’s (2004) “Finding Nemo” addition and now got addicted to Disney’s (1964) Mary Poppins. I was seeing this movie for the last 5 days. Its just wow!!! Nice to see a movie filled with positive thoughts, one on my favorite aspect in the movie is the usage of the Idiom “look further than the end of the nose”, Is that not a good solution for most of confusions and the problem we face?

The facts and figures we learn builds up our ego and block us from looking further than the end of our nose. Is it not true that the smartest part of the brain is not the place where we store the facts and figures, but the part which makes us understand how little we know? "Lets This New Year Be Practically Perfectly In Every Way."