Amargit Singh

© 2016 Hu et al.Oil reservoirs are major sites of methane production and carbon turnover, processes with significant impacts on energy resources and global biogeochemical cycles. We applied a cultivation-independent genomic approach to define microbial community membership and predict roles for specific organisms in biogeochemical transformations in Alaska North Slope oil fields. Produced water samples were collected from six locations between 1,128m and 2,743m below the surface. Microbial community complexity decreased with increasing temperature, and the potential to degrade hydrocarbon compounds was most prevalent in the lower-temperature reservoirs. Sulfate availability, rather than sulfate reduction potential, seems to be the limiting factor for sulfide production in some of the reservoirs under investigation. Most microorganisms in the intermediate- and higher-temperature samples were related to previously studied methanogenic and nonmethanogenic archaea and thermophilic bacteria, but one candidate phylum bacterium, a member of the Acetothermia, was present in Kuparuk sample K3. The greatest numbers of candidate phyla were recovered from the mesothermic reservoir samples SB1 and SB2. We reconstructed a nearly complete genome for an organism from the candidate phylum Parcubacteria that was abundant in sample SB1. Consistent with prior findings for members of this lineage, the OD1 genome is small, and metabolic predictions support an obligately anaerobic, fermentation-based lifestyle. At moderate abundance in samples SB1 and SB2 were members of bacteria from other candidate phyla, including Microgenomates, Atribacteria, candidate phyla TA06 and WS6, and Marinimicrobia. The results presented here elucidate potential roles of organisms in oil reservoir biological processes. IMPORTANCE The activities of microorganisms in oil reservoirs impact petroleum resource quality and the global carbon cycle. We show that bacteria belonging to candidate phyla are present in some oil reservoirs and provide the first insights into their potential roles in biogeochemical processes based on several nearly complete genomes.

Annually, half of all plant-derived carbon is added to soil where it is microbially respired to CO2. However, understanding of the microbiology of this process is limited because most culture-independent methods cannot link metabolic processes to the organisms present, and this link to causative agents is necessary to predict the results of perturbations on the system. We collected soil samples at two sub-root depths before and after a rainfall-driven nutrient perturbation event in a Northern California grassland that experiences a Mediterranean climate. From ten samples, we reconstructed 198 metagenome-assembled genomes that represent all major phylotypes. We also quantified 6,835 proteins and 175 metabolites and showed that after the rain event the concentrations of many sugars and amino acids approach zero at the base of the soil profile. Unexpectedly, the genomes of novel members of the Gemmatimonadetes and Candidate Phylum Rokubacteria phyla encode pathways for methylotrophy. We infer that these abundant organisms contribute substantially to carbon turnover in the soil, given that methylotrophy proteins were among the most abundant proteins in the proteome. Previously undescribed Bathyarchaeota and Thermoplasmatales archaea are abundant in deeper soil horizons and are inferred to contribute appreciably to aromatic amino acid degradation. Many of the other bacteria appear to breakdown other components of plant biomass, as evidenced by the prevalence of various sugar and amino acid transporters and corresponding hydrolyzing machinery in the proteome. Overall, our work provides organism-resolved insight into the spatial distribution of bacteria and archaea whose activities combine to degrade plant-derived organics, limiting the transport of methanol, amino acids and sugars into underlying weathered rock. The new insights into the soil carbon cycle during an intense period of carbon turnover, including biogeochemical roles to previously little known soil microbes, were made possible via the combination of metagenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Copyright 2016 Butterfield et al.

