Natutunaw

Nagising ako mga alas-kwatro ng madaling araw dahil sa lakas ng tunog ng tagaktak ng tubig sa sahig. Dumadagundong ang pagbagsak ng isang tulo ng tubig kada ilang segundo. Bumangon ako at hinanap ang basahan para saluhin ang mga tulong nanggigising. Pagkatapos ay bumalik sa higaan at ipinagpatuloy ang paghihilik. Umakyat na naman pala lampas sa zero celsius ang temperatura.

An impotent love

Sino nagsabi nito?

If you love without evoking love in return – that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a beloved one, then your love is impotent – a misfortune.

Galing yan dito.

Modeling the mammalian circadian clock

Ang Mga Ungas

ni Alexander Martin Remollino

Walang nakababatid
kung sino sa inyong mga pinaslang sa Kampo Bagong Diwa
ang tunay na mga bataan ni Khadaffy Janjalani.
Wala,
liban sa mga dingding na sumaksi
sa walang-kadahilanang pagkakasadlak ng karamihan sa inyo
sa likod ng mga rehas.
Ngunit ay! ang tatak na "Abu Sayyaf"
ay mistulang lintang nakakapit sa inyo,
sinipsip at inubos ang inyong dugo --
sapagkat ano pa nga ba kundi dugo rin
ang karapatang daluyan ng dugo sa mga ugat?

Ay! para kong napapanood sa aking harapan
ang moro-moro ng mga Kastilang kongkistador,
para kong nababasang muli
ang salaysay ng mga "Krusada" sa Banal na Lupain:
mga yugto ng kasaysayan
kung kailan ang bansag na "Moro"
ay dili iba't isang hatol ng kamatayan,
kamatayan sa salang pagtangging paalipin
alinsunod sa mga katuruan ng Koran.

At sila pa'y nagtatakang yaong Bagong Buwan
ay lagi't laging isang sakdal-talim na karit?
Ang mga ungas,
hinahanap ang mga salarin
ay hindi marunong tumingin sa salamin.

Evolutionary Dynamics

Review of the course

The four-day course “Evolutionary Dynamics” organized by the Research School on Ecology and Evolution is a good introduction to theoretical/analytical techniques employed in the study of evolution. One of its aims is for the students to “obtain a basic understanding of different theories for slow and fast evolutionary dynamics.” Even for a beginner to the subject without extensive training in evolutionary biology, the discussion of the mathematical concepts provides a nice overview of the contemporary problems in the field.

The lectures first covered quantitative genetics and tackled one specific numerical problem using the open-source computing software R. As an incidental bonus for many participants, this gave them a practical exposure to the computing software. The presentations were mostly highly mathematical and 60% of the slides contain equations many of which are as long as the width of the slide. Nonetheless, the lecturers avoided lengthy derivations and focused mostly on their interpretation. If I were working directly in this field of research, I would find the equations very useful to develop models and make some interesting predictions.

The second set of lectures dealt with a detailed discussion of a relatively new evolutionary dynamics framework called Adaptive Dynamics. It was presented along with a compilation of classic and new reading materials about the subject including an entire issue of a scientific journal wherein argumentative articles on the topic were reported. A geometrical tool called phase invasibility plot was explained thoroughly with lots of examples and practice exercises. For computationally-inclined students like me, it was fun to do the calculations and use appropriate visualization software to display our results. The lectures and the exercises allowed me to understand how single genotype mutation can be elucidated analytically.

Overall, the four-day course successfully presented an exciting subfield of biology through a discussion of the mathematical and computational tools to understand it.

The course took place in February 2010.