Jasmine the fragrant Flower and how to replamt a sapling?

My mother was an expert in preparing a jasmine sapling from the mother plant. I never watched how she did it but she always had couple of Jasmine plant in the garden.

 She uses the flower as an offering for the Lord Buddha.

After along sojourn abroad I returned home and moved to a different location where the house was built on a rock base and the lawn was void of any flowering plant.

I asked my mother for a sapling and within three months she gave me one and I planted it in a location where I could look after it.

And it grew quickly and started flowering but only a few. Since it was planted near a rock in the dry season rock get heated up and the plant could not bear the intense heat and dry condition I had to water it to keep it alive. Once or twice I tried to make a sapling to replant it in the shade away from the rock and all my attempts failed.

Then I went out again and when I returned after little over one year I could not find even a trace of the plant and of course lot of other plants which I planted were also missing. There had been a long dry spell and even drinking water was problem during my absence.

I lost interest on gardening for a long spell and when my mother fell ill, I thought I will try it again.

During the period she was ill she gave up gardening and when I looked for the Jasmine plant it was also missing.

One day in Nugegoda when I was looking for some Linux CDs (I knew of a guy / vendor who used to go to Singapore and bring Linux CDs) I happen to see a woman selling plants and she had three varieties of Jasmine and I bought one each thinking only one would survive that also the common but rugged variety. 

It is now over three years all three plants survived in spite of many dry spells.

Then I re-potted them into larger containers and thought I will try making some saplings.

Months went by but the exercise was not successful but I kept on trying and the last try was a success.

Both local varieties I could prepare two new saplings but the Indian variety was resistant.

I had another go with the Indian variety and today when I examined both mother plants still connected to the daughter saplings were not in good condition. Daughter plants were sapping everything from the mother plant

I quickly severed the connections and repotted the mother plant in a bigger pot

Then I decided to have a look at the Indian variety and severed the connection to the mother plant and pulled out the branch for repotting.

To my amazement even after 4 months there were two tiny roots.

That’s all.

I have severed the connection and I cannot now go back.

This mother plant for some reason won’t let daughter plant get established.

This is the fourth time.

I do not know why but I will keep trying and find a way to fool the mother plant.

Modernization and Loss of Biodiversity

In the city and the villages that surrounded it where I grew up,  almost anything that one throws away grows (Plants and Seeds) on its own provided they did not rot away due to too much water.

There was no need to water plants and like a clockwise fashion rain did come in 10 to 14 day cycles even in the dry season.

Inter-monsoon rain was regular and now I understand and believe that the vegetation itself fashion this rain and its cycles. 

More trees mean more regular  inter-monsoon rain. 
Less trees means less rain, for sure, inter-monsoon period.

I lived for short period in Kurunegala and we moved there since doctors advised my father to move out to reduce the recurrence of wheezy episodes I had in Kandy, when very young.

I moved back and never had any problems and the problems were probably, related to growing up and poor nutrition, I ponder now.

That is just to restate the damply state of affairs of my city, yesteryear.

Even Kurunegala the weather, then, when compared to as it is now with lot of vegetation and coconut trees was very mild with more frequent dry spells than in Kandy.

Now we are going through perennial failure of rain and even the rain fails in the upcountry regions where the most of the hydroelectric  power plants are located.

All these are related to modernization and clearing up of scanty vegetation for what we call development. It is going to get worse and there is no master plan to arrest it except adding more vulnerable projects including coal power plants.

Coal Power Plants will cause irreversible damage to our eco-system and by the time it is recorded by scientific pundits I would have been long gone (Dead wood sitting on a cremation site) but I hope somebody will trace back to year 2005 where I started voicing this on a regular basis in the web.

It would have been earlier had it not been for the slow pace of development of the web but the slow pace of the printed paper of course accelerated my efforts.

Now I have made it a pastime and I study what I call the “my sphere of activity” (very limited indeed) and its observation and I want everybody who is versed in biology (or not) would contribute to this type of observations and record since we cannot believe the government and will never make any worthwhile consideration (except pass legislation they, themselves violate with political patronage and impunity) to this effort since politicians and their stooges won’t understand their policy impact on mother nature.

Like the mess we have inherited with cricket after 1996 and filling up an ancient tank and building a cricket ground on it is the classic example of the idiocy of our policy makers cricket or otherwise.

