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Did you know there was a fire which burned for over four days and almost destroyed a city!?

It was also the inspiration (at least one of the inspiration!) for a very famous nursery rhyme!

It was way back in 1666!

Called the Great Fire of London, it was a catastrophic four-day blaze that swept through the central parts of the City of London from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666.

It destroyed approximately 80% to 85% of the medieval City, including 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches, and left roughly 70,000 to 100,000 people homeless!

The fire began after midnight at Thomas Farriner’s bakery on Pudding Lane.

Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth initially dismissed it, reportedly saying a “woman might piss it out”! The original words may have been much more crass! But I guess bureaucracy is legendary!

Then driven by strong east winds, the fire spread into the financial heart of the city, reaching Lombard Street and the Royal Exchange.

The most destructive day were the third and fourth days during which the fire jumped the River Fleet and reached St. Paul’s Cathedral, destroying it!

Finally on Day 4 & 5 the wind dropped and the firebreaks took effect. By Thursday, the main conflagration was extinguished, though some debris smoldered for months!

Thomas Farriner was the king’s baker whose shop was the origin point of the fire.

King Charles II was the one who personally directed firefighting efforts and helped man the pumps alongside his brother, James, Duke of York.

Officially, only six to nine deaths were recorded, but modern historians believe the true number was much higher, likely in the hundreds or thousands, as many victims’ remains were incinerated or went unrecorded.

Damages were estimated at £10 million at a time when the city’s annual income was only £12,000!

It also lead to Scapegoating when a French watchmaker named Robert Hubert was falsely convicted and executed for starting the fire, despite evidence that he was at sea when it began! Blaming the innocent ‘other’ is always the easy way out!

Finally London was rebuilt using brick and stone instead of timber to prevent future fires and New regulations also required wider streets!

Got the nursery Rhyme? A famous bridge got burnt and they were urged to Build it up with Brick and stone!?


Then again you can build legacy which cannot be burnt or destroyed!

Like that of Mamukkoya!
He will be missed!

Subh ratri…

What happens when your hands do not listen to you!?

You get the anarchic hand syndrome or Dr Strangelove syndrome!

The premise here was that in spite of being Americanised now from the whole body, one part (here the hand!) still remained a nazi!

So once in a while the hand would give a nazi salute!

Now the whole thing is a part of a fictional movie but the characters are taken from real people who had drifted from Nazi team to the Allied team!

Anarchic hand syndrome, and the closely related “alien hand syndrome,” is
sometimes called “Dr. Strangelove syndrome”—for the titular character in
the 1964 Stanley Kubrick movie.

The Character’s Origin or the chief character Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound former Nazi scientist turned U.S. adviser, is an amalgamation of several real-life figures!

As far as three key influences have been recognized!

Wernher von Braun: A German V-2 rocket scientist who was brought to the U.S. after World War II to work on the space program (via Operation Paperclip).

Edward Teller: Known as the “father of the H-bomb,” who held similar, arguably extreme, views on nuclear strategy.

Other influences: Elements of the character were drawn from scientists like John von Neumann and CIA expert Herman Kahn!

The character’s involuntary Nazi salutes, which he tries to hide with his black-gloved hand, represent the persistent, destructive “Death Drive”!

Now most medical students may actually know the Medical Salute but then like Nazi files; it is also top secret!

Now what about the Nazi salute which is interesting? Apparently this involuntary movement of the affected hands happens even in patients with stroke in the Supplementary Motor Area or (SMA). This is a functional region of the motor cortex, located in the dorsomedial frontal lobe, critical for planning and initiating voluntary movements, particularly complex, self-generated, or bimanual actions.

Patients in this case have hands which spontaneously grabs food or other things for that matter without the actual intent of the patient! Many times the patient may hold the ‘affected’ hand with the normal in control hand!

Like how Robert states in Determined; free will is non existent! But the power of the brain, well; that is limitless!

Also the talent of Arijit Singh is limitless! Why he had to stop singing is beyond my brain capacity to understand!

