22 July 1997 | Dolly & DOE!
#memoriesfromdiaries 💕
More than half the class bunked classes today. I forget the reason though! 😋
During our afternoon class, we were only a few in class, when Ebimon, (a family friend from the final year) came and called me out from Prof.S.S’s Class, to give me a few books from his past (junior year) collection! 📚
Evening we had our DOE Club rendezvous as usual. P. Bhagat Singh, our much loved Class Representative, was also a regular participant in all the activities of the DOE Club! Today the two of us represented our class at the DOE!
Since this particular year [1997] also happens to be a landmark year as regards the groundbreaking work done on cloning, we had a Debate [in our DOE Meet today], on the topic,
Is cloning moral or immoral?
Well, as most of us would have known, Dolly the first cloned adult sheep, was announced to the world just this year, with a paper published in the journal Nature.
The journal article in Nature titled,
“Viable offspring derived from fetal and adult mammalian cells”, mentions the lamb cloned thus, as the first example of an animal cloned from an adult cell! 🐑
Interestingly, the cloned lamb was referred to as “6LL3” in the journal article!
Only later was she named Dolly, after the singer Dolly Parton. (The ‘sexist’ overtones of which would be meet for yet another post!)
According to the Roslin Institute’s page on Dolly -
Dolly’s birth was a significant milestone because it proved that scientists could turn back the clock on a fully developed adult cell to make it behave like a cell from a newly fertilised embryo.
Although scientists at The Roslin Institute no longer create cloned animals, their work on genetically modified livestock continues to this day.
 |
| Dolly - a 'manufactured', 'genetic copy' |
After Dolly’s existence was announced to the public on 22 February 1997, [the news was broken by a British Sunday newspaper even four days ahead of Nature's publication] it gained much critical attention in the media, and among the general public as well!
Again, although Dolly was not the first animal to be cloned, she received much media attention chiefly because she was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell.
Dolly spent her entire life at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, where she was bred with a Welsh Mountain ram and she went on to produce six lambs before she died in the year 2003!
Now, coming back to our ‘debate at DOE’ on cloning -
Well, a clone is a ‘manufactured person’, or in other words, a ‘genetic copy of another individual’, where the clone doesn’t have a biological mother or father!
This was reason enough for the moral brigade to be up in arms, tooth and nail against these ‘violations’ or rather, ‘aberrations’ against Nature!
Hence, and as was expected, numerous ethical and moral implications were raised during ‘media trials’, that conveniently outsmarted and outwitted the political and the religious ones!
Hence a debate we too had had!
Coming back to the next diary entry of the day,
Well, hostels – our home away from home, are also high renowned as abodes for those blessed combined-study times, ain’t they?
And that’s exactly what we did today as well!
Today was my turn to explain to all of us on our little lively fraternity, the Age before Chaucer!
As regards the entertainment side,
two of our classmates (let them remain anonymous, as always, please!)😍🙏🏻 bunked classes to watch the just released movie, V. I. P!
This 1997 Tamil movie, (the first Tamil film for actor Simran) features Prabhu Deva, Abbas, Rambha and Simran in the lead roles!
Nights after dinner time, all of us used to sit together over our cups of coffee, for the duo to narrate the movie to us in all its intricate detailing, scene by scene!
PS: On an aside, let me add with such added joy, that, the skills that we had acquired through all these blessed exciting literary activities back during our college days, we were able to impart them to our students as well!
With the glad go-ahead given by our past HoDs, we were able to conduct a series of Saturday sessions based on the DOE model for our kids at MCC!
 |
| a file photo of Prof. DD at the Language Enthusiasts' Meet, Sat, 17 Aug 2007 |
Again, as was at DOE, attendance was purely optional!
And the reception was phenomenal by all means.
Needless to say, we usually brought our Saturday sessions to a close, with Coffee Unlimited & snacks, to all our participants! ☕😋
You may want to look up a sample Saturday session HERE on our past post! 💛
image of Dolly - britannicadotcom
No comments:
Post a Comment