We are set for power cuts in spite of thermal power added to the system.

Now if I do not water the plants including water plants they will dry up and wilt away in as short as three days.

Unfortunately there is nobody to help me with a little background knowledge in biology to look after my plants.

If I go out for a short holiday for two weeks abroad all the plants I have collected over the period of a decade will be no more.

I am late in using my power of observation since when we were young we did not have to worry about plants wilting away.

The observation period is over 25 years.
This started rapidly from 1975 when plantation section was nationalized.

Everything I observe is in the direction of loss of bio-diversity.

The little exotic (I have lost all the orchids) plants I have now if I do not replant will be lost, if not in the wild, but in my garden which is very very tiny.

Lot in my neighbourhood has changed and except for the remaining jack-tree and the breadfruit tree (which is gradually dieing) which stand tall, all the other trees have been felled by the owners and all the tree shade/s we have now is / are less than 20 years old.

Glad to say I have contributed to many of the remaining ones with a few exotic palm trees in that lot.

None of them were for commercial value but for shear beauty of their presence in my garden.

Now I have to make a significant observation and this writing was prompted by need to emphasize that.

We live in a small hill (in the middle) not very step but the road now we use is where the waste water ran down and I believe there was a little stream trickling (probably during the heavy rainy season) down and the underground water table is very near the surface with solid rocks on top and we were without pipe born water and we had to dig a well for our daily use.

It took another 10 years to get the pipe born water and with my friends who were engineers (they worked hard) were instrumental in the Nilambe Project from which present politicians in the city steal water when they come for a respite from Colombo.

Particular president made sure he gave connections only to his partisans and I had to wait till he died for everybody in the area to get a regular water supply and that was the only time we had a president from the hill country.

Now what they do is surreptitiously divert our water to Kandy and elsewhere and depriving us at times of greater need.

Suffice is to say they never started a new scheme for a long period of time.

There was a natural shallow well at our level which we used liberally during the construction of the house and I used to take a bath on some days for pleasure.

There were plenty of fresh water crabs there (they are gone now) and I had saved couple of big crabs who landed on our low roof to safety who had escaped on flight from birds of prey. 

You should not believe that the crabs could fly on to my roof. Way our politicians travel by air I have to believe even frogs and crabs would learn to fly if they happen to be partisan with politicians, with or without wings.

The whole place is dry now in spite of ancient minor stream long long time ago.

We came to this area when water was becoming scarce but there was still some underground water, left.

Now to my point and re-directing my thoughts and the reason why I came this far.

1. I said I live in the middle.

2. The road was once where there would have been a minor stream now totally dry.

3. Unlike those days which I drove a car I walk up the road for my exercise which is my workout and the day I cannot walk up the road I would retire from this world for good and do not need a bypass or a borrowed organ or two to live

as a living destitute.

4. Unlike those days (it was a brisk walk,then) now I take my time to watch the flora and fauna (now dogs and cats only and a few birds).

5. I one day notice the flowers of the seeds I tried to grow in my plot but could not on the wayside at the beginning which is the ground zero level.

5. Seeds that I used to get sometimes from abroad are germinating in not my plot of land but in the plot of land at the bottom.

6. All the seed I put at the middle level could have got washed away and settle at the lowest level.

7. Strangest of my observations was a white flower (I got the seeds from botanical garden and tried to grow in our plot but never succeeded). Very pleasant surprise and the owners had left to Canada over 20 years ago and that house is still empty and once in 5 years somebody cleans it up and there was no way the cleaner (not a gardener) had planted it.

Few of them are still there.

8. Same day I went to the botanical garden from where I got the seeds (from the hanging runners coming over the fence). To my horror those runners have all gone, no flowers and dried up stems were seen in a tall tree.

I think I did some honours to the Botanical garden for picking few seeds (which I never was able to see  flowering in my garden) and spread in my garden which had got washed away and landed on a foreign soil where nobody was living now.

9. The sense of sympathetic joy was overwhelming and that is why I have to pen it down here.

10. I now remember, just couple of meters away there was an exotic plant and on a rainy day dug up the yams and I now have an enormous collection (personal favorite) of it in my roof garden.

