

H. Gobind Khorana, 1968 Nobel Winner for RNA Research, Dies - nikhilpandit
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/us/h-gobind-khorana-1968-nobel-winner-for-rna-research-dies.html

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kshatrea
I am an Indian, and it is usually a matter of pride for us that people of
Indian origin have scaled heights in academia and elsewhere. Which is why it
surprises me that the largest Indian English dailies that I subscribe to,
haven't really said much about the passing of a great scientist. They seem
more busy in talking about perfectly useless reality shows.

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muon
I am sure they would have covered some fad in the science & technology
section. Like some vague research claiming that wine is good for heart or
chocolate is good for memory etc.

The truth is that most of Indian dailies are not fit for reading any science
related news or even news for that matter.

~~~
gvnonor

      The truth is that most of Indian dailies are not fit for reading any science related news or even news for that matter.
    

With the exception of "The Hindu", which is the only daily I find
professional, without bias to any ideology/organisation and mostly free of
grammatical, spelling and other errors.

~~~
ananthrk
_"The Hindu", which is the only daily I find professional, without bias to any
ideology/organisation_

'The Hindu' is generally considered pro-CPM (Communist Party) hereabouts
(South India).

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alokm
It is more like center leftist. Although politicians of CPM do feature on
editorials

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sateesh
I wish it were true. It is more than 'center leftist', it has a blatant left
bias which even clouds the reporting. I was an ardent reader of 'The Hindu'
but stopped reading it after its coverage on issues like: 'Nandigram', 'US
India Nuclear deal'. IIRC it used to carry reports about Chavez hailing him as
great leader, but reports from other newspaper doesn't seem to imply the same.
So I stopped reading it all together.

It is sad that are no good English dailies (in India) which concentrate on
issues that matter to people. Much of them don't carry any detailed reports,
focus on celebrity gossip and/or are blatantly biased.

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JoeAltmaier
One of those giants people are always standing on the shoulders of.

And he stood on his share. Watson and Crick. That teacher under the tree in
his village. His father.

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arjn
It surprises me how few Indians know about Khorana. He is the only Indian
(person of Indian origin) to be awarded the prize for Physiology or Medicine.

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J3L2404
Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all codes, the
biological language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three-
letter words: each set of three nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid.

Khorana was the first scientist to synthesize oligonucleotides.

He extended the above to long DNA Polymers using non-aqueous chemistry and
assembled these into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase
enzymes that link pieces of DNA together. as well as methods that anticipated
the invention of PCR.

These custom-designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology
labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals.

Khorana's invention has become automated and commercialized so that anyone now
can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies. One merely needs
to send the genetic sequence to one of the companies to receive an
oligonucleotide with the desired sequence.

