Cooperativity

In the biological world, at the cellular level, there is a great ado about cooperativity. Simply put, it means that one event greatly helps another similar event to happen. The easiest example is a protein known as Hemoglobin, the same thing whose depletion causes anemia. Hemoglobin binds to oxygen and delivers it to our tissues. The molecule has the ability to bind to four oxygen molecules. When it binds to one oxygen, it greatly aids and abets binding of the next oxygen molecule and so on and so forth. This is positive cooperativity.

There is also something called negative cooperativity wherein happening one event will discourage the happening of another event.

What happens at the micro level, of course, happens at macro level too.

We are in the midst of severe water crunch. The faculty and the non-teaching staff have been extremely cooperative in dealing with the situation. Many of them have sneaked in a booster pump to collect water into big sumps in their yard so that the next door neighbor does not get any water. On Saturday the crisis hit the peak as parts of the campus went without drinking water. The administration has brought out a notice asking people to desist from using booster pumps.

Meantime, the electricity is also in shortage. We have big generators for power backup. The backup is supposed to be for our instruments but not for Airconditioners. But of course we have never lived without ACs all our lives and to live without it for one hour would is simply unthinkable. So some of the enterprising faculty have connected their ACs to the backup power. This eventually led to the melting down of the generator but hey, don't blame us. See the next door person is also doing it, why aren't you telling him/her?

The merry game goes on and we lurch from one day to another, perfectly cooperating with each other, aiding and abetting both water and power crisis.