January 22, 2021 Volume 2, Issue 2 EPISTEMEIISER Berhampur's Science Magazine On God, Mythology, Superstition, Learning and Scientific Temper Page 1 FACULTY Ritika Sethi ADVISORS Sanyam Gupta Dr. Jose Sebastian Rabi Sankar Pal Dr. Senthil Raani KS Dr. Adinarayana Doddi OUTREACH TEAM Dr. Victor Mukherjee Gyanaranjan Parida Arushi Mishra STUDENT BOARD Ayesha Dash Hardik Khurana (Editor) Nishant Parida Purbasha Dasgupta Sudev Pradhan (Co-Editor) Soumyojit Chatterjee Gyanaranjan Parida Niraj Gupta Aditya Iyer Rishikesh Pandey Ankita Misra Akshay Sreyas Kanika Phagna REVIEW TEAM Sai Kaarthik Ankita Misra U Abinash Patro Aiendrila Roy Amrutha Nambiar Ayesha Dash Rithik Rathod Gayatri Subhalaxmi Pranav Pradhan Haris Avudaiyappan Kumar Gaurav DESIGN TEAM Nabendu Sekhar Mishra Aditya Iyer Neehar Verma Sayantani Biswas Om Dwivedi Manish Dwari On behalf of the entire team of Episteme, we extend an ardent welcome to the iPhDs and the entire batch of BS-MS 20. To you and to all others, we would like to pass on this message: NOTE In times that none foresaw and all suffered a great deal, FROM THE we have persevered and we shall continue to do so. We would also like to extend a special thanks to all the EDITOR clubs for their continued support towards Episteme. - Hardik Khurana CONTENTS On God, Mythology, Superstition, 1 Learning and Scientific Temper 3 The Origami of Life 5 Visualizing √2 Chemistry of Co-crystals : A Secret 9 of Patience in Crystallography 11 The Inflationary Universe 13 ABO and Cancer 15 Latin and Euler Square 18 Viruses That Cause Cancer Rydberg Atoms in Quantum 20 Technologies Curcumin: Journey from Kitchen to 22 Surgical Strike Against Cancer Cells 24 History of Zero 27 Inside the COVID Testing Lab 30 The Tiny Plant Wanderers 32 Entering the Hypersonic Era 34 Search for Twinkling Stars on Earth 36 Eating the Rainbow 38 Frozen But Not Solid? Potential Applications of N-Heterocyclic Carbene-Metal 41 Complexes in Industrial Processes Tabletop World: Sustainable Ecological Cycle to Space 43 Colonization Recent XENON1T Anomaly and its 45 Implications Our Small Change To The Diet Could Be A Big Positive Change In 47 The Environment Once A Failure, Eventually Fetched A Nobel!: 49 The Ligo Experiment 51 Science Quiz 53 Comics OPINION On God, Mythology, Superstition, Learning and Scientific Temper by Prof. Promod K. Yadava ur nation distinguishes itself by the mention of scientific temper in its constitution but our social behaviour, our colourful culture Oand tradition and most of our artistic manifestations in paintings, sculpture, music, drama and dance commonly connect with mythology which we accept as literal truth. It is here that the problem arises. The creative imaginations of the forms of God with general anthropomorphism except for multiple heads and arms, chimeric constructions with animal heads or sometimes the entire animal body with a human frame as in some other cases. Philosophical churning of religion and spiritualism is a different exercise left for intellectuals of the privileged sections. It is an outcome of the latter that leads to postulations of concepts like “adwaita” (if one wants to translate it would be non-duality). There have been many debates questioning the very existence of God. The scientific attempts to retrace the origin of the Universe have led to the big bang model. We should be in no rush to claim pioneer ship of knowing the origin of Universe thousands of years before the modern scientists arrived at it beyond abroad qualitative similarity between the two lines of conclusion. Unfortunately, we get emotionally attached to the idea of being pioneers. It is common to find someone saying our ancestors knew everything including relativity and quantum mechanics, let alone movement of the celestial bodies so many thousands of years ago. We ignore the fact that all knowledge is socially generated and we should be grateful to all contributors to building of what we call conscience. We may not be able to recall each turning point in our conscience building which is a continuous process and keeps incorporating inputs from diverse sources. What we carry are mere consensual thoughts to which we have tacitly consented to abide. Thus no one is wrong simply because her/his understanding of a subject is different from yours. Yet in context with situations that have been verified and validated for their coordinates, one can allow only standard deviations. For example, it is nearly certain that God and, most certainly God forms are a creation of the human mind. Similarly, it is quite clear that diverse biological systems are descendants of common progenitors. All religions are created and propagated by humans. However, each system projects to be the best and ultimate truth and shields itself to be beyond worldly reasoning because it is created by God who can at best be a nameless, faceless entity. As Buddha told his followers not to believe in something simply because