Mga malalaking tuklas sa agham sa taong 2011

Pakinggan ang 31-minutong podcast ng Science magazine kung saan binanggit ang mga malalaking tuklas sa agham at teknolohiya sa taong 2011. Ang mga tinatawag na "Breakthroughs of the Year, 2011" ay maaari ding makita dito at nakalista sa baba kalakip ang ilang maiikling paliwanag. Nawa'y maging makabuluhan ang mga tuklas na ito sa pagpapaunlad ng buhay ng sangkatauhan sa susunod at mga susunod pang taon.

1. HIV Treatment as Prevention

In May of this year, the 052 clinical trial conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) reported that antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) reduced the risk of heterosexual transmission by 96%.


2. Asteroid Dust Solves Color Conundrum

In the 26 August 2011 Science, six Reports, plus related news and commentary, discuss the mineralogy, petrography, chemistry, and noble gas and oxygen-isotope compositions of the Itokawa particles, which provide insights into the evolution of the solar system.


3. Archaic Humans' DNA Lives On

In September 2011, two papers suggested that early Homo sapiens interbred with now-extinct forms of humans in Africa, so that some living Africans carry genes from archaic people, just as all Europeans and Asians recently have been shown to do. The new data imply that there were at least three fruitful encounters between H. sapiens and archaic species.

Basahin ang iba pang breakthrough sa taong 2011

Help Northern Mindanao

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Swapang at makasarili nga ba ang daga?

(Hango sa news article: Rats free each other from cages; Altruistic acts raise questions about whether the rodents feel empathy na sinulat ni Virginia Gewin, December 8, 2011.)

Ang mga daga, madalas mabansagang swapang at makasarili, ay maaaring hindi kasingsama ng kontrabidang imaheng minsan ipinipinta sa kanila. Sa isang bagong lathalang papel sa Science [1], ipinakita na ang mga hayop na ito ay tumutulong na palayain ang mga nakakulong na ibang daga -- kahit pa wala silang makuhang ganansya dito.

Dumadami ang mga pananaliksik na nagpapakitang ang mga hayop ay nakikinig din sa emosyon ng ibang kaparehang hayop. Subali't hindi malinaw noon kung ang mga daga nga ba ay kayang lampasan ang sarili nitong paghihirap para lang matulungan ang ibang daga.

Panoorin ang bidyo clip sa baba o ipagpatuloy ang pagbabasa...



Tingin ni Peggy Mason, isang neurobiologist sa University of Chicago, Illinois at siyang pangunahing manunulat ng nasabing papel, ay malaking hakbang ito para masagot ang katanungan. “This finding is the big kahuna — evidence that empathy motivates one individual to help another,” sabi nya. (Ang finding na ito ay isang patunay na natutulak ng empathy ang isang indibidwal para tulungan ang iba.)

Matapos ang dalawang linggong pagpapakilala, ilang pares ng daga ay inilagay sa isang arena. Ang isa ay nakakulong sa isang restrainer sa gitna, samantalang ang pangalawa ay malayang nakakagalaw sa paligid nito. Sa ikaanim o ikapitong araw, on average, natutunan ng malayang daga kung paano palayain ang nakakulong na daga. Madalang na binubuksan ng malayang daga ang kulungan kung walang daga sa loob o di kaya'y laruang daga lamang ang nasa loob nito.

Ipagpatuloy ang pagbabasa (Ingles).

Reference
[1] Bartal, I. B.-A., Decety, J. & Mason, P. Science 334, 1427–1430 (2011), Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats.