This Sunday when I walk up I will be picking up some seeds from that flower and then try again to germinate them, and perhaps I might even donate it to the botanical garden chief (previous one was a good friend of mine and I never asked him for any exotic plants except those on sale.
The present one when I met, I suggested  he should start selling water plants (which has become a monopoly of a selected few) and I am glad to say he has obliged and there are a few new guys doing water plants in Kandy now.

I should now go for cuppa tea and wind up after stating from whom I learned the secret of throwing seeds all over the foot path (by accident) where I walk, now, though ambling.

It was my wife’s grandma.

She had the habit of spreading the seeds all over the garden and I used to pull most of them out to get some order in the garden. She was a sweet lady and she needed flowers for her daily offering to Buddha and we had at least 5 varieties almost everyday.
Now she and her daughter and my mother all gone we cannot pluck two varieties on a single day.

Strangely enough my roof top garden has three to six including three varieties of Jasmine which I grow (a trick I learned from her) in the memory of my mother who died well past 90 (and the other two ladies too I fondly remember when I see these flowers).

I wish I should not live that long since then there won’t be any birds or wild flowers to smell in this blessed island.

But as long as I could walk up the footpath (any footpath, for that matter) I am going to pluck dry flowers and spread the seeds like birds do.

I don’t care where they start germinating and like a good Buddhist I have to lose attachment to any worldly thing including flowers from now onward.

In this scenario I differ slightly from Buddhist virtues.

I want our great great grandchildren to have a reminder of the old times not of my photographs but some beautiful and fragrant flowers which we are losing by the day.
We do not have bees and the the little innocent black variety which were there for over 20 years and they come collect honey from my tiny water plants.

20 years ago there was a seed i tried to germinate by various mean but never could.Then one day I asked the lab assistant who was a keen gardener and my patient till he died when nearing 90 told me that the seeds crack when there is intense heat and then when the rain comes it germinate and if i soak the seeds it will rot.
Just today I picked up three of those plants to pot before they are run by the three wheelers. The road now finished with concrete to lure the voters get heated up and the seeds on either side crack and germinate.
Suffice it to say all the seeds coming from a plant / tree my mother in law planted.
When generation take the exit pathway like in America we will have only commercial growers and mono-culture.

King Cobra-Naja Naja

This is not something to alarm you but to point out how man has neglected the use of cobra venom for therapeutic use.

In addition there is a paucity of knowledge how venom evolved in animals and how some animals are resistant the smaller doses of venom.
I teach that it is the venom that is produced in our body after the bite that kills us not the cobra venom (to illustrate the fact that cytotoxins have multitude of actions).
For example bradykinin that causes pain is the product of our own tissues.

Snake venom is a modified saliva and we really do not know whether these are produced in evolution for digestion of the prey or to immobilize or anesthetize (humane to the dying prey). None of the points I have raised have been addressed conclusively and potential for the use of the modified venom molecule for treatment of leukaemia or cancer cells or as antithrombotic activity have not been discussed in scientific journal adequately..
Why?
The answer is simple.
Once they discovered that antivenom as a cure, everybody forgot about the biological role and what system they act and why, when where and how they modify the homoeostatic mechanisms.
Moment the commercial activity of preparation of antivenom starts the scientific investigation of biological nature takes a back stage.
That is very unfortunate.
There lot we can learn from these cytotoxins.

Coming back to cobra (baby cobra-are as poisonous as the adult), I killed a young cobra with a ruler when I was as young as the tiny cobra who was under my bed.

When that little fellow made his hood and kissed the death I fell heroic and also very sad.
Then in another incident when I jumped over huge cobra in a big compound and looked around to see he was as frighted as I was and showed his hood with a warning and quietly slipped away to his safety, I wondered why fear an animal who is on his routine search of his food or prey.

I still say the jumped I made that day worth an Olympic record if somebody made an accurate measure on that day. Unfortunately I missed an Olympic record since officials were not there to record it. That would have changed my life completely but the day that completely changed my mind was another ordinary day.
I was walking along a stream with the intention of catching guppies and I had a stone in my hand (we used to play marbles those days unlike today’s kids) and I saw a water snake (harmless creature) quickly swimming across in fear.

I took an aim in a moment of irresponsible stroke of mind of ill will and thought, threw the stone at the poor creature and it landed right on his neck.

