Book Review: Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer

This is a scary book. I mean it is a very good introduction to how parasites live their life among their hosts and thrive. The book takes look at various parasites and their natural history in terms of evolution and the impact parasites have in the ecology and individuals. How many behaviours in their hosts are manifestation of parasites trying to maximise their chances of getting too they next guy in their life cycles. For example, the malarial parasite plasmodium generates chemical signals that give us fevers at very specific times of the day which coincides with the time when mosquitos are active. From evading the immune system to completely controlling organisms by taking over their nervous system parasites are highly evolved in their way of life.

Zimmer takes a perspective that parasites have a major role in any functional ecosystem and drives the evolution of their hosts as well. Earlier parasites were treated as
Low end ke forms but studies now show his little we know how they work. Almost all wild animals are full of parasites and Zimmer also makes a case that having parasites is a sign of a good ecosystem. They are not organisms in the fringes but rather a driving force across the ecological niches.

Why I said the book is scary is the sheet amount of parasites that can easily enter your body and how little we can do about it. As you read about various ways in which you can get infected leaves you scared.

Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland – Part 2 – John Tenniel

John Tenniel

John Tenniel’s illustrations are by far the most popular drawings for Alice. Over the years from their first publication in for Wonderland (1865) and Looking Glass (1871), these illustrations have had a life of their own.The original illustrations are line drawings, closely following Lewis Carroll’s illustrations in spirit and sometimes in framing also. Tenniel’s illustrations have had a very strong impact on all the later illustrations by other artists as well. His depictions of certain characters, at least for me, is intimately tied with the words of Lewis Carroll. I cannot imagine the story without reference to his illustrations.

Tenniel’s monogram of his stylised initials are part of all the illustrations.

 

Several later renditions of these were coloured or supplemented by full colour plates by other artists. We will make a separate post for these modified colour illustrations later. In this post we will see only the original illustrations as they appear in the 1865 edition a total of 42 including the front piece.

 

Over the years I have used several of these images in my presentation and work.

All images in public domain unless mentioned otherwise.

Front piece: the court of the king and queen of hearts.

The White rabbit.

Alice finds the little door.

Drink me! said the label on the bottle.

Alice becomes enlarged.

The white rabbit runs away.

Alice in pool of tears.

 

The mouse swims away.

The Dodo presents Alice a thimble.

The mouse’s long and sad tale.

Alice went on growing and growing till she filled the room.

Alice tries to snatch the rabbit from the window.

Alice kicks Bill the green lizard from the chimney.

Alice throws a stick to the giant puppy to fetch.

 

Alice meets the caterpillar.

Old Father William stands on his head.

Old Father William does a back-somersault.

Old Father William finishes the goose, with the bones and the beak.

Old Father William balances an eel on his nose.

The fish-footman delivers the invitation from the Queen to play croquet.

Alice meets Duchess and the crying baby.

The baby turns to a pig!

Alice meets the Cheshire cat.

 

 

Cheshire cat fades away. “ Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “ but a grin without acat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life.

At the mad tea party.

The Mad Hatter.

The Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit put the dormouse into the soup.

Colouring the white roses red.

Alice meets the queen and “Off with her head!” she commands.

Alice playing croquet with the flamingo and hedgehog.

 

“Off with his head” queen said for Cheshire cat. The executioner said, “..you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from..”

Alice and Duchess “Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ””

 

Gryphon was lying fast asleep in the sun.

Alice hears the Mock turtle’s story.

So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice.

The Lobster quadrille.

 

White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet,White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet,

White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and reads the accusation of stealing the tarts.

Mad Hatter is the first witness. He comes with a tea cup in one hand and bread and butter in the other.

“Td rather finish my tea,” said the © Hatter, with an anxious look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

“You may go,” said the King; and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without — even waiting to put his shoes on.

 

The large Alice tips the jury box sending all jurors in a panic.

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.
”No, no!’ said’ the, Queen. “Sentence first —verdict afterwards.”

 

“Who cares for you?” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her…

Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland – Part 1 – Lewis Carroll

From the back advertisement of Carroll’s Eight or nine wise words about letter-writing (1890) illustration by John Tenniel.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson) first published in 1865 might be one of the better known books in the world. There are several editions of it, though the text content is more or less the same, the illustrations are varied. The most famous of Alice’s illustrations are by John Tenniel. Tenniel did the 42 illustrations in the first edition and these same illustrations are found in most later editions. This series of posts is an attempt to create a collection of various illustrations for Alice in Wonderland from middle of nineteenth century. For an in-depth analysis of Alice I highly recommend reading Martin Gardner‘s Annotated Alice, which has a lot of trivia and information about the books, the characters and the author.