it got a place in a book or it was told by your parents or it was taught in a certain way in the classroom, find reasons and then convince yourself and carry forward. We 01 have certain predispositions. For to compel each individual to example, if we are asked whether conform to an assumed normal we believe in God, most of us will behaviour like observing rituals say yes without taking an extra lest inauspicious consequences moment and if the next question even of good work. We have is whether we believe in aliens, been selected to be continuously most of the same people will say thinking and creating new ideas no. Reason for the latter would be and new tools. Building upon because we have not seen them this realization of being uniquely but no questions asked in the blessed with the capability to former context. This is where we design and develop new tools, need to be more reasonable. the world ushered into a new era of industrial development Our learning can be well-founded which brought with it the boons in reasons but what we do in and curse of modernity. While day-to-day life is often based in we have got addicted to many faith, accepted without reasons of the new tools and consider or rhymes. We find it interesting them indispensable, we have also to replay stories from mythology noticed the challenges posed by and there cannot be question materials of our own creation about their being interesting like the polymers and biocidal and quite often articulate and at chemicals as threatening the times touching practical life and very continuance of biological ethics. If we want to retain them systems the way they have so as works of fiction, it should not far been. Shall we consider a cause problem Let the lesson be zero-technology lifestyle or that human mind is fictitious and continue to develop appropriate capable of reconstructing what technologies? Some of us may does not really exist. Ethics, outright say no while others would a set of self-restraining norms think of finding technological produced by the human mind, solutions of technologically are meant to ensure harmonious created problems. Likewise, on co-existence of all human beings the issue of disparity based on vis-à-vis all constituents of our colour, gender, race and other environment, living as well as congenital attributes, the opinion non-living. One may ask whether may be varied but we need to we need the ethical norms develop a more parable society. which have no obvious link with The pursuit of Science enables reasons. We have two levels of us to find ways and means of existence viz., individual and reasoning and culminate into collective. It is for our collective an understanding society. There co-existence that we need ethics. are no last words in Science In the longer run, it is in the and hence we continue studying interest of all. It is experimentally science. proven that altruism in longer run seems to benefit the species and hence it seems to be reasonable to include it as an ethical norm. This immediately points to the validity of festivity, and mythology-related platforms as relevant and necessary to ensure prolonged togetherness of humans. Yet it will be unfair 02 BIOLOGY The Origami of Life by Akankshya Sahu rigami is a traditional interactions, which are determined Japanese art of paper by the sequence of amino acids and Ofolding to make models facilitated by the chaperones to of inanimate objects, animals ensure that proteins fold correctly and flowers. Anyone can easily and become thermodynamically learn it by following illustrative stable to form complex levels of instructions. But imagine that protein structures [2] [3]. The you’re told to make an origami, classic experiment by Anfinsen say of a paper crane, that too and his colleagues in 1950s without any instruction manual. on the protein ribonuclease is As you craft your origami, you remarkable! They treated native take care that the fold and shape ribonuclease with denaturating are proper. Well, the mechanism agents which break the hydrogen of protein folding is driven via bonds and disulfide bridges that similar modus operandi. A linear resulted in an unfolded structure. sequence of amino acids performs As a result, the protein was unable the job with so much precision to function anymore. When that it ends up to form a stable the agents were removed, the and functional 3D structure out of denatured ribonuclease refolded innumerable conformations in a spontaneously with all covalent fraction of seconds. & non covalent bonds accurately Proteins are one of the most reformed and its catalytic activity abundant organic molecules in restored as it was before. Thus, he living organisms. They are made postulated “Anfinsen’s Dogma” up of the same fundamental which says that the ‘protein’s building blocks – the Amino amino acid sequence contains Acids, yet they come in diverse the information required to form shapes, sizes & molecular weights.