Be a flexitarian and do your bit for the environment

Hi,



'Baa-d' news for all you meat eaters! I have a cutting of the Weekend Today dated 24th Nov with me now. I would like to share what I have gleaned from the article entitled "Eating Green" (as well as some of my own thoughts on the issue). It was authored by Carol Leong.

In this article she states Al Gore met up with President-elect Barack Obama to "begin an emergency rescue of human civilisation". Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reminded rich nations of their responsibility to ditch their "unsustainable way of life".

The world's finest brains are arguing that our unsustainable and excessive lifestyle is at the heart of climate change that is affecting the earth.

The head of the United Nations inter-governmental panel on climate change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, suggests that we may try to give up meat on at least one day a week and slowly increase it to more days if possible.

Dr Rajendra points out that if we halved our meat consumption, it would do more to reduce carbon dioxide emission than if we halved our car usage.

Raising animals for food causes deforestation, soil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity, social injustice that destabilise communities and increase spread of diseases. (Singaporeans ate 90 kg of meat and fish per person in 2007 — only 700g less than the Americans.)

I would like to list 6 reasons for eating more vegetables and fruits and less flesh of animals:

1. One-fifth of greenhouse gas emission come from livestock farming. Cows fart and belch methane which is 23 times more poisonous than carbon dioxide. Animal dung, when it decays, produces nitrous oxide which is 296 time more effective as a green house gas than CO2.
   
   Herbivorous animals like cows and sheep have more than one stomach. These animals depend on bacteria to digest cellulose for them. They do not produce cellulase enzymes to digest cellulose that forms the cell wall of all plant cells. The various stomachs contain lots of bacteria which live in a symbiotic relationship with the mammal. The end product of cellulose digestion will be glucose. Glucose will be absorbed into the blood of the cows and used for energy.
   
   Do you notice that many totally herbivorous animals like cows, buffaloes, hippos, and rhinos have large bodies which are built like tanks? This is related to the fact that they have to eat large amounts of plant material and quickly send the cropped plant material to the first two of their four stomachs. (In the wild, herbivorous animals are prey animals, always on the look out for predators and hence the haste in eating their food.) Most of these animals will then "cough up" or regurgitate the food back into their mouths and re-chew ('chew the cud') before sending it into the third stomach. Then the food has to be mixed with the resident bacteria to form glucose, which is fermented by yet other bacteria. The small and large intestines that follow the stomachs are very long as well.
   
   

   SIDE NOTE: All the herbivores I mention above are called 'even-toed ungulates'. You probably are saying to yourself, "Hey! wait a minute, what about horses and rabbits? — they eat grass too." Yes, and they have only one stomach like ours but their caecum (part of the large intestine) forms a large pouch where bacteria further break down the food. Elephants also use a system like this. Horse belong to the odd-toed group including tapirs and rhinos but all three types — horse, elephant and rabbit — independently 'discovered' the same digestive system. It may sound yucky but rabbits go one step further and eat (re-ingest) some of their own droppings for extra digestion.

   Digestion takes time and the process produces lots of gases, farts(through the anus) and belches(through the mouth).


2. Every year, 32 million acres of rainforest is destroyed to provide land for livestock farming.


3. Growing food for the livestock requires land. Grass for the cows, goats and sheep; corn, soya bean, seeds and other plant materials to feed the chicken, duck, pigs, etc. This requires 14 times more water than growing rice, wheat and other grains and fruits and vegetables for human consumption.


4. Fish farming returns only one pound of farmed salmon for 3 pounds of fish food given to the salmon, a return of only 33%. The tiniest of fish are harvested from the ocean, dried and fed to the farmed salmon. This is destroying the ocean ecosystem. (These tiny organisms are part of the natural food chain in the ocean ecosystem.)


5. Animals should not be treated cruelly even if they are raised by man for his consumption. They are also fellow inhabitants of this earth and they deserve to be treated humanely. Most animals are kept in extremely crowded environments with horrendous living conditions and little ventilation. They are injected with hormones to fatten them quickly for the table, some are force-fed and some are even pumped to their eye-balls with antibiotics to prevent them from falling ill. If you are interested to read more on this, click this link on factory farming.


