IndSciComm podcasts

References:

Srikanth's homepage at the University of Utah

Vertices, Faces and Edges

Euler's characteristic

Cutting squares into equal area triangles - Youtube

P-adic numbers - Wikipedia

Intro and Outro - Puzzle Pieces by Lee Rosevere from the album 'Music for Podcasts 2'

 

References:

Manisit's citations

What is ComSciCon?

ComSciCon Triangle

Oncobites

Manisit on Oncobites writing about Cancers and Immunotherapies

Manisit on The Pipettepen

Intro and Outro Music from the Free Music Archive by Lee Rosevere - Tech Toys

We continue our discussion on the Mental Health Care Act with Dr. Soumitra Pathare.

Interview by: Navneet A Vasistha

Podcast edited by: Shruti Muralidhar

Links:

APA resolution against homosexuality as a mental disorder

Depathologizing homosexuality Drescher et al., 2015

WHO statistics about Psychiatrists and Nurses per 100,000 across the world (2014)

Low number of psychiatrists in India 

Music Credits – ‘Curiosity’ by Lee Rosevere from the ‘Music for Podcasts‘ album. Used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Mental illnesses are conditions that affect our thinking, perception or emotional response to events. They do not manifest similarly in all individuals and can develop as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia among others. While the precise biology of these disorders is unknown, scientists believe that genetics, environmental causes and psychosocial stress have a role to play.

Mental illnesses are usually treatable but require proper care and therapy.  However, social stigma and a lack of understanding has affected the way individuals with mental illnesses seek professional and medical help. Additionally, previous laws did not provide adequate support for patient rights.

With these issues in mind, the Indian parliament passed the Mental Health Care Act in 2017 to replace the older Mental Health Act of 1987.  This law was recently notified on 29th May 2018 and covers crucial issues of patient rights, refusal of treatment and advanced directives. 

We spoke with Dr. Soumitra Pathare to get a sense of what the new law has in store and where it might still have issues.

Interview by: Navneet A Vasistha

Podcast edited by: Shruti Muralidhar

Links:

What is Mental Illness

Dr. Soumitra Pathare: Director of Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy at ILS

Gazette of India: The Mental HealthCare Act 2017 

History of Mental Health law in India:

Narayan and Shikha 2013

Firdosi and Ahmad 2016

Music Credits - 'Curiosity' by Lee Rosevere from the 'Music for Podcasts' album. Used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

This is our first podcast in Tamizh - the first in a new series titled ‘அறிவியல் கடல்’ which means ‘Sea of Science’.

The title of this podcast is ‘உதாரண உயிரினங்கள்’ which is Tamil for model organisms. We will be focussing on the use of these organisms in biological research.

Following is an English transcript.

Abhishek: Hello! My name is Abhishek Chari and I am a member of IndScicomm, a science communication collective. In our ongoing efforts, we have created podcasts as well as written articles that discuss interesting aspects of scientific research, the researchers involved in this effort, their discoveries and the effects of scientific progress on the past, present and future of human society. We also collaborate with Indian scientists, researchers and writers at all levels of the scientific enterprise in creating our science communication materials.

We are very happy to present this podcast in Tamil, which is one of the national languages of India. Amrita Anand, a student at America’s Baylor College of Medicine, collaborated with us to produce this podcast. She is working for her Ph.D, and conducts research on hearing. She will now introduce the topic of our conversation.

Amrita: Hello! My name is Amrita Anand. I am very happy to participate in this wonderful podcast. In this part of the podcast, we will be talking about model organisms that are used in biological research. In the next part of this podcast, we will specifically talk about the use of mice as model organisms.

Abhishek: When we were discussing the idea of making a podcast in Tamil, Amrita suggested this topic. She also helped with writing the script and translating it into Tamil. Now, before talking about mice, let’s discuss model organisms. Here are some examples of model organisms that are used to study aspects of the human body’s growth, development, functioning and disorders: different species of microbes, flies, zebrafish, birds, mice, rats, guinea pigs and monkeys.

The foremost reason for the use of model organisms is that it is not possible to conduct some forms of biological experiments on humans. So, scientists have chosen organisms that are a close enough match to humans in terms of their genes and other biological features, and use these as model organisms for their research.

Amrita: Apart from how similar model organisms are to humans in terms of their genes and genomes, there are other important reasons for some organisms being chosen as model organisms rather than others. The ease with which certain organisms can be reared and maintained in the laboratory and the kind of experiments that they can be used for… These are the factors that scientists use to choose the appropriate organism to use as a model, to answer questions about specific biological phenomena.

Abhishek: Amrita, could you give us some examples of model organisms that are used in specific areas of biological research?

Amrita: Specific model organisms are used in different areas of research. For example, regeneration is studied using certain species of worms. The relationship between genes and the environment is researched using certain species of flies. Zebrafish are preferred model organisms for researching embryonic development. Zebrafish larvae have transparent bodies which makes observing their internal organs really easy. Another example is the use of mammals like mice in biomedical research.

Abhishek: Is there an advantage to using model organisms like mice in biomedical research?

Amrita: Some diseases take years to show symptoms in human beings. But, in certain lineages of model organisms, diseases can show symptoms in relatively reduced timeframes, like weeks. Due to this, it is easier to conduct research about certain diseases in such model organisms. This is why scientists use model organisms like m

How fast can you say the name of our summary episode without stopping? Feel like trying? This is what its called - A Seasonful of Soupçons! Listen to our banter and discussions on what we learnt from our first clutch of episodes!

Links:

Intro and Outro music are samples from "Que Paciencia" by Los Sundayers from the album Disco Pirata