Monday, October 25, 2010

Biophysics-02 and Biodiversity

Biological live agents has the capacity to duplicate themselves either by sexual or asexual means. In mathematical sense this is easy to comprehend but what goes behind the scene is very complex.
Man is very good at converting and producing by products from animal material and it is emerging there are over 184 pig products in the market.
This is same for cow too but cell division and its organization into about 600 to 1000 cell derivatives has taken billions of years of duplications and organizations. That is where the biophysics operate and man can never duplicate that sequence however much he tries.
Biophysics unlike simple physics and chemistry works at a rigid thermal atmosphere since bio-molecules especially proteins cannot stand high temperature.
High temperature and curing that include tanning make these biological materials commercially useful. Gelatin and fibrin are two of them used for making texture of food attractive but have no food value at all.
This short article highlight some of the mathematical concepts involved in biophysics and not their modifications in the commercial world.
It is binary mathematics of duplication somewhat similar to binary computer mathematics. How 256 characters and 0 and 1 are used for modules in computing, in the biological world about 2500 to 25.000 large biological molecules (not-nanoparticles) give the diversity around biological structure.
It is said that genetic code doubles itself every 3 to 5 million year cycles and this event why it happens we do not know but heralds new species on this planet.
For example the change that occurred from chimpanzee to human occurred when this cycle of duplication occurred last time on this planet.
In about 65 million years ago we so dinosaurs disappeared but the cockroaches who remained would have told us the story in detail if they had computerized brains in their possession.
But we have to surmise what went on and what went wrong then.
This is written in the same conceptual framework what we know is little what we do not is enormous.
What will become of this planet we do not know in way the biodiversity is changing in every nick and corner of this planet from deep sea to mount Everest.
Coming back to my mathematics 2 is the base.
The other base is 10 the log base and log normal.
In biology there is a tendency for log normal behaviour in time scale.
Put these figures together I derive 20..
The figure 20 is my figure for looking at the available species and make some deductions.
For example take a plant (an animal) from a site (area should be defined) and see whether there are 20 similar pants not interbreeding (definition of species difference) at the same site.
If we see a site with that number it is a biological hotspot.
I wonder whether we have any to fit this description or anybody has done this calculation before. (we can argue about the veracity of the number 20 till the cows come home with a pipe and arm chair critics) in an observational manner but the point I am arriving at is that we look at a whole country and say (for example Sri-Lanka) we a re bio-rich is a total misconception.
I have arrive at a figure by simple observation of my neighbourhood for every three plants I see in my garden we have lost another 17 in the last 100 years or so.
It is said that the anaconda (Ana conda is a Sri-Lankan name) type of snake had been sited in Sri-lanka by foreign invaders about 200 years ago.
Where are they now?
The corollary to my argument is that if we can collect 20 similar species in an environment that environment is conducive for biodiversity.
I can give two examples of my childhood.
We could have identified at least 10 varieties of tortoises and 100 varieties of butterflies less than 50 years ago.
Bizarre use of insecticides in agriculture and DDT in particular (thanks to WHO - Sinhalen who) by ill conceived pundits in the health sector has done irrevocable damage to our biodiversity.
Final nail will come when the two Coal Power plants are operational.
Problem in my argument is that there are no true scientist left in this country to take my argument forward with observational data in spite of 40 years of free education in mother tongue.
We have not produced a single biological scientist that we can say were nominated for Nobel Prize in 40 years of free education,.leave alone winning it.
By producing private universities this cannot be remedied since they are profit oriented.
We lack Think Tanks in power and also in opposition..
Think tanks are there when they are in opposition!
We have thin tanks how to get to power and remain there for ever.
We need to produce outstanding thinkers.
We are sadly lacking in that endeavour.!

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