6. In the case of mad cow disease, the herbivorous cows were fed with high protein animal body parts (of other cows from the abattoirs) ground and processed into pellets. This resulted in them getting the "prions"or denatured protein molecules in the brain. Prions will affect the other neighbouring protein molecules in the brain and it spreads just like an infection except that the disease is not due to any pathogenic organism, but due to misbehaving protein molecules. The result is formation of holes or lesions in the brain tissue, described as "spongiform" or looking like sponge, ie with numerous tiny holes.

Swine flu, measles, SARS and avian/bird flu (and AIDS, which I will write about in another post) are all diseases that spread from animals to man. These are new diseases (meaning they are actually animal diseases but some how the mutated pathogen had jumped species and is affecting Man now). Mutations in the pathogens give rise to new variants, or individuals who possess genetic material which allow them to infect a different species from their usual host.

Man has evolved over millions of years to combat and destroy pathogens that infect the human body. His immune system is primed to recognise and kill them and protect him from dying. When he is faced with pathogens that his white blood cells do not recognise as pathogens, then it will result in people dying in large numbers. This has happened many times in the history of mankind. (In 1918, the bird flu swept the whole world and killed more than 50 million.)

What we can do to be a GREEN EATER?

We can reduce on the meat component of our meals to slow down climate change.

Why not become a "flexitarian" i.e. a flexible vegetarian or semi-vegetarian? Lets return to our great-grandmother's healthy diet of treating meat like a very precious commodity.

We seem to have forgotten the real price of eating meat for all our three meals.


If you want to listen to songs on the environment by Peter Garrett of Midnight oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett

Cheers

My latest read

Hi,

The pictures you see above are those of successful businessmen, inventors, chefs and scientists who went against the grain and conventional believes.

Why am writing about them? I have just finished reading "The Medici Effect". I bought this book during a teachers' seminar some time in May or June this year at which the author was an invited speaker. However, due to my being busy with school work, I was only able to read a few chapters before the school holidays started in November.

I remember Mr Frans Johansson, the tall, young, handsome and animated author of the book. He was there in person sharing juicy bits of the book with us. He looks like the president-elect of America, Mr Barack Obama. He is of mixed parentage, his mother is African-American with some Cherokee blood and his father is Swedish.

You can view a Youtube video below (produced by Channel News Asia) to find out what the author himself said about his book. I hope you will jump up after that and go get hold of the book asap.




If you have watched this interview, then you know the reason for the book's title and what "The Intersection" is. It was Newton who said, "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants". 'The Medici Effect' has a different take on the idea that progress is built on the achievements of others. Johansson says that if we can in effect stand on multiple shoulders at once, we won't only see further but will see in entirely new ways (around corners, perhaps?). In other words, there is a multiplier effect from taking influences from many, unrelated areas.

By coincidence, today, 29 November, is the anniversary of the first demonstration of the phonograph, a brilliant innovation and precursor to vinyl records and CDs, by Edison. This was not just an improvement on a previous invention (as his famous light bulb was) but something totally new. The public was astounded. A large part of this achievement was due to the world's first industrial research lab that Edison set up. Edison drew upon experts in many fields to extend the range of his own potential.

The following is a list of interesting people, some of whom are pictured above, and their innovations and inventions mentioned in "The Medici Effect".
See if you can match the names with their contributions to society:

1. Anders Håkan Lans
2. Richard Branson
3. Luis Alvarez
4. Richard Garfield
5. Charles Darwin
6. Deepak Chopra
7. Richard Dawkins
8. Marcus Samuelson
9. Linus Torvalds


A) Swedish inventor of numerous computer and telecommunication systems

B) Well known for the selfish gene theory to explain human and cultural traits

C) Operated a well known restaurant that is the zenith of innovation

D) Wrote the controversial book called "Origin of species"

E) Game designer who created the collectible card game called "Magic"

F) Geologist who expounded the most accepted theory of what killed off the dinosaurs

G) Crazy man who has great fun in founding new and highly successful businesses, eg Virgin Blue airlines, Virgin Music, space tourism etc

H) One of the greatest of leaders in mind-body medicine

I) Developed the concept of open source/free operating system "Linux"


You can google the names I have given above and match them with their contributions listed A to I.