It was like a bulls eye shot but the agony of the creature who succumbed in a long drawn out 5 minutes of death dance made an impact in my mind never to hurt (reflecting my killing in fear of the young cobra) an animal in either fear or sport.

Then on one night (2 am in the morning) in darkness a Ceylon krait landed on my right shoulder and I brushed it with my left hand gently and put the light in a flash to see creature landing on cement flow with a thud and my dog charging at it, I was man thinking of three lives my dog, myself and the poor creature who ventured at night.
Mind you Ceylon krait is the deadliest of Sri-Lankan venomous snakes.

I watched the creature and it quickly disappeared into crevice wide open due to rotten timber of the bathroom door.

I did not have any cement to seal and went to the kitchen an took some American flour (who says American flour has no place in this country) and sealed the hole with the dough hastily made since the price of flour was very cheap (cheaper than the cement) then.

Suffice is to say I flushed the hole with water before I did that and slept on the settee fearing few more in my bedroom.

After three days it emerged (none elsewhere) from the kitchen floor cracked and we caught it and released it to safety.

Of course I had to cement both holes in the bathroom end and the kitchen end.

The key point here is that animals fear us more than we fear them in this modern world where are we are encroaching on their habitat with blatant disregard to biodiversity.

House Sparrows, a vanishing species?

I had been looking for an answer for why our house sparrows have become a vanishing species?

I have not found any luck.

Our ornithologists and bird watchers have not done enough.

I put the question to myself and these are the emerging facts.

1. This coincided with the disappearance of the migrant bird species which I counted over 30 in 1984.

2. Last 5 years I have not seen more than five species coming to our neighbourhood.

3. The last species who lost the habitat due to development was a type of robin who makes nests in the paddy fields. I call them the paddy birds and dearly as the last of the singing Bohemians. Once they lost the paddy field they started nesting on grass and when the remaining little waste land (now there is a three story building there) was encroached upon they disappeared. Till then I used to see at least 4 to 6 of the young ones yearly.

4. The house sparrows are more close to human habitat but they disappeared some 20 years ago.

Why?

That was my question.

I have seen one or two sparrows in Kandy City Center occasionally but none in the suburbs.

1. Unusual predator

2. Unusual predator of the eggs

3. Unusual destructor of their nests

4. Poison in our food and grains

I come to the last conclusion.

The amount of poison we eat every day in our food is sufficient to kill all the house sparrows over the last 30 years.

By way of aggro-economics we are killing our birds.
The story is true for pigeons too.

Rough Guide to the Tree Equivalent of Man and their Re-plantation

This is not referring to the commercial scale of replacement since the rate at commercial scale exploitation cannot be estimated to any accuracy.

This is based on the use of tree, timber and its products by man during his productive life.

If we were to sustain each man or women has to grow at least 10 trees and maintain them till their mature life. This  has to be done in 4-5 year cycles and older you (above 35 years) are the cycle has to be at least 1-2 years.

Ideally each man or woman plants a tree on his / her birthday!

1. The use as timber products for roofing and housing

2. To replace the use of paper products

3. Use of fire wood (this has to be in relation to the use)

4. The use of furniture

5. Wastage in every production line

6. The trees not sustaining themselves due to bad planting or weather conditions

7. The last 4 are for unaccountable felling and vandalism encountered and may have to vary according to the country.

This amount is to keep the balance of nature. If one has a house with 4 adults in it this estimate makes it 40 trees around their neighbourhood and the way the houses are built in a city next to each other there is is no room for to grow enough trees.

Not even a single tree or hedge to act as windbreaks and shade. (please look at how rich Americans build their houses and walkabouts).

That means every major city has to have a buffer zone (this is how the ancient people built cities) of tree cover equivalent the population that is incarcerated in the name of development.

Colombo city can never regain its splendor what ever we do now for it.

The Kandy city has almost 3 three times population density of Palestine Refugee Camps and we are going to be no different to Israel in another 10 or 20 years.

We are losing it faster than it’s regeneration.

Regarding the commercial exploitation the re-plantation has to be according to the tree’s cycle. If the tree grows to maturity in 4 years for every tree harvested 4 should be planted and only a few trees fall into this category.

For some trees, if it is lost it is lost for ever.

They take may be 400 to 500 years for it to grow to maturity and often not reproducing fast enough due to their longevity and this simple equation cannot be applied in recreating it natural habitat.