Ang relasyon ng mababang antas sa mas mataas na antas ng sistema

Matagal-tagal na rin akong hindi nakapagblog kaya dadagdagan ko ng isang post na kinopya ko lang sa isang lumang libro ni Brian C. Goodwin na pinamagatang Temporal organization in cells (1963). Ito ay isang paragraph tungkol sa relasyon ng mas mababang antas ng organisasyon ng matter sa mas mataas na antas (lower-order systems versus higher-order systems). Sa pagkakaintindi ko, simple lang ang gusto nyang sabihin, na hindi kinakailangang mas kumplikado ang description ng mas mataas na antas sa description ng mas mababang antas. Sabi nya sa pahina 15:

The possibility that lower-order (shorter relaxation time) variables can be eliminated from the equations of motion of higher-order systems, means that the dynamic description of higher-order systems need not be more complex than that of lower-order systems. Thus there is no necessary relation between the position of a system in a temporal ordering of dynamic activities and its complexity. A biophysical system can and very often does have a much more complicated mathematical description than a population of randomly-mating organisms, regarded as an evolving gene pool.

Nagbigay siya ng ilang halimbawa:

Even more dramatic is the fact that certain epigenetic processes, such as the spiral growth of seeds in the cone of a conifer, can be described in terms of a few initial conditions and a law of growth which follows the Fibonacci number series (Thompson 1959); whereas the metabolic activities taking place in the same pine cone would require a very complex set of equations to adequately describe their dynamics. Again, the growth of a coral reef could undoubtedly be described in much simpler terms than the metabolic, epigenetic, or genetic processes of the organisms whose skeletons constitute the substance of the coral. Here we have clearly a very great difference in relaxation times, since the reef takes many decades to grow appreciably, while the coral polyps have a generation time of a few months.

Dagdag pa nya:

Therefore the "nesting" properties of systems defined according to relaxation times, whereby one system contains all lower-order systems, carries no implications with regard to the complexity of behaviour which is found in one system compared with another.

Occupy Wall Street!

DKK - Saludsod ni Ading

Hindi nakikinabang ang Pilipinas sa kasalukuyang pagmimina

Ayon sa DENR, sa P144,400 M na kabuuang kita ng mga kompanya ng mina noong 2010 P13.7 M (0.0095%) lang ang buwis na nakolekta ng gobyerno.

Ang pulitika ng pananakop ng Estados Unidos

Description (from the youtube page)
FOR A FREE PUBLIC/GROUP/COMMUNITY SCREENING OF POLITICS OF U.S. OCCUPATION, PLEASE EMAIL US AT politics.of.us.occupation@gmail.com

POLITICS OF U.S. OCCUPATION (AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION- MFA THESIS FILM PROJECT)
I wrote, directed, shot and edited the documentary, Politics of U.S. Occupation, which features Linguistics Professor Noam Chomsky of Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Women's Studies Professor Neferti Tadiar of Barnard College (New York), Asian American Studies Professor Nerissa Balce of Stony Brook University (New York) and Political Science Professor Kenneth Bauzon of St. Joseph's College (New York) who analyze the 1899 Philippine-American War in order to rediscover its historical similarities to the so-called post-9/11 War on Terror. My MFA thesis adviser at American University School of Communication was Professor Russell Williams, who won the Academy Award for Best Sound in Glory (1989) and Dances with Wolves (1990).

Electric guitar music was performed by Rogel Maprangala

SYNOPSIS
The purpose of the half-hour documentary, Politics of U.S. Occupation, was to challenge the historical awareness of the audience as it explores the following:

Firstly, it argues the idea that the Philippine-American war of 1899 (and not World War II) is the foundation of Philippine-U.S. relations. The film also visually shows footage of World War II combat and deaths that were just as traumatic as the images of the Philippine American war.

Secondly, it describes the idea that the Philippine-American war of 1899 was characterized by systematic use of torture (despite official U.S. denials). One of the torture techniques used in the Philippines was the "water cure" - better known now as "water boarding."

Thirdly, it explains the idea that the brutality of the Philippine-American war was not much different from the brutality of the U.S. conquest of its indigenous population- known as the Indian Wars. We also learn that this turn of the century repression of Catholic and Muslim resistance fighters in the Philippines became the template used by the U.S. in its armed interventions in Latin America and the Middle East.

Lastly, it suggests the feminist idea that there is often an interconnectedness between the violence within the United States and U.S. violence overseas as exemplified in the migration of the Indian wars atrocities (e.g. 1890 Wounded Knee massacre) and the Philippine-American war abuses (e.g. 1906 Bud Dajo massacre) to the post-9/11 Iraq War atrocities.