Signature of Lewis Carroll from the facsimile handwritten draft.

All images in public domain unless mentioned otherwise.

In this post, we start with the hand-drawn manuscript from Carroll himself which was titled Alice’s Adventures UndergroundMost of the illustrations that were done later follow these pen-drawn ones in content.

A treasured early manuscript version of one of the most famous and enduring children’s stories, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland c. 1864. Link Originally from the British Museum

Original cover of Alice’s Adventures under Ground

The facsimile version contains 40 illustrations. These illustrations were then refined by Tenniel in his woodcuts for the first edition of the book. These pen drawn crude illustrations are also templates for most of the other drawings for Alice’s books.

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank and having nothing to do
Alice finds a small door behind a curtain
Alice loses the key to the door
Curioser and Curioser, now I am opening like the largest telescope that ever was!
Alice meets the rabbit again and startles it
Alice falls into the pool of tears.

Alice meets the mouse in the pool.

Alice led the way and the whole curious party swam ashore.

 

Alice has a long argument with a lory.

 

On various pretexts, they (birds) all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

 

Rabbit orders Alice to fetch gloves and nosegay!

 

Alice finds another bottle and drinks it!

 

..and grows in size

 

…till she is filling the entire room..

 

Alice’s hand comes out of the window of the house.

 

Alice kicks Bill, the green lizard, out of the chimney.

 

 

Animals taking care of Bill.

 

Alice meets the giant puppy.

 

Father William and his son.

Alice eats a mushroom and her chin is stuck to her foot!

 

Then she eats more and her neck shoots through the trees!

“Serpent!” A pigeon calls Alice.

 

Alice is of the right size and wants to go to the beautiful garden via the door in the tree.

 

Cards are painting white roses red in the garden.

 

The king and queen of hearts arrive with a knave carrying the crown in the cushion.

The curious croquet game.

Alice tries to play the croquet game with a live ostrich as a mallet and a live hedgehog as the croquet-ball.

 

The gryphon laid fast asleep in the Sun.

The Mock turtle tells his story.

 

The mock turtle and the gryphon in a tangle.

 

Mock turtle and gryphon sing and dance around Alice.

Sentencing of the knave of hearts for stealing of tarts.

“No!” said the Queen, “first the sentence, and then the evidence!”

Alice

 

 

State of Humanity in 2017 – A view from 1920

Following is an excerpt from Beyond the Planet Earth by the Russian scientist and science fiction author Konstantin Tsiolkovsky about the life in 2017, from approximately 100 years ago.

State of Humanity in 2017

What was our Earth like in the year 2017, in which our story is set?
On all Earth there was one beginning: congress, consisting of elective repre­sentatives from all states. It had existed already more than 70 years and resolved all questions concerning humanity. Wars were impossible. Misunderstandings between people were settled by peaceful means. Armies were very limited. Actually, these were armies of labor. Population, with happy enough conditions in the last one hundred years, was trebled. Trade, technology, art, and agriculture attained signif­icant success. Huge metallic dirigibles, lifting thousand of tons, communicated, transported goods conveniently and inexpensively.
Especially beneficial were the huge air ships, sending inexpensive loads, such as trees, coal, metals, and so forth downstream with the wind almost for nothing. Aircraft served for especially fast transfer of small number of passengers or pre­cious cargo; the most commonly used were airplanes for one or two persons.
Humanity marched peaceful on the path of progress. However, fast growth of population forced all thinking people and rulers concern.
Ideas regarding the possibility of technical conquest of use of world deserts were considered long ago, — still more than one hundred years ago. In 1903, one Russian thinker wrote a serious work on this matter and proved mathematically, on the basis of the scientific data of that time, the complete possibility of settle­ment of solar system. But these ideas were almost forgotten, and only our company of scientists revived them and partly carried them out.

Let us first talk about the technological changes he has predicted. He predicts that airships or dirigibles would be a major form of transport for cargo, while aircrafts are used for smaller cargo and passengers. Also, there is an indication in the last paragraph that some space travel has happened.
The political and social scene is something that is off the charts. Tsiolkovsky shows a lot of optimism in how humans are able to resolve their differences and bring forth peace and happiness in all. I think this is a reflection of the zeitgeist of the era. Lot of revolutionary changes were happening which resulted in progress in the fields in almost all fields. So it wouldn’t be a deviation to think that humans would also progress along the same lines and resolve their differences peacefully to live a prosperous and happy life.
You can read Beyond the Planet Earth here as a part the his collected works.

