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Showing posts from June, 2007

Blog ennui

Malaysia has an emerging blog community. Lately some bloggers have dealt with religious topics and this nation being a multireligious and multicultural society, the government has been concerned. Apparently publishing insulting comments about race and religion is against certain provisions of the Internal Security Act. Malaysians say that bloggers will test the free speech credentials of the incumbent Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi who upon his election a few years back promised to be more moderate and less confrontational than his sometimes controversial predecessor, Dr Mahathir Mohammed. Well my Malaysian friends say that the blog community in Malaysia is far from boring. Malaysia has developed advanced IT infrastructure in the last decade or so (thanks to Dr Mahathir) and society seems to have used this to test the limits of their liberties. And in killing time I read some products of the Malaysian blogosphere. Some blogs are witty. English blogs have some words particular to Ma...

The Intoxication of a Lifetime

A man who has known the sea is bound to it forever. This is a paraphrase of DR Sherman's famous quote from his book "Brothers of the Sea". How can the sea bound a man forever? How can a man be married to the sea? The theme of being bound to the sea is ancient in literature. There is a whole genre of sea stories the most famous writer of which is Joseph Conrad. The sea in it's waves and tides exerts a strong pull on a man or woman. The struggles and caresses are etched on the face and on the soul. I have a copy of one of the latest book of the marine biologist Trevor Norton entitled "Underwater to get out of the Rain, A love affair with the Sea" Norton tells the tale of how he became a marine biologist. Like all of us in this business, it started when we were small children. Norton remembers living on the coast and dreaming of the shores beyond the horizon. As salts like us are always observant, he noted the pull and push of the tides and this is when he fel...

The University of the Philippines is now an exclusive school

I have a niece who passed the UP College Entrance Exam and now is a freshie at the College of Business Administration. She dropped by my faculty office to say hello on the first day of school, June 12. I was curious to find out how much her parents paid for fees and I was shocked. They paid about 20K pesos for this semester. I have attended the sometimes cum gravitas , ironic, flippant and comedic sessions of the University Council. In council the breakdown and schedule of the increased fees were shown as a Powerpoint presentation. The Chancellor (who chairs the sessions) explained how this increase is much needed given the parlous state of the university. True, the university's share of state subsidy has not increased and costs have increased. The results of this lack of funds is evident everywhere. The classrooms are overcrowded and there is a serious safety and security on campus. The university can't even pay for an effective security force to ensure students' safety. ...

Estado ng Agham sa Pilipinas (State of Science in the Philippines)

Palagiang pinaguusapan sa Pilipinas ang kakulangan ng edukasyon sa agham. Ang kakulangan at kahinaan ng "basic science education" at iniuuganay sa mahinang pagusod o pagunlad ng ekonomiya ng bansa. Ito ay nakakabit sa sitwasyon ng agham sa bansa. Sinasabi ni Propesor Flor Lacanilao, dating Chanselor ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas sa Kabisayaan at direktor ng Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center Aquaculture Department (SEAFDEC-AQD) sa Tigbauan, Iloilo na nakikita ang kakulangan ng ating agham dahil ang mga siyentipiko ay di nagpapalimbag ng resulta ng kanilang pananaliksik sa mga pandaigdigan na journals. At dahil dito nahuhuli ang komunidad ng mga siyentipiko sa Pilipinas sa pagunlad ng pandaigdigan na agham. Ang ugat ng kahinaang ito ay may politikal na aspeto. Ani ni Prop. Lacanilao, ang mga kasapi ng Pambansang Akademya ng Agham at Teknolohiya (National Academy of Science and Technology) ay di naman nagpapalimbag ng kanilang pananaliksik. Sa panananaw ni Lacanilao, sa...

Independence Day, Citizenship and additional thoughts on English

Like a Pope, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has made many of our sacred national holidays movable feasts. This reminds me when Paul VI decided to make Epiphany movable (the first Sunday after New Year's Day) right after Vatican II concluded. There was resistance since a lot of people especially children who had learned their third R calculated that they would lose a few days from the 12 days of Christmas. But if January 1 happened to be a Sunday then kids would get 2 extra days of Christmas. But why bother? Schools tend to restart their terms on the first Monday after January 1. Christmas evaporates soon afterward. Gloria made June 12 movable, something unthinkable in other countries. What if the United States of America made July 4 movable (following Gloria's lead) and by quirk of calendar fate, Independence day fell on July 1? Horrors for the Americans! That's Canada Day! England and the other Commonwealth realms celebrate a national day called the Queen's Bi...

Rising to the best Occasion

One of the things that happened in the course of doing science is that I began to understand more about me. Me as a male. This is because when I was studying a group of coral reef snails belonging to the genus Oliva or olive snails, I discovered interesting things about their penises. The penis is what allows a male to inseminate a female. A penis is a muscular organ, capable of contracting and relaxing. Some species have males with penis like structures, capable of penetrating the female, but since they aren't muscular they aren't penises. An example is the gonopodium of a male guppy. The male animal has to rise to the occasion, that is the penis must remain erect at least until sperm is delivered to the female. And this is no joking matter. Male olives spend a lot of energy in getting their proportionally large penises ready for a night of sex under the coral sand. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't find an erect Oliva penis in the field. I spend moonlit nights on r...

How can we attract young people to do science?

I attended a workshop-discussion sponsored by the NAST or National Academy of Science and Technology (not National Academy of Senile Teachers as one wag who is an academician herself jestingly told me!). The whole meeting was about our blog post title. The mantra that we have heard often is that science and technology translates to more investments, economic growth and ergo, jobs. But unlike the quick fixes that our government economic planners have, science requires massive investments whose returns will not be realized in a few years. In fact the returns may be seen in a decade or so. The problem is that while DOST (Department of Science and Technology) has invested heavily in scholarships, infrastructure development and laboratory equipment, our science seems not to have left the ground (by this I mean have generated new knowledge and technologies) save for a few notable exceptions such as the University of the Philippines institutes of physics and marine sciences. The measure of th...

On turning 40 on a Wednesday or Friday.

Whew! Turning 40 shouldn't be much of a fuss. However I don't think it is a sound idea to consider one's 40th birthday as just any other day as one blogger thinks his day is. Tradition places a special character on each birthday. The birthday person is actually King or Queen for that day. That's why birthday boys and girls receive presents and special prayers. Now 40th birthdays are even more special. After all it is really the midpoint of human life. Life expectancy now ranges from 75-80 years so 40 is really the midpoint. Indeed it is high summer of life. And what are summers made of? In higher latitudes, trees are in full leaf, sheltering birds and other small mammals. Some trees are in full bloom. At high summer, Autumn and winter seem far away. The sun is at its zenith. There is truth to the belief that upon reaching 40, people are at their peak. While mental faculties peak in one's thirties, the full impact of these faculties only become apparent when you re...