Are you a worrier? Do you have violent mood swings? Researchers studying behaviour and gene activity in mice have found that bacteria in the intestines appear to shape brain and personality development. Hundreds of species of bacteria call the human gut their home. In fact our bodies are so little “human” inhabited as they are by worlds of bacteria, worms and other parasites. While scientists have known for years that these colonists influence our state of health by releasing toxins into our blood new studies say that gut bacteria can even mess with the mind, altering brain chemistry and changing mood and behaviour. Research at the Genome Institute in Singapore found that gut microbes controlled the activity of a gene important to the production of serotonin, a key brain chemical. A study undertaken to assess behavioural differences between bacteria-free mice and mice with intact gut bacteria found differences in activity and anxiety levels. Bacteria-free mice were more daring and less anxious. Most mice tend to seek refuge in dark areas—but not the germ-free mice who roamed freely in open areas. When bacteria free pregnant mice were exposed to gut microbes, their children were less active and more anxious, showing the role of the bacteria in shaping behaviour. Analysis of the chemistry in the brains of these mice found dozens of different activity levels in the genes between them specially with brain chemicals associated with anxiety, such as noradrenaline and dopamine. Researchers at McMaster University in Canada fed mice a broth containing a benign bacterium, Lactobacillus rhamnosuss . (Lactobacillus is the bacteria in curd) Mice whose diets were supplemented with L. rhamnosuss exhibited less fear. They explored narrow elevated walkways and wide-open spaces, which are scary to rodents, and they exhibited a smaller spike in stress hormone levels when put in water. None of these effects occurred in mice that ate no added bacteria. The antianxiety effects of L. rhamnosus disappeared when the researchers cut the vagus nerve before feeding the bacteria to mice. This nerve is the conduit of sensory information from the gut to the brain, and this experiment shows it must be intact for L. rhamnosus to have an effect on the brain - a clear indication of how the bacteria sent messages to the brain. What it means is that you can alter emotional states by regulating the bacteria. How easy it would be to control mood disorders by simply feeding people curd. The most influential of all bacteria is Toxoplasma . In fact they could be the bosses of the world controlling your thought and actions ? Did you know that half of the world's human population, approximately three billion, are infected with Toxoplasma parasites. In France , for example, around 88% of the population are carriers. Germany, the Netherlands and Brazil have 68%, over 80% and 67% respectively. In Britain 22% are carriers. No studies done in India . Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite found in the guts of cats; it sheds eggs that are picked up by rats and other animals eaten by cats. The bacteria reach a level of maturity in these animals. But it has to get back to the cat to mature and lay eggs. So Toxoplasma forms cysts in the brains of rats. If the rats die, the cats won’t eat dead bodies. The bacteria are so smart. It becomes a "good" parasite, leaving the rats perfectly healthy. But it subtly alters the minds of infected rats. Normal rats will avoid any area that has the smell of cat urine – in fact a whiff causes panic reactions in a rat. But Toxoplasma-ridden rats show no such reaction. They actually seek out the cat urine-marked areas again and again till they get killed by the cat and the bacteria can re-enter the cat’s body. The parasite alters the mind and behaviour of the rat for its own benefit.If the parasite can alter rat behaviour, does it have any effect on humans? Researchers have noticed clear links between Toxoplasma and schizophrenia in human beings. Toxoplasma infection is associated with damage to brain cells called astrocytes. Schizophrenia is also associated with damage to astrocytes. Pregnant women with Toxoplasmosis are more likely to give birth to children who will develop schizophrenia. Human cells infected with Toxoplasma, will respond to drugs like haloperidol; the growth of the parasite stops. Haloperidol is an antipsychotic, used to treat schizophrenia. Rats given haloperidol to remove their infection reverted to their normal behaviour of avoiding cats. All studies have found that schizophrenics have elevated rates ofToxoplasma infection. The parasite produces an enzyme with tyrosine hydroxylase and phenylalanine hydroxylase activity. This enzyme alters the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in mood, sociability, attention, motivation and sleep patterns. Schizophrenia has long been linked to dopamine dysfunction. The Toxoplasma parasite infects all warm blooded animals, including humans, but the primary host is the cat family. Infection comes through:* Ingestion of raw or partly cooked meat or during hand-to-mouth contact after handling undercooked meat, or from using knives, utensils, or cutting boards contaminated by raw meat or fish. *Ingestion of contaminated cat faeces. However direct infection from handling cats is very rare.*If the pregnant mother has the parasite , the unborn baby can get congenital toxoplasmosis. During the first few weeks the infection may cause a mild flu-like illness. Thereafter, the parasite rarely causes any symptoms in otherwise healthy adults. Most infants who are infected while in the womb have no symptoms at birth However, those with a weakened immune system may become seriously ill and die. What does toxoplasma do to the mind apart from schizophrenia? According to Sydney University of Technology, men and women change differently when infected with Toxoplasma. Male carriers have shorter attention spans, slower reactions, a greater likelihood of breaking rules and taking risks, and are more independent, anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose. These men are less attractive to women. Female carriers are more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with the non-infected. Studies have found that toxoplasmosis is associated with an increased car accident rate in people with Rh-negative blood. The chance of an accident is increased 2.5 times. Is the human being actually a puppet controlled by worms ?

