An Unwelcome Discovery



First up.. This was written yesterday. For some irritating reason, blogger.com was going really, really, REALLY, realllyyyy slowwww.. So just pretend its still yesterday :P

BOO! Did I scare you even remotely? Yea, I doubted it. Well, Happy Halloween anyways! Does anyone actually go proper trick-or-treating, egging, or toilet papering here? What about goosey nights? DAMN! I miss old Halloweens! Well… anyways, that’s not even what this post is about. What I’m about to write about is quite breathtaking. Scary. Not in a Halloween way, but still terrifying.

While on the New York Times website, a few days ago, I read an article called ‘An Unwelcome Discovery’. It was about a man, a leading respected doctor, Eric Poehlman, a prized scientist in the field of human obesity and aging. And guess what? He was also the first doctor in the history of the United States of America to be jalied for fraud; falsifying stuff in a grant application.

He was a professor at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine. Eric Poehlman built his rep as a leading authority in the field of metabolic changes that occur with aging. He published more than like, 200 articles over twenty years. He researched the genetics of obesity and the impact of exercise, also using human subject to document change in their physiology. However, his ‘stellar’ career unravelled when Poehlman's misconduct was detected… And here’s another ‘guess what?’ for you guys. Guess who exposed him? Walter DeNino, who viewed Poehlman as his ultimate mentor. He was accused of scientific misconduct/fraud/whatever and in March ’05 he pleaded guilty to the charges. Yes. He acknowledged falsifying 17 (yes, seventeen), grant applications to the National Institutes of Health and fabricating data in 10 of his papers that were submitted between 1992 and 2000.

So there it is. Dr. Poehlman fraudulently diverted millions of dollars. He ruined his own life. In addition to jail time, Poehlman’s permanently forbidden from getting any more federal research grants, and was ordered by the court to write letters of retraction and correction to many scientific journals. Can you imagine anyone doing that? The seriousness of it.. Medicines were made based on this information!!! Not just a few, so many! People were treated based on his shit! Why'd he do it? Who the hell knows? According to me, he did it due to career pressure and money.. It might’ve just been ‘The ability to get away with it’. Results are hard to reproduce correct, since they’re obscured by noise and other extraneous data.So basically, even if a scientist does like, totally fabricate data, they can expect to get away with it - or at least claim innocence if their results conflict with other peoples. Appalling eh?

Well. That’s basically what I wanted to tell you guys about. The picture of the evil pumpkin serves both topics pretty well don't you think? This kind of stuff really gets you thinking… about what kind of people are actually living in todays world. There could be millions of people who’ve done this, but no ones found out. Think of the consequences of what he’s done .. So much of today could all just be a lie. You really never know!

The Adventures of Zoot Woman! Part One ..

Were any of you wondering where Sonia had disappeared a few days ago? This IS a really bad first ‘proper’ post, and really random too, but I found it funny, and couldn't resist! (PLUS, I’m listening to Nth Degree and that might explain a lot). So were you trying to call her? No response? Well, if she hasn’t told you, it’s because she decided one morning, while eating ‘breakfast’ , to go to Oman. Yes, you read right! They picked up their passports, and they went to Muscat absolutely spontaneously. Absolutely on the spot! The storys a little something like this…

You guys know the drill. Last day before a set of holidays. Hugs. Goodbyes. Conversations about when we’re going to meet up. Movie plans. Plans regarding things we know are never going to happen. Well, my pally wally Sonia was shedding a few tears due to the fact that we have 34 science chapters this term. I told her I would call her. When I eventually did, we talked about, if my memory serves me right, cheese and having a night were everyone would come over; we would rent DVDs and watch them till like 3 in the morning. She told me to sleep on it. The next morning, at around 12, when I called Sonia to finalize everything, she didn’t pick up her phone. So I called her house phone, but to no avail. I waited a few hours, then I made another attempt. I finally gave up after like 100 missed calls. Two after that I saw her online! You know what? See it for yourself. The advantages of Messenger Plus!

(7:59 PM) * .. radhΐι .. *: HEYwhere the hell have u beenn gurrlllllll ??
(7:59 PM) L@ura s0n!@ suB: Heyyy .. supp?
(7:59 PM) L@ura s0n!@ suB: dont ask
(8:00 PM) * .. radhΐι .. *: ... u may continue typing ..
(8:00 PM) * .. radhΐι .. *: * continues to waiitt *
(8:00 PM) L@ura s0n!@ suB: we went out with cARoline n her family fer breakfast day before yesterday...n landed up in de Muscat Sheraton
(8:00 PM) * .. radhΐι .. *: UMMMMM .. excuse me?
(8:00 PM) * .. radhΐι .. *: :S

So as I was saying, two days later she comes online like the monkey that she is and has the nerve to ask me ‘suppp ?’ . I was like, “What happened to our plans?!?”.. So basically during these holidays my activities have been limited to ' couch potato-ness ' and starting this blog. I did absolutely nothing while people whisked off to various countries! And that’s all she said before going offline and telling me to ' call ' ! Oh well. Atleast now I know why they call her Zoot Woman!!!

PS: I'm just kidding. Zoot Woman has nothing to do with being an idiot!
PPS: HAPPY belated DIWALI to everyone !!
PPPS: SORRY! One more thing .. I defininately AM going to get killed for the picture which i don't think sonia knew i had :P .. SO UH .. I NEED SUPPORT !! :P

The First One ..

Hey guys!! I know you were expecting some amazing, interesting, phenomenal blog post, but really, I figured since this is my first one on blogspot.com and I've ditched the whole ' MSN space ' thingy, I should write some sort of an introduction...

You guys know I’ve tried blogging before, if it even counts as blogging. There are quite a few reasons that I decided to start a proper blog… The first being that my brother, my best friend, is a trillion miles away and I’d like him to be somewhat up to date with what’s going on in this far from exciting country. It’s not only my brother though, it’s my entire family!! My mom’s in Boston with Niki, my cousins on my moms side are all somewhere in the states. Be it my amazing cousin Steph in Florida, my cousins Anish and Karun in Oklahoma, or my cousins Richie and Mary (who btw went to MIT :P). On my Dads side a predominance of the family lives in Delhi and the rest live places that are anyways far away from the UAE. Another reason was that of course, the reason everyone makes blogs, just to express thoughts on pretty much everything, see other peoples opinions, and in some cases inform people – like Rayna’s Diwali thingy which by the way, I – the uninformed Hindu Christian liked a lot. Last but not least, I like to write, I LOVE to write :P. Well, that’s about it. That's my super duper introduction. Look forward to the one I told most of you about, it’s nearly done! A big thanks to Jyothsna! OKAY! So here’s to blogging!