Let’s not lose sleep over it though!

Subh ratri…

Many like to dance!

Then again in many functions you need one to start! Then everyone or at least most will join!

Now have you heard of a woman who danced for a week!

And that she made close to 400 people dance like or with her! Many till they dropped dead!

It is not fiction!

It is history!

So it was many many years ago!

It was called the Dancing Plague of 1518! The bizarre phenomenon of “dancing mania” that gripped the city of Strasbourg (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) between July and September 1518!

It started with a woman named Frau Troffea who began dancing fervently in a narrow street. She continued for nearly a week despite exhaustion and bloody feet!

Within a month, the “epidemic” grew to an estimated 400 people. The dancers were often in a trance-like state, flailing and convulsing rather than performing a joyful dance.

While controversial, contemporary accounts and modern historians like John Waller suggest that at its peak, up to 15 people died per day from heart attacks, strokes, and sheer exhaustion!

The first ‘cure’ suggested was to DANCE IT OUT!

Believing this the city council built wooden stages, cleared guild halls, and even hired professional musicians to keep the dancers moving!

When encouraging the dance only drew more victims, the council banned music and sent the worst-afflicted to a shrine dedicated to St. Vitus! There, they were given blessed red shoes and prayed for absolution!

Scientists and historians still debate the cause of the mania with no clear consensus as usual!

The leading theory, popularized by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, suggests it was stress-induced mass hysteria.

Strasbourg had recently suffered from extreme famine, disease (syphilis and smallpox), and severe social anxiety.

Some suggest the dancers ingested bread tainted with ergot fungus, which has hallucinogenic properties similar to LSD. However, critics like John Waller argue in the Lancet that ergotism usually makes it physically impossible to dance for days due to restricted blood flow!

The one thing which was noticable was that the ‘DANCERS’ did not need any music! Nor did they follow any specific pattern!

So if you do see someone like that in the middle of a street; please think a little before you join him or her!

The last time though I danced on the street was when India won the world cup in 2011! It was with music and fun! That was a dream for our birthday boy Sachin!

So maybe you can think of that and the latest cup victory and dance! But make sure there is a reason!

Determined Robert Sapolsky tells about free will and how most do not have it!

One such subset are people with some forms of Epilepsy where during the attack or episode they are seen to be having no control or free will.

At least now they are treated as normal individuals but the history of Epilepsy is full of stigma and misconception.

Historically, epilepsy stigma stems from ignorance and fear, with seizures long misunderstood as demonic possession, divine punishment, or contagious disease, leading to intense social isolation and discrimination.

In many cultures, seizures were thought to be caused by spirits or demons. Ancient Romans sometimes believed the disease was contagious, leading them to refuse to eat from the same plate as someone with epilepsy! And this was all over the world!

Here also while some cultures viewed it as divine, others, associated it with evil spirits.

In the Middle Ages, the smell of burnt food or a patient’s breath was thought to transmit the condition!

In the 19th century, epilepsy was frequently mischaracterized as a “degenerate disease” or form of “madness,” causing people to be confined to asylums along with criminals!

Which is why patients or their caregivers used to hide the condition further hiding to mistrust when the disease becomes apparent.

Until the mid-20th century, many U.S. states prohibited people with epilepsy from marrying, and some states enacted eugenic sterilization laws!

Public facilities, including restaurants, could legally deny service to people with epilepsy until the 1970s!

With the advances in modern sciences, there has been good control and treatment of all forms of epilepsy.

All which is required is the removal of stigma which like most bad things takes time…

For now listen to some good things like a song sung by Sistla Janaki!

Subh ratri…

Do you know who is officially recognized as the person with the highest IQ ever by the Guinness Book of World Records!?

This individual has a high score of 228!

If you only knew Einstein then you are not alone! By the way, Einstein has been estimated to have had an IQ score of around 140-160!

Just when I was feeling pretty good to have written more than a thousand blogs on different topics, I get a topic by my dear Teacher and Guru Dr Ravi on Marilyn vos Savant!