Maneka Gandhi
 
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1. What family does the human belong to ?
A. Feline
B. Canine
C. Primate

2. A carnivore has reduced facial muscles to allow the mouth to open widely. What kind of facial muscles does a human have?
A. Reduced
B. Well developed

3. A carnivore’s jaws shear through food with a minimal side to side motion. How does a human use his jaw?
A. Side to side and back to front with no shearing motion
B. Shearing with a minimal side to side motion

4. A carnivore cannot expand it's jaw angle and it's jaw joint location is on the same plane as molars. what is the position of a human jaw?
A. The same as above
B. The jaw angle is expanded and the jaw joint is above the plane of the molar teeth

5. The mouth opening of a carnivore vis-a-vis his head size is large. What is the size of a human mouth?
A. Large
B. Small
C. Medium

6. A carnivore's incisor teeth are short and pointed. What is the shape of human incisors?
A. Broad, flattened and spade shaped
B. Short and pointed
C. Long and pointed

7. A carnivore's canine teeth are long, sharp and curved. What are a human's canine teeth?
A. Long sharp and curved
B. Dull and short 
C. Flat and long

8. A carnivore's molar teeth are sharp, jagged and blade shaped in order to tear its food. What shape are a human's molars?
A. Flattened and boxlike to grind food
B. Jagged and long to tear food
C. Sharp and short to grind food

9. A carnivore does not chew his food. It is swallowed whole. What does a human do?
A. Swallow his food immediately
B. Chew it extensively
C. Crushes it several times and swallows it

10. A carnivore does not have the enzyme amylase in it's saliva to predigest grain. Its saliva is acidic. What does a human have?
A. Acid saliva with no amylase
B. Acid saliva with amylase
C. Alkaline saliva with amylase

11. A carnivore has very small salivary glands in the mouth as it does not need to predigest grain and fruit. What does a human have?
A. Well developed and many salivary glands to predigest grain and fruit
B. Small but many salivary glands
C. Large and few salivary glands

12. A carnivore has very strong hydrochloric acid in its stomach to digest tough muscle and bone. Its PH level is 1 or less. What is the state of a human stomach?
A. Ten times less strong than a carnivore’s with PH of 4-5 
B. Ten times stronger with a PH level of 0
C. The same as a carnivore’s

13. A carnivore's stomach capacity is 60-70 percent of the total volume of the digestive tract. What is the size of a human's stomach capacity?
A. Less than 30percent
B. More than 50 percent
C. 40 percent

14. The length of the small intestine of a carnivore is 3-6 times it's body length so that rapidly decaying meat can pass out of the body quickly. What is the length of a human's small intestine?
A. 10-12 times the length of the body
B. 5-8times the length of the body
C. 2-3 times the length of the body

15. A carnivore has a long straight and tubular intestine which digests flesh quickly. What shape are a human's intestines?
A. Long and coiled
B. Short and straight

16. A carnivore's colon is simple, short and smooth. A human's?
A. Long and sacculated
B. Short and sacculated
C. Long and smooth

17. A carnivore's food from mouth to anus takes 2.4 hours to transit through the body. How long does a human's take?
A. 41 hours
B. 3 hours
C. 8 hours

18. Carnivores can manufacture Vitamin C in their own bodies. Can humans?
A. Yes
B. No

19. A carnivore's capacity to process and excrete cholesterol is unlimited. What is a humans capacity?
A. Very limited
B. Unlimited
C. Doesn't exist