This is only a rough estimate and we have lost about 60% of our forest cover in 50 years of unsustainable use.

I do not think these people with mega-development ideas have understood the problem or have insight into the matters of concern we are facing now.

The have no futuristic goals but presence of mind for exploitation.

Very soon we will be like Dubai, the work we have to do now is enormous if we are to arrest these trends.

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.!

Biophysics

This is another word I would like to add to English, if it is not there already in existence, this time in Scientific World.

We had an Engineering Exhibition in the University, I do not know what was being exhibited there but what my gut feeling says is that they are all big events for public consumption and certainly not miniature exhibits of biological nature.

I am pretty sure they did not talk about biophysics and nano-technology.

I have been against the Coal Power Project form its inception.

 

I have many reasons including Acid Rain and I have stated that Coal Marketing Board will be as bad as the Paddy Marketing Board of yesteryear and its corruption scale will have to be estimated in time to come.

 

Suffice is to say that most of the Coal would wind up in undesirable places and the scale of corruption will be covered by black soot. 

How black soot will effect our children’s chest physiology and sporting outcomes are a different kettle of fish. 

I have voiced these concerns with scientific data but they are under the carpet of power politics now.

 

One pertinent question our energy planners not addressed is that these coal power plants are operational 24 hours a day and the interruption of nocturnal terrestrial cooling effect that is necessary for air circulation and water condensation and the night rain pattern that we used enjoy that invariably purified the air of soot, dirt and chemicals is going to be disturbed due to constantly warm air that is not circulating. 

The effect of this is going to be phenomenal.

 

As long as the rain is there even infrequently and with disturbed patterns then there is some reclamation. 

But think of the scenario for some reason or the other if the rain fails for a period of two years with drought. 

Then we have to be using more and more coal power to generate power, the conditions are conducive for catastrophic events.

 

The nocturnal cooling effect is negated for a prolonged period of time and the pollution it created is of clinical scale. 

We see this pattern in Kandy even without the warming effect discussed above and that is why Kandy is the most polluted city of the country when rain fails the nocturnal cooling draft fails and the pollutants remain for considerable length of time in the lower atmosphere. 

We have now cleared our rain forest to less (33% is the critical value) than the sustainable level for natural rain and ecological balance. 

We can see the effect of acid rain in less than 5 years after a period of prolonged drought.

 

I will talk a little about the miniature life of biological nature that can mop up some of the CO2 created by the mega projects like Coal Power Plants. 

But more than thousands of other chemicals that are emitted which cannot be made safe and some of them causing cancer (are the projects for future studies) in the air not diluted due to stagnation and failing air circulation.

These are mega events and banning cigarettes has no ameliorating effects once these chemicals are in air and in circulation and when we have to breath them 24 hours a day.

 

The algae I had been interested in are tiny but common in nature and their contribution can be very significant if properly harnessed but the experiments done on them are very few an far between.

I gather in Germany they are working on them to mop up CO2 emitted by coal power units.

What ever big or small engineering feats it may be whether it is motor car or a rocket no engineering feat can bring about more than 33% efficiency or throughput.

 

In biological system this is scaled down to less than 3 to 4% and even though the process is very slow by the shear numbers of biological beings and the multiplying cells the process of conversion is made good with eventually.

 

Problem with engineering feats is that they are not cost effective or efficient. 

The rate of conversion is fast and the rate of production of pollutants and poisons are also fast.

 

This is what I used to argue with my fellow engineering students at the campus many moons ago and also asked why they used heavy metal to built cars (that also not stainless steel) that is subjected to resistance or impedance or inertia of motion and why not aluminum like in aircrafts.

 

They will give some answers and I will give counter arguments while playing bridge (which I learnt from them) and this goes on with new themes added.

Years went by we parted and departed from ivory towers we built and went into real world and domestics. It is sad now I cannot find somebody to talk ten words in analytical English on a scientific topic or discussion.

Even, people like Prof. Carlo Fonseka talking and taking partisan in bizarre politics in their twilight years sadden me most. 

I am not saying that he not entitled to it. With his reputation if he makes a mistake his ardent followers are left astray.

 

What has happened to their scientific inquiry and what has happened to their inbuilt instincts.

