Decoding the DNA vs RNA, How Rome was built, Government watch dogs ect.
Posted on October 10th, 2024
Aloysius Hettiarachchi
The most recent award for the Nobel Chemistry price was for decoding the structure of proteins and creating new ones, yielding advances in areas such as drug development to US scientists, namely David Baker and John Jumper and Briton Demis Hassabis, last week. But is it really necessary. Will it not only make the Big Pharma a more lucrative business and making our natural ability to withstand the challenges coming from environment, very weak. Perhaps the following video will explain it better:
Isn’t our DNA already programmed to face the challenges over several hundreds of thousands of years overlaying layer upon layer for our survival. If we look around even the smallest plant ‘nidikumba’ (Mimosa or Sleeper Grass) would react in a way to protect itself from predators. Each plant would produce whatever the chemical needed to fight with others for its survival and to challenge others who try to encroach their domain. A sea turtle would grow a shell covering its whole body to protect the organs from particles coming down from heaven (like minute but powerful particles, such as neutrinos emanating from the sun and showering upon us). Perhaps this makes it possible for turtles to live hundreds of years.
Neutrinos carry energy. This has been proven to be correct by placing a bucket with certain chemical solution that lights up several kilometres underground. Perhaps they vanish after discharging the energy (that makes the solution to glow as all matter is energy).
How Rome was built:
I give bellow the link to Lex Fridman’s podcast with historian Prof. Gregory Aldrete, that I presented in my previous write up. That discussion involves Lex Fridman who had interviewed celebrities such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and our Chamath Palihapitiya. Chamath perhaps is the most sought-after investor guru in the US these days. He gave seed money to a guy who might become the next trillionaire with a computer hardware chip design company by the name Groq:
In effect what the historian says is that ‘Rome was not built in a day’. The task ahead of us in Sri Lanka today is to take time and do just that; slowly, but surely. By the way Chamath believes that energy is the key to next industrial revolution, bypassing all known forms of energy and the challenge now is how to harness that free energy. I, too, share his view. Maybe we are already experiencing it in Sri Lanka with bumper harvests in green gram, vegetables etc. Perhaps organisms in the soil started fixing nitrogen with that energy, hence less use of chemical fertiliser.
Tourism and Foreign Direct Investments:
According to the cabinet decision announcement by Hon. Vigitha Herath, we are being represented in Rome by a team with respect to tourism at a fair. Hope they will do justice by attracting large crowds, bringing attention to our connections to outside world and highlighting the potential for investments. We have a large expatriate work force in Italy; they are like our ambassadors. There is a saying that ‘when in Rome do as Romans do’. The seniors should correct errant juniors who have the tendency to go astray.
We have something in common with Italians: the empathy towards others. I remember when I worked in West-Africa I was supervising one of their road projects and had to live in their camp temporarily as arranged by the government. They are good roadbuilders; perhaps that is due to their understanding of soils that support heavy loads. I remember one advice their project manager gave me: always look for soils with a good CBR value, a property known as California Bearing Ratio, which is a measure of soil’s ability to withstand loads. All their road building works were handled by surveyors called ‘Geomatras’ (Surveyor+ Engineer). That knowledge helped me to impart the same to other later in other projects. Now I know it is a measure how much energy that we can transfer to a uniformly graded soil by the roller used for compaction.
By the way, it was Italians who built our only refinery that still chugs along even after 65 years. Another good quality is that they have not interfered with politics of the country they carry out their projects. So, why not invite them for the second refinery if they are still active in that field.
This popular song titled ‘Tornero’ which became a hit in the US by an Italian group called ‘I Santo California’ in 1974 is still a craze in German speaking countries in their own. Here is the link to it:
This explains the trauma a couple had to undergo due to separation necessitated by engaging in factory work as machinists (Tornero) etc. That hard work put their countries during the industrial revolution at the forefront and brought them good results. Better develop a taste for this kind of music that they love.
We too have our version, but a happy one to reminisce (or Tornare) over the past. They recollect how they played in the village water ways, tanks, and went for free tuition to the village teacher’s house. This is my experience as well when I was a kid. I remember I was rescued by one of the friends when I was about to get drowned and got beaten. All those are still there unspoiled in Sri Lanka except the tuition which is not free. I came across the video only recently and fell in love with it. I find that the guys playing are the same as those in Api Kawruda (who are we), but several years earlier in ‘WAYO-Api Sanasille’:
Finally, I will explain pictorially why we should have a ‘Watch dog’ to prevent our state craft actors (and actresses) falling prey to predators, with a popular hit of Elton Jone’s ‘Nikita’.