20. A carnivore's liver can detoxify vitamin A. Can a human's liver do that?
A. Yes
B. No

21.Acarnivore has extremely concentrated urine. A human?
A. Moderately concentrated
B. Very dilute
C. Very concentrated

22. A carnivore's claws are his appendages which he uses actively to get his food. What are the use of claws in a human?
A. Hands are the appendages. No claws.
B. To scratch
C. To protect the hands

23. Carnivore cools itself via the mouth only. How does a human cool himself?
A. Perspires through millions of skin pores
B. Perspires through the hands, feet and underarms
C. Perspires through the mouth

Answers: 1.C. Primates overwhelmingly depend on plants. 2.B. The mouth is restricted by the muscles. 3.A. This allows the grinding of fruit and vegetables. 4.B. 5.B. The opening is too small for anything other than small bits of food. 6.A. 7.B. 8.A. 9.B. It has to be mixed with saliva. 10.C. Amylase breaks down complex plant carbohydrates into simple sugars. Meat has no carbohydrates 11.A. 12.A. Lower concentrations of hydrochloric acid are needed to digest plant protein and half the time. 13.A. 14.A Same reason as in 17. 15.A. 16.A. 17.A. Digestion is slow in order to break down and digest plant proteins. Carnivores need to digest quickly and expel flesh before it starts putrefying. 18.B. 19.A. Since the body is designed for plants which have no cholesterol, it did not develop an efficient system. 20.B 21.A. 22.A. Hands are meant for gathering plants not ripping flesh. 23.A. We cool ourselves by sweating rather than panting. 
 
One of the most pervasive myths is that humans are naturally made to eat meat. Not just is it unnatural, while the body has changed on many ways to its current form, in the million years we have been on the planet, it has not changed in any way to accommodate the eating of meat. Which is why cancer, ulcers, heart disease, Alzheimer, diabetes are all so prevalent. If I keep adulterating the fuel I put in my car, it will break down sooner or later. The meat eating argument is like the cigarette smoking one: my grandfather smoked for 70 years and nothing happened to him... Perhaps he was lucky, but since smoking and meat eating changes the genes who knows what his grandchildren suffer from. After all the official WHO figures released last week say that 40 percent of humans now have cancer or will get it during their life time. If the Earth has nine billion people, that is 4 billion people. Protect yourself by eating right in case you become one of these statistics.