Walang natira

Brain drain continues under Noynoy Aquino administration; No industrialization plan to provide jobs for S&T workers


Press Statement
July 24, 2011

On the eve of his second State of the Nation Address (SONA), progressive scientists led by AGHAM reminded President Benigno Aquino III that the massive brain drain phenomenon continues under his administration.

Even under the new administration, many science and technology (S&T) professionals still find it hard to secure employment suitable to their skills and expertise. The Department of Science and technology (DOST) was able to produce around 1,437 scholar graduates at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, but we have yet to hear of any remarkable development stating where they have all ended up. It's highly unlikely that many of them have been able to secure jobs in the scientific research arena given that the industry is very small and almost non-existent in the Philippines. For the last decade, the number of emigrating science workers has ballooned to around two and a half times compared to the figure 11 years ago.

There remains widespread discontent and frustration in the local science and research community over the dismal state of our country's science research and development. A year after he assumed the Presidency, Aquino has no plan to develop the economy and establish national industries. His economic platform remains much like that of his predecessors: export-oriented, and heavily reliant on imports.

The Philippines remains an exporter of cheap raw materials but imports expensive finished products. The effect of such economic policy is the slow if at all existent development of domestic industries. We can cite the absence of domestic production of even the simplest everyday goods. In the meantime, the government continues to adhere to a program of mass export of our highly talented human resources which should be tapped instead for domestic needs.

Last July, the DOST announced that it wants to make internet and communications technology as an enabling tool to help expand and sustain the burgeoning business process outsourcing industry. DOST Secretary Mario G. Montejo has said that the DOST has the mandate and the knowledge resources to raise the number of business process
outsourcing (BPO) workforce "in a significant way."

This emphasis of the government’s S&T agency on the BPO industry has only shown the current mindset of the government with regard to science and technology. Instead of strengthening local production of tools and machineries for agriculture and other equally important aspects of the economy, the Aquino government merely continues the
tradition of previous administrations by toeing the line of foreign big business and international lending institutions: do away with ambitions of building strong domestic industries and just serve foreign monopolies with cheap English-speaking workforce.

The science and technology community in the Philippines calls on President Aquino to implement comprehensive reforms involving national industrialization. It should prioritize a genuine and thorough-going agrarian reform program to ensure food security and self-sufficiency. By distributing and developing the country's agricultural lands for domestic food production, the foundations of national industrial development can be more firmly built. Furthermore, it should provide the necessary support and infrastructure to harness the capacity of world class local scientists to address local problems and contribute to domestic industrialization.

We call on all well-meaning scientists, engineers, and other S&T professionals to join in AGHAM's advocacies, including putting pressure on the current administration to put in place an industrial environment where we can practice our technical knowledge and skills
to help propel our country away from pre-industrial and agrarian state that it is in.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/8735/ph-no-place-for-st-workers

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/9255/brain-drain-continues-under-pnoy...
Reference:
Giovanni Tapang, PhD - National Chairperson, AGHAM
Contact details:
0927 5736714

Physics, Biology, and our growing understanding of society

PROMETHEUS BOUND, The Manila Times

Physics, Biology, and our growing understanding of society
By Kim Gargar

(Dr. Tapang’s colleague Kim Gargar contributed today’s column.)

MANY scientists have realized that the distinction between biology and physics is artificial; that if we are to completely understand living things, we must first accept that each of them are composed of matter wherein various forms of transformation of energy and matter occur within and with their surroundings. While “mainstream” physicists keep themselves busy either with elucidating how fundamental particles work or with finding ways to manipulate inanimate condensed-matter for the development of new materials, an increasing number of their colleagues are helping biologists answer diverse biological questions piece by piece, and for various goals.

