It does take a global village

Whether to raise a child orto do a Ph.D. in this gobal community it indeed take the support of global village! I finally got my Ph.D. defended on October second and it would havebeen impossible to do it without the support from my global freinds and family. TO think of it... 20 or so years agao when I was doing my undergraduate, my world was limited to the physical and geographical boundaries of city of Calcutta and the subarbs. My sister and I used to make this adventurus trip to parts of the city that We never had gone before and found joy in those little trips. We discovered American Center and British Council and lots of the book stores as well as the coffee house in the college street of Calcutta. We also used to go to see movies without telling our parents. If our parents would find out about that, they would get mad at us - we were only suppose to study and not go watch movies during the precious time. Then came a big break for me - I went to Gopalpur, Orissa for a field trip with the college Zoology class. I rediscovered that I really like Biology and especially field Biology. I realized I have to do extremely well to get into M.Sc. program to pursue any kind of research in marine biology or Fisheries. Then came oppertunity to visit South Bihar and moist deciduous forests fo south Bihar. The forests that were described in Aranyak by Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhay. Thanks ot my Professor of the RBC college - Pankaj Manna. I did do well In the last year of B.Sc. but not good enough. I was trying to decide whether I should do my M.Sc. in Calcutta Univerisity where I was in the waiting list or do it in Kalyani University or go or complete different M.Sc. program. Then came the oppertunity to go out of West Bengal for a Masters in Wildlife Biology. A lot of resistance from home and uncertainty about the future, especially jobs - I plunged into it and decided to go for the Masters. This meant moving away from home 1500 km away in Dehradun at the Wildlife Institute of India... the rest is history...

What is it about theists...

I am getting tired of the views of theists, especially the religious conservatives! Most of them think that those believe in god have morality and do help others. The altruistic behavior is only found in theists! I just read an account of Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) where she wrote about how PZ Myers and his family's kindness. It is surprising to see that how many people hated PZ and most of these hates are because he is an outspoken godless human being! People are surprised that he was so nice to grrl scientist and was very helpful! My question is what do these theists think of themselves???

Can you be an atheist and be an altruist? Most of the god fearing people think that they are the only one who care about others and all the godless idiots are selfish loosers, live in their own cocoons and will end up in hell! I wish they have paid attention to other culture other than their own religion or culture! Buddhism (which started as a culture rather than a religion) is perhaps only one religion that is atheistic in its core. The foundation of the Buddhism is based on helping others and being kind to others. In this materialistic, self centered culture, it is hard to find people that are helping others. However, it is not rare to see atheists being kind! In fact, in my experience, most of the super unnatural theists are goddamn corrupt, self centered people only think of themselves!

The ultimate question in evolutionary biology would be are these theist really altruist? Or the aethist are more altruists? Think about it...

Who are the lorises...

As you can see from the picture, I work on a small nocturnal primate in one of the most populated part of the world! In the last couple of years my research on the slender loris males focused on the male mating tactics and alternative strategies in a human modified ecosystem. However, in today's world, I guess there are no lorises found in so called pristine habitat. You must be wondering - who are these slender lorises (singular: loris) and why do I work on them? They are perhaps the most illusive little critters that lead an arboreal life in the tropical and subtropical forests of southern India and Sri Lanka. They are the denizens of dry and moist deciduous forests of India and Sri Lanka. These forest types are also shared by the other primate denizens - bonnet macaques, lion tailed macaques, common langurs, nilgiri langurs and Humans. Although they share their habitats with other primates, however, the most direct competition comes from humans. My earlier research have shown that lorises use the same species of plants that are good for fuel wood. They are nocturnal and hence sleep during the day - but unlike other arboreal mammals and birds, they do not use nest holes. Instead they sleep in canopy - very thick and/or thorny canopy. The most commonly used liana by the lorises is Zizyphus which is very thorny and found in the mid storey of a dry forest in southern India. When a local fire wood collector comes to the forest for some fuel wood, the best way to reach his/her desired tree (covered with lianas) would be to remove the thorny lianas and then prune the branches. Here goes the nest thickets of the lorises as well as continuity of the canopy! Being arboreal, lorises are most comfortable walking slowly in the canopy unless they have to hurry because there is a predator! Evolutionary modifications of limbs are visible from outside without looking at bare skeletal structurtes.

It is interesting to see that lorises are still surviving in some parts of southern India amid the high density of humans in small groves or scrub forests where you may not expect to see them. But how well are they doing? are their behaviors plastic enough to adapt in the modified human environment - how long? What behavioral strategies they are adapting to deal with constant human modifications? Are they developing behavioral strategies at population level and at individual level to survive? How many of them are there? Can we develop management strategies based on behavioral ecology and population biology of the species? And above all how many different species of slender lorises are there? These are some of the questions that I am interested in...