Maneka Gandhi
 
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Every year I find myself at the annual cactus and succulents show in Delhi. This is a group of plants that is utterly beautiful and intelligent. My favourite among them are the Lithops or living stones. These plants look exactly like the pebbles that surround them in the desert. Both plants and animals use colours and shapes in a way that keeps them hidden. How does a being become invisible in plain sight, airbrushing himself out of the frame in a way? While humans stand out like sore thumbs, most animals and insects have mastered the art of standing right in front and yet invisible. One way is to use colour camouflage called crypsis, where their coloration makes them indiscernible from the background and undetected .Colour is used in two ways: -- concealing coloration and disruptive coloration. Concealing coloration is when animals uses colour to conceal their presence by blending into the surroundings, matching their colour to their habitat: plovers that feed in wet sand and muck have darker-brown backs than plover species that spend their time in dry, lighter-coloured sand dunes. Some animals go even further, coordinating their look with the seasons, shedding dark fur like stoats who are brown in summer and white in winter or molting dark feathers once the snow falls. The Arctic fox has a dark coat in spring and summer to match the brown dirt in its environment. In the fall and winter, it turns white, to match the surrounding snow. In the summer, an Arctic hare is brown and gray. These colours blend in with shrubs, grasses, and rocks. But as the winter nears, the hare loses its dark fur and grows a snow-white coat. Changing amounts of daylight or shifts in temperature trigger the change. Deer, squirrels, hedgehogs are brownish, "earth tone" colours. They match the trees, brush and soil around them. Sharks, dolphins and many other sea creatures are a grayish-blue on top and a white underbelly which makes them difficult to detect from both above and below. Lizards blend their colours so well that it is impossible to spot them on logs or rocks where they bask in the sun. Stripes are useful to hide in tall grass, a tawny colour to blend in with the black, white and gray scenery, Dark fur resembling tree bark adds to the confusion of the visual senses, and just as suddenly as a creature was there, it has now vanished. The harlequin filefish is a blue and yellow spotted fish who lives among the coral has found an ingenious way to avoid being gobbled up during a nap. It has evolved polka-dot markings that match its coral home. Just before a snooze, the fish slicks back its fins to look like a piece of reef. Its colour and polka-dot pattern match the pattern of polyps on the surface of the coral colonies, while the lighter colouring of the tip of its caudal fin mimics the coral's growing tip. Moths actually evolve to change their colouring depending on their surroundings. His adaptation was noticed a hundred years ago in Victorian England. As the buildings became dirtied from soot and pollution during the industrial revolution, the moths that resided there which were pale in colour gradually darkened to remain hidden in the darkening buildings. The amazing trickery of animal camouflage is to be admired. The king is, of course, the octopus who can change its hue in seconds by opening tiny colour sacs in its skin. Need speckles or stripes? No problem. An octopus can "turn on" two or more colours to blend perfectly with coral, sand, or stones. This process involves the functions of chromatophores, which are cells that contain pigment and are capable of reflecting light, that are found in many sea creatures. The boa constrictor relies on surprise to snare its snacks. Its chocolate- and cream-colored scales blend with bark, soil, and leaves. These contrasting colours are arranged in scattered patches like mismatching puzzle pieces. This design gives a boa's body a disconnected look and breaks up the strangler's shape. Prey do not detect its slinky form until it is too late. Garter snakes with their bright red, yellow and blue colourings are hard to see as the markings break up the outline of their bodies. The narrow-headed frog's brown and yellow colouring allow it to blend in with the mud and tree trunks. Cryptic frogs have developed a colouring that is similar to the leaves found in its environment, Many aquatic animals possess the ability to hide in plain sight. Sea creatures use camouflage for a variety of reasons: to avoid discovery by predators or keeping cover to predate on others. Some use it for their nesting areas, to ensure hatchlings from eggs live to see the light of the sun. The scorpion fish is an adept predator and part of this talent is because of its brilliant ability to camouflage itself. Its look depends on its environment. Those in sandy, muddy environs, take on a sandy, gritty appearance. Others in areas of coral reef take on the colouring and spines of the coral. Rays and skates spend the majority of their time on the sea floor, foraging for food and laying their eggs within the soft sands. Their skin colouring has adapted to blend into the sands and seabed surfaces. This natural camouflage helps them find food and avoid attack. Many animals have disruptive coloration. Instead of overall colour, distinctive designs do the trick. Spots, stripes or even patches, camouflage the animal. The wavy lines of a zebra blend in with the wavy lines of the tall grass around it. In this case the pattern is more important than the colour. If a zebra is standing still in a field of tall grass, a lion may overlook it completely. This works for a lone zebra, but what about a herd? Zebras usually travel in large groups and stay very close to one another. In a big group, the pattern of each zebra's stripes blends in with the stripes of the zebras around it. This is confusing to the lion. It sees a large, moving, striped mass instead of many individual zebras. The lion has trouble picking out any one zebra and can't zoom in for an attack. Many fish species are similarly camouflaged. Their vertical stripes may be brightly coloured, which makes them stand out to predators, but when they swim in large schools, their stripes all meld together. This confusing spectacle gives predators the impression of one big, swimming blob. The most famous colour-changer, the chameleon can make its skin appear yellow, green, brown, blue, red, even white or black. Surprisingly, chameleons do not do this to hide themselves. The colour switch is actually influenced by changes in surrounding temperature, light and mood. Chameleons communicate using colour to convey their emotions. Colour adaptations are more effective survival tools than the sharpest teeth, claws and beaks could ever be. After all, being entirely overlooked by a predator is much better than having to put up a fight. 

- Maneka Gandhi
 
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The one thing we lack in India are scientists. We have tired old men who repeat the same thing again and again, we have young people going into government "research" jobs only for the salary. As a nation we exhibit no curiosity, we see nothing. We are the only country in the world that had no painting or record of India before the British came. They made the maps, recorded the monuments and temples and researched our geography. Our museums are as pathetic as our Phds on the natural world. We are unprepared for the disasters that overtake us daily, the floods, famines. Imagine a country that cannot even build decent storage centers for our grain that continues to build dams when the rest of the world has stopped, when the rivers themselves have dried up. Imagine a country that refuses to stop shark killing when all nations can tell you that it is the one way to lose all our fish. Imagine a nation that willfully destroys coral reefs and mangroves on our shores, knowing the waters will come in and take the land. And all this is backed by third rate scientific prattle that bends with the demands of contractors and politicians. 