The current trend in explaining biological phenomena is to rely on a type of reasoning attributed to Charles Darwin. As stated in the book by Russian Marxist philosopher Viktor Grigoryevich Afanasyev Dialectical Materialism, Darwin “proved that the complex, higher organisms had been formed from the simple, lower ones through the action of the laws of natural selection inherent in nature itself. He also showed that man was a product of nature, a result of the prolonged evolution of living matter.” Add to this the fact that such evolution of matter is ever continuing and actually gave rise to human societies. This is traditionally not touched upon in biology.

Physicists have already unified matter and energy, as embodied in simple form by the famous equation E=mc2. “The theory has been worked on for so long that remaining problems are very subtle and deeply embedded,” said biophysicist Ned Wingreen.

The physics of atoms and of molecules have also been at a certain level of unification as shown by tools currently used by theoretical chemists and condensed-matter physicists, again with many subtleties still left to be uncovered. Darwin and other evolutionary biologists’ successful attempts at explaining in a similarly unifying manner the diversity of biological species has led biology to a level almost at par with how less-evolved forms of matter being studied in physics and chemistry are described. But even more questions on details continue to keep biologists busy.

The difficult task of explaining biology can be approached systematically. The general flow of the evolution of species is from the sea to land. To understand species which evolved inland, there’s the temptation to look at simpler, less evolved marine species for hints. Is it valid to make conclusions about, say, insects based on findings about, say, planktons? Some biologists would say that it depends on the specific question being raised. But can insights be gained into more evolved species by looking at less evolved ones? Many biologists would reply yes. In fact, this has been the trend in many areas of biology: to learn from simpler, so-called “model organisms” to understand phenomena in more complex species. Many medical practices are actually borne out of such trends; human diseases have been studied for the past few decades using lower species of mammals such as primates and rodents.

It seems that there is no other way to approach biological problems than to resort to modeling methodologies. This is where physicists’ training in using models to explain various physical phenomena become handy. Modeling does not necessarily require the mathematization of the problem, although mathematics have an important role in making more precise conclusions. The very fresh field in science called systems biology, for instance, makes use of modeling methods. Organisms are stripped down to the cellular level and their inner workings in order to know how they work.

We are reminded of what the people of China did, as told in the book Silage Choppers and Snake Spirits, in one of their attempts to develop their dairy industry during the 1960s. They bought things from abroad and looked at their parts and how they were built. The Chinese found it more fruitful to develop their own machinery by improving on foreign technology than to start from scratch or to duplicate them.

The more evolved matter is, the more subtle questions there are. If society is considered as the form in the historical development of matter higher than that of organisms, then expect the task of explaining society as a more complicated one. This is a tricky science area where personal biases come into play.

Scientists are part of society — the system they seek to understand. Society itself is not a homogenous mix of individuals; it’s characterized by social classes where members of each class have different natures and interests from those in other classes. Scientists belong to one such social class, the petty bourgeois class if we may use the term; and if they don’t take this fact consciously into their theories of society, then such theories are bound to fail in the long run.

Mr. Kim Gargar, a long time active member of AGHAM, has earned his MS in Physics in UP Diliman and is now finishing his PhD in chronobiology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Galit Na

To the tune of Bruno Mars' Grenade

Date dito, Porsche doon
Ganyan lang ang kaya mo
Papogi ka lang sa Malacanang

Nun pa lang alam ko na
Na ang interes mo lang
Ay ang iyong hacienda, Hacienda Luisita

Binoto ka nila pero iyong binalewala
Ang kanilang mga sigaw
Hinding hindi na kami magpapaloko pa
Kaya humanda ka na

Kami ay magpoprotesta
Magmamartsa sa kalsada
Susugod sa Mendiola
Dahil kami ay galit na

Magsasaka na wala pa ring lupa
Manggagawang sahod ay kay baba
Mamamayang naghihirap
Ngayo'y lalaban na

Bayan, bayan ko
Ating tandaan na ang kahirapan ay
Hindi pa nalulunasan

Kaya magkaisa tayo
At ating isulong ang isang
pamahalaang naglilingkod at lipunang maayos