Which is when I again realised like Baba; ‘Knowledge is definitely an ocean and what I know is a drop!’

Yes; Marilyn vos Savant is an American magazine columnist and author famously recognized for having the highest recorded IQ in history!

I also thought that maybe this is why we call the super intelligent folks, SAVANT! But that is not correct!

Dr. John Langdon Down, used it to describe youths with extraordinary memory, musical, or mathematical skills despite significant mental defects!

The Term “Savant”: It comes from the French word savoir, meaning “to know”.

Now coming back to  Marilyn vos Savant!

She has repeatedly shown her mental prowess and since 1986, she has written “Ask Marilyn”, a Sunday column in Parade where she solves mathematical and logic puzzles and answers readers’ questions on a wide range of academic and everyday subjects!

Then again she is best known in the SUPERINTELLIGENCE world as the who correctly analysed and solved the Monty Hall Problem!

Though at the time she met with sizeable opposition in spite of being correct!

In 1990, she became the center of a massive public debate after solving this probability puzzle in her column!

Despite receiving over 10,000 letters—many from PhDs and mathematicians—claiming she was wrong, her counterintuitive solution (that switching doors increases the odds of winning to 2/3) was eventually proven correct!

While her score of 228 remains legendary, Guinness retired the “Highest IQ” category in 1990, concluding that IQ tests were too unreliable to designate a single world record holder.

Savant herself has remained skeptical of the tests, stating that intelligence involves too many factors to be measured accurately by a single number!

If Savant says so, then it must be right! Or you can score more than 250 and argue with her!


Then again there’s nothing to argue when someone says that the Mahabharata produced by B R Chopra is the best one!

Now do not check your IQ score and lose sleep!

Subh ratri!

At some point either in a movie or TV you would have seen this random image which may or may not look like a butterfly! The ‘subject’ would be shown these images and then asked “What do you see?”

Nowadays of course you can answer with confidence but at some point in history the answers used to determine whether you have schizophrenia or not!

Now the tests are called the inkblot test and these were created by Hermann Rorschach.

Historically though the Interpretation of inkblots was central to a game called  Gobolinks!

Using interpretation of “ambiguous designs” to assess an individual’s personality is an idea that goes back to Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli!

Rorschach never intended the inkblots to be used as a general personality test, but developed them as a tool for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

It was not until 1939 that the test was used as a projective test of personality!

The original test uses 10 standardized, ambiguous inkblots to evaluate personality traits, emotional functioning, and unconscious thoughts by analyzing a subject’s interpretations.

Rorschach, nicknamed “Kleck” (inkblot) as a child, was influenced by popular, earlier inkblot games called Klecksography and the work of Carl Jung.

While considered controversial, research shows that when properly administered, the test remains useful for diagnosing mental illness and understanding a patient’s psychological makeup.

In the 1960s, John E. Exner developed the Rorschach Comprehensive System, which is the standard, more valid scoring system used today to mitigate issues with examiner bias.

A more recent modification of the Rorschach Comprehensive System is now the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS), which offers modern, international norms.

Of course what’s in anyone’s mind is mystery!

Then again if it’s murder mystery then you can call Shivaji Satam!

For now stop staring at the image on the roof and sleep!

Subh ratri…

Do you know what is common between John Nash, Syd Barrett  and Eduard Einstein?

Of course first you must know who these people are!

Well John Nash is a Nobel Prize-winning mathematician on whom the movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’ was based on. Pink Floyd was founded by Syd Barrett! Now if you think Pink Floyd is another name of flamigo pink then you can stop reading right now! Google Pink Floyd and resume!

Then Eduard Einstein is the son of Albert Einstein (you might have thought that reading the surname!)

The common factor in all these was that they all suffered from schizophrenia!

Did you know that at one point schizophrenia was blamed on bad mothers!?

In Determined Robert Sapolsky frames schizophrenia as a biological, non-deterministic brain disease, characterized by severe thought disorders and reduced prefrontal cortex function.