OR

You can get a copy of the book from the National Library and read it to find the secret of how these people turned ideas into path-breaking innovations, business plans and inventions.

The first person to post the correct answers in the comments box can come to see me in school to receive a small token of reward.

Happy reading,
Cheers

Grow your own diesel cheaply and reduce green house gas at the same time

JOil GM Mr Hong with a Jatropha plant, ST 26 Nov 2008

Hi,

I have read about a plant called Jatropha, found as a weed, that some natives of India, Africa and America have been using like a candle. The seeds of this plant are so rich in good quality oil that they just light it up like a candle. It does not even have to be crushed to extract and concentrate the oils before using it with a wick to light up the humble homes of these indigenous people.

Jatropha has been studied by Indian scientists for a long time. Now, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (Singapore) has formed a joint venture with Tata Chemicals (India) to grow these plants on a commercial scale.

The new firm, called JOil, will produce new varieties of these plants either by genetic engineering or by selective breeding (The Straits Times article dated 26 Nov 2008 does not say which) to produce plants that have the "advantage of being able to customise planting materials to suit different regions and environments". (emphasis mine)

In the past, palm, soya and other edible oils were used to make biodiesel for diesel cars. Why choose jatropha now? I give 7 reasons below:

1- Jatropha is a very hardy and tough plant which is resistant to pests. It can be grown in scrubland and it needs little attention and irrigation. It is able to grow in dry and land prone to droughts.

2- Because it grows on wasteland or borderline arable land, it addresses the criticism that diversion of arable land that can be used to grow edible oils are being used to grow biofuels. This causes the price of soya beans, corn, palm oil etc to increase causing hardship to the masses. In parts of India, it is grown along the train tracks.

3- Jatropha can be intercropped with other cash crops. Therefore, in more fertile and valuable land, it does not take away land from food crops and is more ecological balanced. Intercropping in general simulates natural biodiversity so that creatures that predate on pests remove the need for toxic pesticides.

4- The plant is high-yielding, 40% of the seed is oil and the oil can be easily processed cheaply into high quality standard biodiesel.

5- The residue after crushing to extract the oil can be used as fuel to power electricity plants.

6- Since Jatropha is pan-tropical (originally from Central America and now widespread in India and Africa), it can be developed into a cash crop in these regions when the plant is ready to be grown on a commercial scale. At present it is undomesticated and the quality and yield is variable. It will provide employment to many people in these countries if they can be taught to grow these domesticated plants on large scales.

7- Biodiesel can become a renewable and sustainable energy source (photosynthesis changes light energy into chemical energy and store it in the form of oils.) As the science is advancing rapidly, the potential to revolutionise biodiesel production is imminent. We will not have to depend on fossil fuels for our diesel needs.

8- The carbon release into the atmosphere from burning biofuels was extracted from the air by the biofuel crops. This forms a virtuous circle as these crops also take up the CO2 once again.

A digression: When I travelled in Australia in the 1980s I was shocked to see that petrol was cheaper than milk. I cannot fathom how something like fossil fuel which took millions of years to form with the aid of geological forces, a limited resource, in imminent danger of running out at the rate we are guzzling it down with abandon, can be cheaper than milk which can be produced within 24 hours, is a renewable resource and limited only by the amount of grass we choose to grow to meet the demand ( unlike petroleum, which ceased being formed underground aeons ago...).

Potential affordable renewable energy is in the making, one of the diversity of sources (like solar, wind, etc.) that we all need right now to replace fossil fuels.

Cheers

My favourite band

Hi,

Of course I grew up with Tamil music only in my younger days as my parents, immigrants from Tamil Nadu, only speak Tamil at home. My father picked up Malay and a smattering of English later on in life. My mother, the most intelligent and patient of women, is illiterate. She taught me and my children Tamil in the only way she knows, orally. (My children did well in Tamil in school as she taught them the unadulterated classical Tamil which is seldom spoken in Singapore.)

Many of the songs I heard on the Tamil radio in those days were most meaningful. The values they expounded will always remain with me.

However, I would like to introduce you to "Midnight Oil", an Australian band. It has stayed my favourite ever since my husband introduced it to me. Bear with me if you find them so 1970s and 1980s.