Most clinicians and researchers are concerned with recent advances in psychiatry. This involves the danger whether something time-tested may get sidelined for extra-scientific reasons. That the pharmaceutical industry and super-specialist researcher may keep churning out new findings to impress audiences is only a partial truth. Research progresses by refutation and self-correction. Acceptance in science is always provisional; changing paradigms, frameworks of enquiry and raising new questions is integral to break through in scientific knowledge. Hence, there is in science a constant concern with the new. Moreover, the number of treatment non- responders to the time-tested swells with time, and researchers feel challenged to find ways and means of resolving their difficulties. Newer challenges need newer strategies. Obsession with the most recent can lead us astray, but a healthy evidence-based acceptance of the new is essential for advancement in psychiatric research. As indeed of research in all fields of medicine. And of science in general. The role of lithium and newer mood stabilizers in bipolar disorders are taken as examples to highlight this point

A lot of Indian research is replicative in nature. This is because originality is at a premium here and mediocrity is in great demand. But replication has its merit as well because it helps in corroboration. And that is the bedrock on which many a fancied scientific hypothesis or theory stands, or falls. However, to go from replicative to original research will involve a massive effort to restructure the Indian psyche and an all round effort from numerous quarters. The second part of this paper deals with the essence of scientific temper, which need not have any basic friendship, or animosity, with religion, faith, superstition and other such entities. A true scientist follows two cardinal rules. He is never unwilling to accept the worth of evidence, howsoever damning to the most favourite of his theories. Second, and perhaps more important, for want of evidence, he withholds comment. He says neither yes nor no. Where will Science ultimately lead Man is the third part of this essay. One argument is that the conflict between Man and Science will continue till either of them is exhausted or wiped out. The other believes that it is Science which has to be harnessed for Man and not Man used for Science. And with the numerous checks and balances in place, Science will remain an effective tool for man's progress. The essential value-neutrality of Science will have to be supplemented by the values that man has upheld for centuries as fundamental, and which religious thought and moral philosophy have continuously professed.

Suicide is amongst the top ten causes of death for all age groups in most countries of the world. It is the second most important cause of death in the younger age group (15-19 yrs.) , second only to vehicular accidents. Attempted suicides are ten times the successful suicide figures, and 1-2% attempted suicides become successful suicides every year. Male sex, widowhood, single or divorced marital status, addiction to alcohol ordrugs, concomitant chronic physical or mental illness, past suicidal attempt, adverse life events, staying in lodging homes or staying alone, or in areas with a changing population, all these conditions predispose people to suicides. The key factor probably is social isolation. An important WHO Study established that out of a total of 6003 suicides, 98% had a psychiatric disorder. Hence mental health professionals have an important role to play in the prevention and management of suicide. Moreover, social disintegration also increases suicides, as was witnessed in the Baltic States following collapse of the Soviet Union. Hence, reducing social isolation, preventing social disintegration and treating mental disorders is the three pronged attack that must be the crux of any public health programme to reduce/prevent suicide. This requires an integrated effort on the part of mental health professionals (including crisis intervention and medication/psychotherapy), governmental measures to tackle poverty and unemployment, and social attempts to reorient value systems and prevent sudden disintegration of norms and mores. Suicide prevention and control is thus a movement which involves the state, professionals, NGOs, volunteers and an enlightened public. Further, the Global Burden of Diseases Study has projected a rise of more than 50% in mental disorders by the year 2020 (from 9.7% in 1990to 15% in 2020). And one third of this rise will be due to Major Depression. One of the prominent causes of preventable mortality is suicidal attempts made by patients of Major Depression. Therefore facilities to tackle this condition need to be set up globally on a warfooting by governments, NGOs and health care delivery systems, if morbidity and mortality of the world population has to be seriously controlled . The need, first of all, is to identify suicide prevention as public health policy, just as we think in terms of Malaria or Polio eradication, or have achieved smallpox eradication