 

We were fed a good and healthy dose of inquiry and free discussion then and now there is paucity of inquiry and query, question or rationalistic views about world around us living and inanimate (Physics).

I dearly remember Prof. Osmond Jayaratne and his investigation into lightening.

There was Prof. Rnjith Ruberu with beautiful exposition of Botany and Biology.

I am not talking about Chintanaya Professors with mathematical talents.

I never talked about biophysics then since all medical stuff including biochemistry was boring for me.

 

Now that I am somewhat of an independent thinker my argument of biophysics start with a simple relationship (not Newton’s equal and opposite reaction).

This is where I have element of disagreement with Buddhist practices, too.

Why only animals are sacred?

Why not other living things, the plants that all animals depend directly and indirectly?

To me plants are sacred too.

Without plant life the world cannot exist.

This is where my thinking is at variance with even Buddhist tenets.

Why there is only a law for animals?

Is it only animals with brains or nervous system that is important to Buddhists?

I have not found a answer for this in Buddhist scriptures.

So I am entitled to my own analysis in a biological sense.

So my simple theoretical aspect of biological relationships especially the biophysics is that there is infinite relationship one to one and one to many in every biological cell or biological system.

There is no distinction of pant life and animal life whatever the form it may be.

They are all life forms in a constant web of actions and reactions.

As far as we know they can be seen with definite evidence only on this planet.

This planet is the only planet we know of and I am not extrapolating to any other heavenly objects with life or without life in this universe.

Ever since the life began in this planet this biological or biophysical relationship continuously existed without a break.

There is either positive or negative relationship but this relationship is such that it was never to destroy or eliminate one or the other.

 

Continuity of life existed uninterrupted in spite of major physical catastrophes.

 

If this would not have being the case various new forms of life would not have emerged in evolution.

There was competition but never extermination by living thing by living things.

That is my bona fide or the compelling argument.

All life forms are important including mosquitoes whether they carry infectious agents or not.

We cannot argue that world should be without insects including mosquitoes.

There my argument and tent converge with Buddhism.

All life forms be happy!

It is the physical catastrophes that eliminated species lock stock and barrel but never simple biological competition.

This theoretical aspect had very interesting convergence when I saw my fish dieing in the open including the Guppies.

First I thought it was the algal bloom and the lack of oxygen.

It is the very simple and straight forward plausible explanation I can give.

But when this happened again and when I checked with the internal digital temperature it was not strange coincidence that the temperature was above 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

It was the global warming (atmospheric temperature) that killed the fishes, other factors were contributory.

 

Interestingly high atmospheric temperature encourages mosquito breeding.

 

Every ton of coal (when it is burnt 24 hours a day) we burn will increase the number of mosquitoes by billions!

Single physical change, the temperature alone can kill animals.

Humans can die of heat stroke and why not fish.

There is a protein called heat shock protein even in bacteria and our cells also have it in a different form and all animals too have this protein to overcome stress.  

Heat is a stress.

That system can easily be damaged.

Yes most of the fish who are kept indoors especially the mollies cannot live above 86 degrees.

 

It was only algal bloom and lack oxygen alone the some fish could come up and breath at the surface or produce young ones before dieing but this did not happen.

 

The biological relationships I propose in theory could not keep pace with the adverse temperature which is partly man made.

There was no time for evolutionary adaptation.

The other relationship is human population expansion.

I believe we have come to the optimum population of 6 billions.

The earth cannot sustain 9 billions.

This extra 3 billion will upset the balance of biophysical relationship that come into equilibrium in the microscopic levels.

The mega level is man and his megalomaniac beahviour.

Earth cannot sustain its biophysical relationships with the rate at human population is expanding and consuming all the limited resources.

Biophysical barrier will break down soon.

Then calamities after calamities would occur.

Gloom, bloom and doom unless we arrest the population expansion and the rate of use of easily available energy resources.

First we have to arrest the population growth.

Second we have to have a food security.

Third we have to prevent the made made causes of global warming.

Even in this country the priority is on energy and its use and its expansion and not conservation.

We got our priorities wrong.

We will loose all the biodiversity and elephants in no time.

We do not have neither the master plan nor the vision.

We do not have philosophers.

We do not have scientist of international caliber.

We only have politicians of various shades and colours but without a distinction.

23rd September (Poya)