While the songs are old (the band broke up in 2002) they are not dated. There are contemporary references that are historical and parochial (meaningful only to Australians) now, but the messages are if anything even more valid today. Global warming back then was something that existed only in the minds of a few mad scientists and radicals.

An important aside: Peter Garrett, formerly the band's lead singer, is the present Environment Minister in the Australian government. Even in his performing days, he was active in conservation and even sat on the Board of Greenpeace. Kudos to him for his perseverance in pointing to the inconvenient truth of the environmental degradation in our midst and his ability to move the masses in the most non-threatening manner, that is, with music.

You would feel different about 'not seeing the forest for the trees' after watching and listening to the few music videos I have selected below from the Youtube.

1. Short Memory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgukduYJZ44

Man has a propensity to forget his past, his history. He has a short memory, always forgetting the sufferings of the violent colonisation by the Belgians in Congo, the French and English in North America, the Spanish in Latin America, French in Indochina, British in India, everyone in Africa, especially the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Short memory will cause us to have the history of suffering repeat itself again and again.

2. "One country" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTpGgItl4hI

...planet, One planet, One...

I like to extend the idea in this song to the whole world. The onus is on us all to open our eyes to what is happening around us. Environmental events in one country will sooner or later affect us too. We are not living in cocoons. One ocean, one seabed, one landmass sitting on one placemat, all it takes is one atomic bomb to destroy everyone and we are defenceless. We have to act together and not sit on the fence like a lot of us are doing.

3. "Beds are burning" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10BbpGKLXqk&feature=related
(with lyrics)
This song is about our treatment of minorities like the indigenous Australians - saying that we are looking the other way, are in a state denial that we took their land away. The metaphor seems to combine the one about 'playing the violin while Rome burns' with being unable to' sleep straight in our beds'. It's about collective guilt and reconciliation.

BTW, the Kintore East that the song mentions is a community of the last nomadic Aboriginals to make contact with Whites.

4. "River runs red" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EyQkc2w5E4
Deforestation is poisoning the sky. Carbon dioxide, which is a green house gas, is increasing in the atmosphere at a ever increasing rates. Air pollution and water pollution is leaving behind an earth so degraded that it is not fair to our descendants. Instead of sustainable practises, businesses are driven by profits margins only. The rain water is polluted by soot and is falling as black rain, and the land is dry turning to dust, the river is so polluted that it flows red, as though the land is bleeding. The singer feels as though there is a curse on us, he feels trapped and wants to tell the truth to all of us.

Unfortunately, it is depressingly easy to find pictures of rivers that are actually red

5. "Blue sky mine" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByRbiyxlJJk&feature=related

This song reminds me about the Japanese anime "Mononoke" that we saw in the Library on 4th November 2008. The environmental degradation caused by mining companies in their pursuit of profits is real but won't be fixed by mythical creatures - except metaphorically if we can make peace with the Earth.

I am also reminded of a book by Jared Diamond - no, not 'Guns Germs and Steel' - I am thinking of 'Collapse', which is mostly about the passing of ancient civilisations. But it begins with the bad effects of mining in the otherwise pristine wilderness of present-day Montana in the United States. Are we going the way of the ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and Easter Island civilisations that collapsed when they exhausted all their natural resources?

6. "The Power and the Passion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dukmp4v9ZiU&feature=related
We have to strive to know the truth, not just stuff ourselves with so much junk that is thrown at us. We need to be aware and take responsibility for our actions and not just pursue the "five Cs" (Cash, Car, Condominium, Country club and Credit card).

It also reminds me of a writer from the 60s, Marshall McLuhan, who coined the phrase, "The Medium is the Message". The message behind most advertising is to consume to excess and not worry about tomorrow.

7. "Antarctica" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2SpVVrfIFs
Human beings are the storm, the settlers with a smile on their faces when they see the clean waters and ice mountains of Antarctica. They are going there with their hunting guns, and snow ploughs to destroy the clean air that allows your skin to breathe. We have to leave Antarctica alone to prevent the downhill slide of the now pristine environment there. Fortunately, it is protected by international treaty - but for how long? And will a treaty protect that continent from pollution and global warming?