The uniqueness of Psychiatry as a medical speciality lies in the fact that aside from tackling what it considers as illnesses, it has perchance to comment on and tackle many issues of social relevance as well. Whether this is advisable or not is another matter; but such a process is inevitable due to the inherent nature of the branch and the problems it deals with. Moreover this is at the root of the polarization of psychiatry into opposing psychosocial and biological schools. This gets reflected in their visualization of scope, in definitions and in methodology as well. Whilst healthy criticism of one against the other school is necessary, there should be caution against hasty application of one's frame of reference to an approach that does not intend to follow, or conform to, one's methodology. This should be done within the referential framework of the school critically evaluated, with due consideration for its methods and concepts. Similarly, as at present, there is no evidence to prove one or the other of these approaches as better, aside from personal choice. We can say so even if there is a strong paradigm shift towards the biological at present. A renaissance of scientific psychoanalysis coupled with a perceptive neurobiology which can translate those insights into testable hypotheses holds the greatest promise for psychiatry in the future. This suggests the need for unification of diverse appearing approaches to get a more comprehensive and enlightened worldview. It requires a highly integrative capacity. Just as a physicist thinks simultaneously in terms of particles and waves, a psychiatrist must think of motives, emotions and desires in the same breath as neurobiology, genetics and psychopharmacology. However, the integration must be attempted without destroying the internal cohesiveness of the individual schools. This will give a fair chance for polarization in which a single proper approach in psychiatry could emerge, which may be a conglomerate of diverse appearing approaches of today, or one which supersedes the rest. A synthesis of cognitive psychology and neuroscience offers the greatest promise at present

_In the light of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy, this paper looks into some of the problems of contemporary man as an individual, a member of society, a citizen of his country, a component of this world, and of nature itself. Concepts like Science; Nature,;Matter; Mental Being; Mana-purusa; Prana-purusa; Citta-purusa; Nation-ego and Nation-soul; True and False Subjectivism; World-state and World-union; Religion of Humanism are the focus of this paper. Nature: Beneath the diversity and uniqueness of the different elements in Nature there is an essential unity that not only allows for this diversity but even supports it. Nature is both a benefactor and a force: a benefactor, because it acts to carry out the evolution of mankind; a force, because it also supplies the necessary energy and momentum to achieve it. Natural calamities: If mankind can quieten the tsunamis and cyclones and droughts and earthquakes that rage within, and behave with care and compassion towards Nature, not exploiting, denuding, or denigrating it, there is a strong possibility that Nature too will behave with equal care and compassion towards man and spare him the natural calamities than rend him asunder. Science: The limitation of science become obvious, according to Sri Aurobindo, when we realize that it has mastered knowledge of processes and helped in the creation of machinery but is ignorant of the foundations of being and, therefore, cannot perfect our nature or our life. Science and philosophy: The insights of philosophy could become heuristic and algorithmic models for scientific experimentation. Matter: An interesting aspect of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy is his acceptance of the reality of matter even while highlighting its inadequacies; the ultimate goal, according to him, is the divination of matter itself. Purusa: If the mana-purusa (mental being) were to log on to the genuine citta-purusa (psychic formation), without necessarily logging off from the prana-purusa (frontal formation), it may help quieten the turbulences within, which may be a prelude to the quietening of the disturbances without, whether it be physical maladies, cravings (for food, fame, fortune, etc.), destructive competitiveness; or wars, terrorism, ethnic conflicts, communal riots, and the other such social maladies that afflict mankind today. Nation-ego (false subjectivism) and Nation-soul (true subjectivism): Sri Aurobindo considers Nation-ego an example of false subjectivism, in which national identity and pride are stressed to prove one's superiority and suppress or exploit the rest. The Nation-soul, as an example of true subjectivism, attempts to capture one's traditional heritage and values in its pristine form, not as a reaction to hurts and angers or as compensation for real or imagined injuries or indignities of the past. World-state (false subjectivism) and World-union (true subjectivism): Similarly, a World-state founded upon the principle of centralization and uniformity, a mechanical and formal unity, is an example of false subjectivism, while a World-union founded upon the principle of liberty and variation in a free and intelligent unity is an example of true subjectivism Human actualization: Even if two human beings are similar, in so far as they are human beings, there is so much diversity between them. Part of the movement towards human self-actualization lies in the fact that this diversity should not be forcibly curbed, as also the realization that beneath all that appears disparate there is an essential unity. Also, man is not the end product of evolution but an intermediate stage between the animal and the divine. Moreover, he is endowed with consciousness that enables him to cooperate with the forces of evolution and speed up and telescope the next stage of evolution._