Book Review: Ages in Chaos by Stephen Baxter

Ages in Chaos is a scientific biography of James Hutton by Stephen Baxter. Hutton was a Scottish scientist who also played his part in Scottish enlightenment. Hutton was the first to speculate on the idea deep time required for geological processes at the end of 1700s arguing with evidence he collected. He was trained as a medical doctor, practiced farming for 10 odd years and had continued his explorations of geology throughout. The prevalent theories of geology, called Neptunists, posited that water was the change agent. Hutton on the other hand posited that it was heat which was responsible for changes, hence Vulcanists. Also, another thing was that of time needed for this change. As others of his era, Hutton was deeply religious, like Newton, wanted to find evidence for creation as per bible.
During his time, especially popular was the idea of flood as per Bible, while the Earth was literally considered to be 6000 years old. This created a problem for Hutton, who was labelled to be atheist and heretic for suggesting that Earth is much older and that there was no design. But Hutton was a conformist and wanted to find a uniform evidence for all observable aspects. He was not like a modern scientist, as he is painted many times. The ideas were vehemently attacked on each point. Though he went to the field to find geological examples for this theory. James Watt, Black and John Playfair were his friends and provided him with evidence in the form of rock samples. During his lifetime, Hutton’s ideas will not find much audience. But due to his friends, his ideas sustained a a barrage of criticisms. Only in the next generation with Lyell this work would find acceptance. This idea of a deep time was crucial in formation Darwin’s theory.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157978.Ages_in_Chaos
The book reads well mostly, but at times a complete lack of illustrations in the forms of geological artefacats and maps (of Scotland) makes it difficult to read well.

Conditioning hatred for books

INFANT NURSERIES. NEO-PAVLOVIAN CONDITIONING ROOMS, announced the notice board.
The Director opened a door. They were in a large bare room, very bright and sunny; for the whole of the southern wall was a single win-dow. Half a dozen nurses, trousered and jacketed in the regulation white viscose-linen uniform, their hair aseptically hidden under white caps, were engaged in setting out bowls of roses in a long row across the floor. Big bowls, packed tight with blossom. Thousands of petals, ripe-blown and silkily smooth, like the cheeks of innumerable little cherubs, but of cherubs, in that bright light, not exclusively pink and Aryan, but also luminously Chinese, also Mexican, also apoplectic with too much blowing of celestial trumpets, also pale as death, pale with the posthumous whiteness of marble.
The nurses stiffened to attention as the D.H.C. came in.
“Set out the books,” he said curtly.
In silence the nurses obeyed his command. Between the rose bowls the books were duly set out-a row of nursery quartos opened invitingly each at some gaily coloured image of beast or fish or bird.
“Now bring in the children.”
They hurried out of the room and returned in a minute or two, each
pushing a kind of tall dumb-waiter laden, on all its four wire-netted
shelves, with eight-month-old babies, all exactly alike (a Bokanovsky
Group, it was evident) and all (since their caste was Delta) dressed in
khaki.
“Put them down on the floor.” The infants were unloaded.
“Now turn them so that they can see the flowers and books.”
Turned, the babies at once fell silent, then began to crawl towards those clusters of sleek colours, those shapes so gay and brilliant on the white pages. As they approached, the sun came out of a momentary eclipse behind a cloud. The roses flamed up as though with a sudden passion from within; a new and profound significance seemed to suffuse the shining pages of the books. From the ranks of the crawling babies came little squeals of excitement, gurgles and twitterings of pleasure.
The Director rubbed his hands. “Excellent!” he said. “It might almost have been done on purpose.”
The swiftest crawlers were already at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumpling the illuminated pages of the books. The Director waited until all were happily busy. Then, “Watch carefully,” he said. And, lifting his hand, he gave the signal.
The Head Nurse, who was standing by a switchboard at the other end of the room, pressed down a little lever.
There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded.
The children started, screamed; their faces were distorted with terror.
“And now,” the Director shouted (for the noise was deafening), “now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock.”
He waved his hand again, and the Head Nurse pressed a second lever. The screaming of the babies suddenly changed its tone. There was something desperate, almost insane, about the sharp spasmodic yelps to which they now gave utterance. Their little bodies twitched and stiffened; their limbs moved jerkily as if to the tug of unseen wires.
“We can electrify that whole strip of floor,” bawled the Director in explanation. “But that’s enough,” he signalled to the nurse.
The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror.
“Offer them the flowers and the books again.”
The nurses obeyed; but at the approach of the roses, at the mere sight of those gaily-coloured images of pussy and cock-a-doodle-doo and baa-baa black sheep, the infants shrank away in horror, the volume of their howling suddenly increased.
“Observe,” said the Director triumphantly, “observe.”
Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks-already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.
“They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives.” The Director turned to his nurses. “Take them away again.”
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Though fictionalised the above passages capture what makes people hate books in general. The conditioning happens in reality in a more subtle manner. The conditioning laboratory is the school. In school children are made to engage with the books, textbooks in most cases, in the most artificial and dishonest matter. Another problem is the quality of textbooks themselves. Though the school has a “textbook culture”, not enough effort is put in by the writers and designers of the textbooks to make the best that they can offer. Instead cheap, copy-paste techniques, and a mix-and-match fashioned content is crammed and printed onto those pages glued together called as textbooks. No wonder, people when they grow up don’t like books or run away at the sight of them. Its just behaviorism at work with Pavlov portrait in the background.