8. "Read about it" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joto7Bqnf5o
Be 'quisitive, Best Beloveds... (will explain another time ;-) ) Read and be informed about your environment. Knowledge is power, and knowledge of what is happening in your environment will help you to make informed choices.

Enjoy!

If you could decipher the lyrics for the songs listed above, please share them with the other bloggers by posting them in the comments box. (I used to have the lyrics typed out on some of the songs at one time, which I used to share with some of my students, but they are no where to be found now.)

The first person to post me the lyrics for all 8 songs listed above can come to see me in school for a small reward.

Cheers

The Golden Ratio or Fibonacci numbers and Nature

Hi,
As promised (see my post on fractals), today I will write about the Golden Ratio.

Leonardo Fibonacci, an Italian born in around the year 1170, discovered a fascinating sequence of numbers, which now bears his name. He 'discovered' - rather than invented - the Fibonacci sequence in Morocco, where his father traded with Arab traders.

A slight digression, 'Fibonacci' is not his real name but a portmanteau word: "bonacci" means a good, simple person, or a simpleton. "Fi" comes from filius, latin for 'son'; hence Fibonacci means "son of a simpleton" (or more kindly, "son of a good man").

The Fibonacci sequence is found all over the place. But first, to explain what it is, a little maths is needed.

The numeric sequence begins: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 . . . Full marks to anyone who can see the pattern. It is a great party trick, by the way, to appear to be able to memorise an apparently random series of digits - 1123581321345589 etc. You can see this is the same as the sequence above but without commas or spaces, the uninitiated would not realise this. But the memory trick is possible due to a simple rule: start with the number 1, add it to the preceding number to make the next number, take that and repeat. Zero comes before 1, so the second number is also 1. Then, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, and so on ad infinitum (as Jonathan Swift put it regarding fleas).

The mathematics can get pretty heavy...

The Fibonacci numbers are more than just a party trick. Much more. If each number is divided by the next number (bear with me here), the set of results will converge on a constant value. Like so: 1, 0.5, 0.666..., 0.6, 0.615 (approximately), 0.619, 0.6176, 0.618181818..., 0.617977528, . . . To cut to the chase, the final value (again, approximately) is: 0.6180339887.



Now to address its relevance, this number, known as the Golden Ratio, is very important in nature. Converted to an angle (as a proportion of one - =360 degrees - full turn), it equals 137.507764 degrees. It turns (get it?) out that plants often use this angle to arrange leaves around the stem. This just happens to minimise the shading of leaves lower down the stem by leaves higher up so each leaf gets as much sunlight as possible (more than with other arrangements anyway).

Visually, the series typically appears as a spiral. Here’s an aloe plant (courtesy of Genista’s photostream):

Aloe:


Broccoli:

What you notice especially with this broccoli are spirals in both directions - clockwise and anti-clockwise. Usually, the number of spirals in each direction will not be the same; typically in many plants you can count 8 spiral arms in one direction and 5 in the other - 5 and 8 are Fibonacci numbers. Coincidence, not. The broccoli is not just trying to look pretty, however. Each point is a little flower, or floret. This arrangement, determined by the Golden Ratio, allows the greatest number of florets to be packed into the whole flower head. Sunflowers, more famously, use the same principal.


The image below illustrates the classic problem Fibonacci himself used. Taking an idealised situation, a new-born pair of rabbits, one male and one female, mate at the age of one month and so on the 2nd month produce another pair of rabbits. Suppose that these rabbits never die and the females always produces one new pair every month from the second month onwards.
then the number of pairs of rabbits in the field at the start of each month is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ...



This and the broccoli come from a website all about Fibonacci numbers. Of the sites I have seen so far, this is the most comprehensive.

On Youtube there are several videos worth watching:

Number sequences

This video is on odd number sequence and square sequence. Fibonacci wrote a book on these numbers in the year 1225. Incidentally, the Arabs who introduced him to the whole topic of what we call now Fibonacci numbers, learnt about it in turn from Indian scholars who discovered it through poetry, of all things. So never write off any field of knowledge as "useless", right?