He highlights the 50% concordance rate in identical twins to prove it is highly genetic, yet dependent on environmental triggers, rejecting the notion that it is a choice or caused by parenting! So bad or not; Mothers or Mothering is not the issue!

The Genetic issue is Vulnerability, Not Inevitability! This is because Identical twins share a  50% risk, showing that while genetics are a major factor, environmental, prenatal, and stress factors are necessary for development!

Schizophrenia of course is characterized by “loose associations” and an inability to handle abstraction, often causing people to interpret thoughts as external voices.

It is also viewed as an “organic” disorder involving dopamine spikes, often triggered during subvocalization (internal speech).

Some common risk factors can be Environmental Triggers like prenatal malnutrition, perinatal complications, childhood chronic stress, and heavy adolescent cannabis use!

In fact even the hallucinations are structured based on cultural, emotional, or religious content (e.g., voices of Jesus or Satan) rather than random noise!

Robert states that such disorders highlight the lack of free will, as they are caused by physiological, biochemical, and environmental factors far beyond an individual’s control!

Of course it can also be thought that the brain capacity is so vast that it can create a whole new persona or hallucination! Like everyone says; ‘its all in your mind’; it is actually in your brain!

Then again what is the difference between your mind and brain! Its MENTAL!

Now don’t go crazy reading that!  Watch a movie instead! Sooryavamsham or even Sarfarosh starring Mukesh Rishi!

Subh ratri…

Oobius depressus! It may sound depressing but it is not so!

Before that you must know about the wood-boring beetle!

Before that you must know about The Black Locust!

So the Black Locust is not a locust but a tree! Known as Robinia pseudoacacia ; it is a fast-growing deciduous tree known for its paradoxically hard, rot-resistant wood and fragrant white flower clusters.

The trees, whose wood is strong, hard and extremely durable, helped build the Jamestown settlement and were featured prominently at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.

But these trees were not planted or were not planted much because of the wood boring beetle!

The wood-boring beetle, also known as the locust borer, is considered a serious pest that has discouraged planting of black locusts.
Once you get the beetle infestion unchecked since it has only one natural enemy; the beetle had a free run to ruin!

So for the past one hundred years or so there was no protection! Then again as mentioned in many scriptures about the rise of any evil! There will come a protector! Or in this case; the protector will come again!

That brings us to  Oobius depressus!

Oobius depressus is a rare, non-stinging, parasitic wasp of the Encyrtidae family, rediscovered in 2015 after being missing for 101 years!

It is a natural enemy of the locust borer (Megacyllene robiniae), a beetle that kills black locust trees, and is a potential biological control agent!

Last found in 1914 (in Illinois, without heads/antennae), it was rediscovered in 2015 in Michigan by USDA Forest Service entomologists and UC Riverside researchers.

It is a specialist parasitoid that lays its eggs inside the eggs of the locust borer, preventing the destructive larvae from hatching!

Since the locust borer damages black locust trees—a valuable, hardy wood species this discovery makes the wasp a significant ally for forestry and environmental protection!

Another significant ally for you can be a rich man like Mukesh Ambani!

Now dream to be as rich as him and sleep!

Subh ratri…

Aries (incidentally my sun sign!); was the Greek God of war! A formidable God and powerful one at that! So imagine how his son would have been! Now when I say imagine, I do not mean take up your phone and do a Google image search since this is not about him but his son!

Well his son was a frightening and formidable guy! In fact he was so scary or fear inducing that warriors would paint his picture on their shields to give their enemies a real fright and to get them to run away in terror!

Sounds familiar! Not yet?

Well, his name was Phobos!

Yes! The above reaction resembles someone terrified of something! Or as we commonly call it; PHOBIA!

Then a Roman doctor called Celsus used the word hydrophobia (literally, water fear) to describe someone who seemed to have a horror of water!
When in any disease or at least most disease your doctor would advise you to take plenty of water (my cardiologist friends would jump now and say, we actually advice water restriction in heart failure! But that is exception not example!); in this particular disease even the thought of water would give such fright to the affected person!