Many years ago I had gone to see Biju Patnaik, the then chief minister of Orissa, to ask him not to build a port that would bring in no revenue but would destroy many species. I was armed with a report from the premier scientist of India, a man who is now in the Rajya Sabha, who strongly condemned the building of the port. Biju pulled out a report in which the same scientist had given his opinion strongly recommending the port.

We are going willfully into a nuclear power expansion program without even knowing its consequences. Simply studying the plants and insects around an existing nuclear plant would have given us the scientific rationale to say no but no research has been done because the prime minister who is 80 was so insistent on signing a pact with companies that will build the plants.

Cornelia Hesse Honegger is a researcher in Zurich who has been studying and painting insects for 30 years. Not just any insects. She collects insects that live close to nuclear plants.

Cornelia's leaf bugs are all deformed, their abdomens irregularly shaped, crinkled where they would not be naturally. She has done a series of painting of the eyes of fruit flies that have been subjected to radiation. Their eyes are bizarre, randomly placed, some missing entirely. Some fruit flies have grown extra parts. All of them are crippled and monstrous mutations. They come from a collecting trip she made to Osterfarnebo in Sweden which is in the path of the winds that came from the nuclear plant in Russia's Chernobyl when its reactor exploded. The plants in this small town, thousands of miles from Chernobyl have been equally affected: the green clover plants are now red, there are odd looking plants everywhere. She collected leaf bugs that lived on the plants. They had shortened legs, crippled antennae, eyes that grew attachments. She went to small towns even further away and out of the direct line of the winds. She found fruit flies with distorted limbs. "I was horrified by what I saw", she writes.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation calculate the dangers of radioactivity using a simple universal formula: higher levels of radiation in a short period will be harmful. Exposure to low level radiation, as emitted by nuclear power plants, over a long period is insignificant. It is needless for me to say that both bodies are controlled by nuclear plant sellers.

What rubbish. Scientists from the 1970s led by the Canadian physicist Abram Petkau say that there is no safe minimum dose and that low level constant radiation is far more harmful. They base their research on studying populations that live downwind of nuclear plants and test for mutations, leukemia, cancers, cells that have been genetically affected: they have found elevated levels in all the populations. There are two types of radiation: direct and from contaminated food and drink.

When Cornelia released her data, the entire nuclear industry ganged up against her, the same way as the meat industry took Oprah Winfrey to court when she remarked that eating beef was harmful. Their scientists dismissed her evidence and even the Director of the Zurich Zoological Institute, a professor of genetics, said that her research should be called off as it took too much time and small doses of radiation could be lived with.

Since the establishment in Sweden refused to investigate the fallout of Chernobyl, she decided to investigate the famously clean nuclear plants of Switzerland. She went round the five nuclear establishments of Aargau and Solothurn and collected thousands of insects. She found deformed insects: black growths on a golden bodied beetle, many headed, blistered, clubfooted leaf bugs.

She has anise investigated the health of insects near nuclear power plants in Europe and America: Sellafield in England, the Cap de la Hague in Normandy, at Hanford, Washington, the Nevada atomic test range, Three Mile Island, from the worst, Chernobyl, to supposedly the best, Aargau she has recorded insect deformities on a scale so large that they cannot be regarded as mere coincidence or, as the nuclear companies and their hired scientists say, due to factors other than the nuclear plant.

Japan's nuclear disaster is also sought to be hidden. It was apparently leaking for many years but any worker who criticized the sloppiness was instantly removed and no journalist was allowed to carry the story. Even this continuing disaster is being treated lightly as a malfunction, say, in a shoe factory. In reality, billions of fish and plants in the ocean are going to go the way of the insects and so are the people who eat them or work/play in the waters of all the oceans.

Anything that mutates an insect can do the same to you. Before getting into the frenzy of more nuclear plants dictated by the lunatic ambitions of a very very old prime minister, let us do the research on the insects and plants outside our running plant.

Maneka Gandhi

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