Not even history. As a further historical aside, Fibonacci's greatest impact was to introduce Arabic numerals to Europe (including that non-number, zero - ṣifr in Arabic, syber , sūnya in Sanskrit) . Before then, Europeans used Roman numerals, as in: I II III IV V VI VII IX X (that's counting one to ten). This made doing sums horrendously difficult but zero or '0' meant it was not necessary to invent a new symbol for every power of ten: I X C M became 1 10 100 1000.

But I digress.

This Youtube video is on the Fibonacci numbers, 1, 1, 2, 5, 8, 13, 21....
Leonardo Fibonacci in the year 1225 explained everything in sentences and paragraphs. The reason is because at that time the equal sign (=) was not invented yet!

More videos from Youtube:

Maths inc in economics, sciences and Fibonacci in 3 parts

This video is on maths and Fibonacci numbers in all kind of natural occurrences and living things, even the structure of the galaxies and sea shells.

Golden Rectangle

This video is on the intriguing golden rectangle which gives rise to the golden curve or spiral found in many natural structures around us.

Continued fraction that tend towards Phi or 1.618, the golden ratio.

More ways of arriving at Phi, or the golden ratio, 1.6180339887 (which is simply the inverse of 0.6180339887).



Cheers

Have a nice day.

foot note:
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ’em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.
- Jonathan Swift

Go back

Global warming is already a tragedy for these people

Hi,

I was reading in the Straits Times of 11 November 2008 that the new President of Maldives, Mr Mohamed Nasheed, is looking around the world for a place for his people to migrate to as his country is fast going underwater.

Click here to read more about the Maldives

Many of you know that global warming is happening but we have yet to feel its full impact. The people of Maldives, a group of small islands in the Indian Ocean, are powerless against the march of the sea. The 300,000 odd islanders live on land with is just about 1.5m above sea level. This means that at high tide, the area of the country would shrink considerably.

Another country that many of you would remember me talk about that is facing the same fate is Tuvalu. This country also consists of many small islands, close to Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean. Most of the country is already underwater. Only some old folks are still living on the islands, as all the youth and young adults have abandoned their country. At high tide, most of the roads will be underwater. I saw a National Geographic documentary on this tragic occurrence. Most of the population have already migrated to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. They are called environmental refugees. Even small rises in sea level would inundate large areas of their country. They have no more land to grow crops, the roads are underwater. the waves eat away at the coast line. (Their country exists in cyber-space as the domain .tv)

Delta of the Ganges River
(Source: Wikipedia)

This brings to my mind another documentary I saw late one evening on TV. It was on Bangladesh. As you would know, the great Ganges-Brahmaputra flows through this country. Most of the land consists of low lying delta in the form of mud-flats. The whole episode was about how water level keeps on rising in the villages. There was an interview with a teacher who pointed to some steps leading to her classrooms. She said that each year the water level has been rising by the height of one step. The school's field was already totally immersed. The students come to school by boat in the last 2 years! They used to walk or cycle to school before.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Since most of the arable land was already underwater, the villagers were living very violent lives in the village documented. The stronger ones were grabbing land from the weaker ones. One villager pointed towards a wide expanse of water in the distance and said that his house used to be there. He said that one day a new river just cascaded down from mountains and washed away all the houses in its way. Students, I am sure you would remember what we saw in the movie "The Inconvenient Truth", by Al Gore that we saw on 4th November. Mr Gore explained how melting of ice caps would cause flooding in the low lying areas. Well the ice on Himalayas is melting fast, forming so much liquid water that new tributaries and rivers were created overnight and Bangladesh happens to be where it has to flow through to reach the sea.

If you want to listen to songs on the environment by Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, click on the link below:

http://asal-sakti.blogspot.com/search/label/Peter%20Garrett



Cheers,
Have a good day.

Lesson 1: Mutation

Hi,

On Nov 10, I happened to chance upon something in the Straits Times that I wanted to talk to you about.

There was a photograph of a cute baby, all of 2 weeks, born in China who has 8 toes on each foot!His hands looked normal with 5 fingers each.

This is the result of a mutation. His parents are normal, with 5 digits in each limb.