This is commonly seen in a particular disease and may not be that common now but any medical student who sees this one case would never forget it in his or her life!

The pathognomic feature of this is that water or even cold air would induce severe painful spasm so much so that the patient would be terrified of it!

The trademark of the dreaded Rabies!

Now, you will also think about Celsus and wonder if the unit of temperature in named after him! Well no! This temperature scale was invented and named after Swedish scientist Anders Celsius! ‘I’ is very important sometimes!

Coming back to Phobia! It was of course left to dear Sigmund to give it some psychoanalysis.

In 1895 he noticed that while some things gross out most people at least a little (such as snakes, death, or getting sick), other things only bother a few people!

Years later, Freud wrote about a little boy named Hans who, after being terrified by a horse in the street, developed a strong fear of horses!

Other researchers of the time also began to speculate that phobias were distinct mental condition and of course they all had the phobia of not been taken seriously!

The first relatively modern use of the word phobia wasn’t until 1786, when (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) an unknown writer in the Columbian Magazine defined the word as meaning “A fear of an imaginary evil, or an undue fear of a real one.”

But it wasn’t until 1947 that phobias became a separate diagnostic category in the International Classification of Diseases and finally in the 1960s, it was observed that phobias basically divide themselves into three rather different kinds or categories: agoraphobia, social phobia, and specific phobias.

Of course if you take a list of the most common phobias there will be so many lists that you will develop a phobia of lists!

One such list states how Glossophobia is the number one phobia in America and is the fear of public speaking, with 25% saying they’d prefer to avoid speaking in front of people!

Then you have Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is one of the longest words in the dictionary — and, in an ironic twist, is the name for a fear of long words!

Also in case you are not yet phobic, Sesquipedalophobia is another term for the phobia!

All right then, settle down; if you have phobia see a doctor but I am sure it will be the nursing assistant who will comfort you more!

Talking of Nurse reminds me of Lalitha Pawar! Then again am sure after her eye injury she would have had a phobia of injury which in case you want to know is called traumatophobia!

Now turn off the light if you do not have fear of the dark and sleep!

Subh ratri…

Originally the same height, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly was two inches taller than his identical twin brother Mark after living for nearly a year aboard the International Space Station!

Apparently, Astronauts get a bit taller in space because of the decompression of the disks of the spinal column.The disks are slightly compressed when one is living on Earth, thanks to the effects of gravity.

In space, the disc expands and the spine lengthens, as there is near-zero gravity, and the astronaut is taller.

The spine’s elongation in microgravity can add two inches to a six-foot-tall astronaut.  Therefore, if an astronaut is a 6-foot-tall (1.8 meters) person, he or she could gain as many as 2 inches (5 centimetres) while in orbit!

This was documented in the famous NASA Twins Study (2015–2016) which found that astronaut Scott Kelly’s year-long space mission caused significant but mostly temporary changes to his biology compared to his twin brother,
Mark, on Earth.

There were other findings also…

Surprisingly, the protective caps on Scott’s chromosomes (telomeres) lengthened in space—the opposite of typical aging.

Scientists also identified changes in gene expression related to immune system response, DNA repair, and bone formation.

Scott’s immune system went into high gear, acting similarly to how it would react to a vaccine on Earth. His gut microbiome shifted, but not significantly more than changes caused by stress on Earth.

Scott’s cognitive speed and accuracy declined slightly after returning to Earth but stayed stable while in space.

So while space caused, among other things, telomere lengthening, increased immune response, and altered gene expression, 91.3% of Scott’s gene expression returned to baseline within six months of landing.

The study proved that human health can be largely sustained for long-duration space travel!

So, a sure way to increase height? Go to the space station and stay there for one year!

Or you can increase the height of your fame by your activities!

Like the comedy acts of Vivek!

Let’s space out and sleep now!

Subh ratri…