Stems cells turned into ova and sperm!

In the latest issue of the journal Nature a few Stanford University scientists claim to have devised a method of converting stem cells into ova and sperm and can therefore produce an individual by the combining of those two stem cell products! Ofcourse, it means that infertility is really a problem no more - it will be possible to produce stem cells from the skin of infertile individuals and then it is only a matter of making those stem cells into sperm and ova! But it also means that sex is now redundant and so are male and female couples! The mother (the person who gives birth to the baby) can actually be both mother and father! It also means that gay men can actually have children with their own genetic make up if they can find a surrogate mother to house their child in her womb until it is time to give birth!

Interesting possibilities are being thrown up by this development - I'm sure that to people in the legal profession it must appear like a problem wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a conundrum because this raises so many legal issues! Fancy a mother also being the father of a child, is that a legal quagmire or what?!!

But as a person of science I am a little perplexed by this development because ova and sperm are generally haploid, having only one set of chromosomes i.e 23 chromosomes and not 46 that normal human cells have. Now stem cells too are by and large diploid in nature so how do these scientists go about making ova and sperms out of diploid stem cells - the article doesn't dwell on this issue, wish they would have. Also there is the issue that if female skin cells are used to produce ova and sperm the sperm will always carry only the X chromosome because females do not have a Y chromosome, now this would mean that female skin cells can only beget female children! Is the male as a species doomed to be consigned to the dustbin of history? If only for the purpose of generating Y chromosomes the poor male may yet be needed! All this doesn't bode well for humankind it would seem!

Brussels, Belgium

This recent trip to Europe allowed me an opportunity to do a short side trip to Brussels to visit a nephew of mine who lives and works there. Off the net I chose an affordable place to stay near the Brussels Gare du Nord - my nephew checked the place (or shall we say the location) and said it was ok. I arrived in Brussels by an Intercity express from Frankfurt, on Nov 2nd evening and linked up with Timki who walked me to the hotel. I have to say it was a rather disappointing hotel and the room was a trifle worse! But guess what, the guy who managed the place was Nepali! I decided I would hang in there because I hoped to spend most of my time out of the hotel room and return only in the late evenings to sleep. Timki returned to his office (not far away) and I stepped out to check out the neighbourhood. I was a little surprised to see the trash on the roadsides and the general untidiness of the place - then it turns out that the area was home to the Turkish community and was full of these burqa clad women pushing prams around with atleast one or even two toddlers holding on to their burqas. Ofcourse, there were the Doner kebab joints all around and hundreds of small shops selling rather garish looking goods from back home in Turkey. Every one around spoke in Turkish and the youngsters wore T-shirts emblazoned with names such as Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe (Turkish football clubs). I was hungry so I stepped into one of those ubiquitous kebab joints and asked for a shawarma - was disappointed by the food but atleast I had got rid of the peckishness. I stepped into a Turkish grocery and saw some interesting looking candied Kiwi fruit - never seen those before so I bought myself some of that and quite enjoyed the preserved fruit. Soon I was beginning to itch on my face and neck and hives were developing on my face and neck - I knew what was coming my way - my dreaded allergy - dont know why it hits me when I travel but I do know that I don't look pretty when my face swells up and turns beet red. So I quickly hurried off to my room, called my nephew and requested him to get me some anti-histamine tablets and waited for him to arrive - mercifully he was there soon but by then my face was looking ghoulish, I popped a couple of those anti-histamines and told Timki I'm going to sleep. I woke up next morning with no sign of the allergy and was grateful it hadn't gotten too bad. Timki arrived and we headed off to catch a train to Heysel station to check out the Atomium - pretty much a landmark in Brussels. Its a 103 m tall steel model of a Ferric iron molecule made in 1958 for the World Expo - it was to have been taken down after the Expo but the public of Brussels would not hear of it so it stayed on to become one of Belgium's most visited locations. The view of Brussels from the top was awesome. The Exhibition centre in the area was having a Food Expo so Timki and I decided to check it out - it was well worth it. Some great stuff on display and we even got to sample some of Belgium's 2000 beers. One glass of Chamay Beer (made by monks from a monastery) was enough to make me woozy and unsteady on my feet - on checking the alcohol content I see it is a staggering 9% volume by volume!
The next day, Sunday 4th Nov, we checked out the Grand Place which was awesome - right in the heart of the Grand Place was a store named 'Gautam Diamonds' signifying how Indians have cornered the diamond trade which was once the preserve of the Belgians. Then we walked it to the Mannekin Pis - that famous Pissing boy monument, possibly the most photographed monument in the world - one expects to see a huge piece of bronze art but what one beholds is a 2 foot little structure tucked away in an obscure corner of the city - very disappointing to say the least. But next to the Pissing boy is the reclining statue of the saviour of Brussels, Everhard 't Serclaes who is supposed to have saved the city from the clutches of the Flemish back in the mid 14th century . Story has it that touching the statue brings you luck (and brings you back to Belgium!) so the statue actually shines while the rest of the art work around it is coated with the dust of centuries! We were awfully hungry by now so we stopped by the only place that was open at noon on a Sunday - a Pakistani Biriyani place! I have to say it was the best biriyani I have ever eaten - it was absolutely fantastic! By now it was getting to be time for me to take leave of this Brabantine city and make my way to Munich. Timki helped me lug my luggage to the train which showed up bang on time and before I knew it I was bye bye Brussels, hello Bavaria!!

Back home again!

One of the highlights of my recent trip to Switzerland was the visit to the Rigi Railway system in the mountains adjoining the Lake of Lucerne. This is the Railway system that was the basis for the building of the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) and it is the invention of the cog wheel system by the Swiss Engineer Niklaus Riggenbach that allowed railways to be built on the sloping terrain of mountain sides.

If you thought the NMR traverses a steep terrain you are mistaken - the little stretch of railway between the town of Vitznau on the banks of the Lake of Lucerne to the final stop on the line to the peak of Mount Rigi (Rigi-Kulm) at 1,752 m (5,748 ft) is only some 8 km but the gradient is an amazing 1 in 5!! That would mean that for every 5 feet you move forward you climb 1 foot! Whereas the gradient on the NMR at its steepest is not more than 1 in 12.5!! You have to see it to believe it because the Rigi train is almost at an angle of 35 degrees to the horizontal at some places - kind of makes you feel its going to roll back into Lake Lucerne!! And guess what, the line is even electrified, nowadays the old steam loco travels the track only on occassion while the electric locomotive is the one that plies on most days - so I had to be content with electric traction but I did get to see the old steam loco being exercised!