Mutations are caused by mutagens or carcinogens found in the environment, radiation from the sky (e.g. cosmic rays, X-rays, gamma rays, even UV light), natural radioactivity from minerals within the Earth, and a multitude of chemicals. Gamma rays are used nowadays to irradiate grains and seeds before storage to kill all fungi and bacteria on the surface of these seeds.

A mutation occurs when one or more genes (on the DNA) get changed during meiosis. The resulting gamete if fertilized, will develop into an offspring which may show such effects as polydactyly (too many fingers or toes). But many will have no visible effect.

Most of us have tiny changes in us which are called genetic variations. These are mostly not visible and inconsequential and if the changes are not deleterious, we go through life not knowing that we are different, physically and physiologically, that is.

Normal alimentary canal
(Source: www.scienceaid.co.uk)

I have read about people who are middle-aged before they found out that they have 4 kidneys and 4 ureters. It was only discovered when they had a radioactive dye injected into them to trace the path of discharge of urine from the kidneys via the urinary bladder.

Another incident involved a person who did not know that he had laterally-inverted visceral organs. This means that his internal organs were on opposite sides from nearly all people. His stomach was on his right, the appendix on his left, etc...

Oh, I forgot about his heart being tilted to his right instead of his left...

Students, please remember what I told you about the diagrams in text books? They are always drawn laterally inverted. You have to imagine that you are a doctor looking
at a patient lying on a operating table. The textbook diagrams always show organs as viewed by a doctor.

Cheers,
Have a good day.

Singapore Carnival-Clean and Green

Hi,


Here are a couple of pictures taken on 5th Nov 2008 when Mrs Ng-tee, Mdm Preetha and myself and some of you visited Singapore Carnival-Clean and Green at Suntec City.










the rest of the pictures can be viewed at this link.

Cheers and
Have a nice day.

Bread and yoghurt making by Sec 3 pupils

Hi,

Sec 3E1, 3E2 and 3N1,2,4 pupils enjoyed themselves thoroughly during the Sec 3 bridging programme at the end of the term. Here are some photos of some of them at bread and yoghurt making in the Kitchen 2.
Thanks to Ms Zai, Mdm Sri and Ms Haymini, we were able to use the kitchen facilities and make ourselves some hot fragrant bread and yoghurt. Mrs Tan was also at hand to help me all the time.

The rest of the pictures can be seen by clicking at
Bread and yoghurt making

Cheers
Have a nice day

Fractals

Hi,

A computer-generated 'fern'

I have always been fascinated by the concept of fractals and golden ratios. (I will cover the Golden Ratio another time.) I think anybody who looks at living things and the physical landscape of nature cannot help but wonder how everything is repeated again and again ad infinitum.

Self similarity: if the whole frond is a single leaf, each leaflet, each sub-leaflet and sub-sub-leaflet is a repeat of the whole

It is only a matter of scale really. At each level of increasing detail, it always look the same. Mathematicians call this property 'self similarity', and it is a property shared by many living and non-living things in nature: from ferns to forests, coastlines to pine cones, galaxies to gastropods, particles of sand to mountains...

I am attaching a few websites you may want to look at and appreciate what I mean.

A documentary on fractal concepts that I would like to share with you is presented by Arthur C. Clarke, one of my favorite science-fiction authors (e.g 2001: A Space Odyssey. BTW, he also invented the non-fiction concept of geo-stationary satellites that enabled modern telecommunications). The title of his film is "Fractals, the Colours of Infinity".

In this he explains the Mandelbrot Set. It is one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries of mathematics. It is mind-bending to think that the Mandelbrot Set is a closed shape - like a circle or square is closed - but unlike most familiar shapes, its edge has an infinite length. In other words, if you started at one point and began to trace around its edge, you would never finish.

I've placed a sample Set at right. This small image does not do justice to the intricacies and beauty of the form, so click on it to see it in all its hi-res glory.

The documentary is also available in 6 parts on Youtube, which may be easier chunks to view.

Youtube 1st part
2nd part
3rd part
4th part
5th part
6th part

Enjoy!

The next question is: why does nature use fractals? The answer has something to do with the related topic of golden ratios, which will have to wait for another posting here.

Cheers,
Have a nice day.

Everyone who is on the same wavelength with me on this is my soul mate.