Sidenotes and label in LaTeX

Recently I have been using the sidenotes package in LaTeX. It provides many options which I find aesthetically pleasing. For example, instead of footnotes, it gives sidenotes. This particular typesetting has been used beautifully by Tufte in his books. But even before Tufte’s books this option has been used, for example, see the beautifully designed book The Evolution of Culture in Animals by John. T. Bonner.
bonner
Not the recent reprint, some idiots at Princeton University Press have completely killed the aesthetically pleasing landscaped typesetting to portrait one (and a not very good one)! In general Bonner’s book are a visual treat in terms of designing and of course the content as well. His meticulous detail to the images, and use of log-scales to depict biological scale in time and space it something that I have not seen very often.
The Evolution of Culture in Animals uses a landscape mode with sidenotes and figures in margins extensively. This is the exact functionality that the sidenotes package provides. Even the tufte-book and tufte-handout classes use this package in a modified manner.
When using sidenotes package, I found that the marginfigure and margintable environments worked without a problem when using a label and referring them to in the document. But when it came to the sidecaption option for wider figures and tables, somehow I could not get the referencing to work. The hyperref showed the correct page and even the captions had the correct numbers for tables and figures. But the label and \ref{} to it didn’t work.
For example, if a figure was created as such:

\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{eagle.jpg}
\sidecaption[][1cm]{This is an eagle.}
\label{eagle1}
\end{figure}

The first [] controls the text that appears in the List of Figures, while the second [] controls the vertical placement of the caption.
Now when I referred to this figure in the document using Figure~\ref{eagle1}, it gave an error and typeset it as Figure ??, instead of Figure 1.1 or something similar. The same problem was there for a sidecaption used for tables as well. A common mistake which usually causes this error is placing the label before the caption. So the golden rule seems to be:

Always place your \label{} after the \caption{}.

But it was not the case in my example. A bit of digging in the log file showed this error:


Package caption Warning: \label without proper reference on input line xxx.
See the caption package documentation for explanation.

LaTeX Warning: Reference `eagle1′ on page 7 undefined on input line 415.

Now back to caption package documentation, it had this explanation for this error (page 44):

\label without proper \caption
Regarding \label the floating environments behave differently than its non-floating counter-parts: The internal reference will not be generated at the beginning of the environment, but at \caption instead. So you have to place the \label command either just after or inside the caption text (mandatory argument of \caption).

So that was it. You have to place the \label{} inside the \caption{} environment and the issue was solved. Placing it just after the caption did not work for me.
\begin{figure}
\includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{eagle.jpg}
\sidecaption[][1cm]{This is an eagle.\label{eagle1}}
\end{figure}

The Art of Not Reading

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making great commotion, You should remember That he who writes for fools Always finds a large public. – A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
– Arthur Schopenhauer

Very relevant quote with the kind of circus main stream media has become in India.

The Pendulum and The Fixed Points

… And then last year, when I saw the Pen­dulum, I understood everything.”
“Everything?”
“Almost everything. You see, Casaubon, even the Pendulum is a false prophet. You look at it, you think it’s the only fixed point in the cosmos, but if you detach it from the ceiling of the Conserva­toire and hang it in a brothel, it works just the same. And there are other pendulums: there’s one in New York, in the UN building, there’s one in the science museum in San Francisco, and God knows how many others. Wherever you put it, Foucault’s Pendulum swings from a motionless point while the earth rotates beneath it. Every point of the universe is a fixed point: all you have to do is hang the Pendulum from it.”
– Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

On Books and Bookcases

“But I am apt to use my books at any time,” I explain to the salesman. “I never can tell when it is coming on me. And when I want a book I want it quickly. I don’t want to have to send down to the office for the key, and I don’t want to have to manipulate any trick ball-bearings and open up a case as if I were getting cream-puffs out for a customer. I want a bookcase for books and not books for a bookcase.
–  Robert Benchley