Simran Tuteja (Editor-in-Chief)
“Science means constantly walking a tight rope between blind faith and curiosity; between expertise and creativity; between bias and openness; between experience and epiphany; between ambition and passion; and between arrogance and conviction – in short, between an old today and a new tomorrow.” — Henrich Rohrer
The human brain begins to develop in the third week of gestation. So before a baby is born, her brain is already excited to step in the world, to face new challenges and to unveil new possibilities. While you are here reading, a baby is being born. While the miracle of birth is happening, science is busy playing a major role in it.
When a toddler takes her first steps, her brain is busy sending signals to her legs, her hormones are acting up and gravity is playing its role by keeping her on the ground. While your brain is sending signals via neurons so that you can start clapping and a beautiful smile appears on your face.
That toddler is now a five-year-old kid running around, playing with balls and your brain is busy comprehending everything happening around you. Imagine that kid falling and getting hurt, she starts to cry because she is bleeding but at the same time her White Blood Cells are busy protecting her from the bad bacteria that might have entered her body. You run towards her with a First Aid kit but why? Because your memory has registered that when someone gets hurt First Aid is the First Response. You then take her to the Paediatrician who gives her a Tetanus shot so that the infection doesn’t spread.
The human body grows every day. When the Earth completes another round of the Sun, in that period, your body has changed a lot, your surroundings have also changed a lot and what your brain has registered is also altered over time. When it’s cold, she wears woollen clothes, when it’s hot, she wears cotton and when it’s raining, you give her a raincoat.
Here is a nineteen-year-old woman, sitting on a computer, making use of the technology which has evolved over time but so has she. She is stuck inside her house because a virus that her body is unaware and unprotected of is spreading. Now that she is sitting at her home, her brain and body have experienced a lot of changes. She doesn’t care whether 2+2=4, it now cares about what the integral of ‘sin(x)+2×15’ is. When her brain doesn’t secrete enough Serotonin, her anxiety spikes up and when it gets worse, the intake of Paroxetine, that her Psychiatrist prescribed, helps.
You see, from the moment you are born to the current moment, your body has undergone billions of changes. Your surroundings keep changing and your body, including your brain, adapts to the environment. The formation of a star, the formation of the Earth, the discovery of a light bulb, the moment you are born, the math you learn, the history you memorise, the derivations you try to understand, the using of a computer or a tablet or your phone, your memories, your illnesses, the release of enzymes, the burning of coal, the freezing of water, the floating of ice in water, the mixing of two chemicals to give a compound or a mixture, the stopping of your heart, the decomposition of your body and the death of a star, everything is science. Science plays the most important role in your life from the moment you are born to the day you die.
So let’s celebrate life, let’s celebrate science.
Life exists within us and without us. — Albert Einstein