Kung bakit namayani ang mga kapitalista sa Tsina, ayon kay Joan Hinton

Sa wakas, natapos ko ding basahin ang librong Silage Choppers. Maraming mga magagandang sinabi si Joan Hinton at si Sid Engst. Tungkol sa pamamayani ng mga tinatawag na "capitalist roaders", ito ang sinabi ni Joan:

The Cultural Revolution failed because of the ability of the capitalist roaders to whip up factionalism among the people. And in fact the people are so easily whipped into factionalism. It's the petitbourgeois ideology, which is so strong in all of us; our Achilles' heel. We can't join together to fight the main enemy, because of our own petitbourgeois tendency to become factional. To me, if we can't get over this, it's the one thing that's gonna keep ordinary people from ever being able to develop socialism...

In the US it's against the foreign born, it's whites against blacks and so on -- all done to divide the working people. The working people fall for it all the time, because we do not have proletarian ideology. We don't think that the working people are one family; we just look at somebody from the other village and think "they're not our village..." There's no reason on earth for them to hate each other. All working people get their living from working.

Ang dalawang uri ng niyog at ang kwento ng kanilang paglalakbay

Ang niyog ay tinuturing na "tree of life" dahil sa napakaraming gamit nito. Ang bunga nito kapag buo pa ay pwede ding magamit bilang matibay na pampalutang para sa isang balsa. Kung paano lumaganap ang niyog sa iba't ibang kalupaan mula Asya hanggang Amerika ay maaaring maipalawanag bilang natural na pagkalat ng mga lumulutang na bunga sa malawak na karagatang Pasipiko. Ngunit maaari ding ang paglaganap na ito ay dulot ng paglalakbay ng tao dala-dala ang mga bunga, na siyang binigyan ng katibayan ng isang bagong pananaliksik.

Sa isang bagong lathalain [1] gamit ang DNA analysis ng libong niyog mula sa iba't ibang panig ng mundo, natuklasan ng mga siyentista na may dalawang klase ng niyog na may kapansin-pansing pagkakaiba sa genetic make-up nito: ang tinatawag nilang Indian Ocean at Pacific Ocean na klase ng niyog. Ang bagong kaalamang ito ay nagpapatibay sa teoryang ang niyog ay nilinang at pinalaganap sa dalawang hiwalay na dako ng mundo: isa sa Pacific basin at ang isa ay sa Indian Ocean basin. Maliban dito, nakaimbak din sa genes ng niyog ang isang talaan ng ruta ng kalakalan noong sinaunang-panahon at pati na rin ang pananakop sa kontinenteng Amerika.

Ayon sa mas naunang lathalain [2] ng parehong grupo ng mananaliksik, may namumuong ebidensya na nagpapatunay na ang niyog sa Ecuador ay maaaring dumating dito mula sa mga manlalakbay-dagat na mga Austronesian galing sa Pilipinas 2,250 taon ang nakalipas. Ito ay magiging dagdag sa kaalaman natin kung paano namuhay ang mga Pilipino bago ang panahon ng pananakop ng Europa.

Basahin ang buong balita (English) tungkol dito.

Reference

1. Bee F. Gunn, Luc Baudouin, Kenneth M. Olsen (2011). Independent Origins of Cultivated Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) in the Old World Tropics. PLoS ONE; 6 (6): e21143 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021143
2. Luc Baudouin and Patricia Lebrun (2009), Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) DNA studies support the hypothesis of an ancient Austronesian migration from Southeast Asia to America, Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 56(2), pp. 257-262

Ang talakayan ng dalawang pilosopo at isang karaniwang tao

*Unang burador ng salin ng English wikipedia entry tungkol dito.

Ang Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) ay isang aklat na sinulat ni Galileo Galilei na nilabas sa taong 1632 sa wikang Italiano na nagkumpara sa sistemang Copernican sa tradisyunal na sistemang Ptolemaic. Isinalin ito sa Latin bilang Systema cosmicum[1] noong 1635 ni Matthias Bernegger.[2] Ang aklat, na inihandog sa patron ni Galileo, Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany at hinatid sa kanya noong ika-22 ng Pebrero, 1632,[3] ay naging mabenta.[4]

Sa Copernican system, ang Earth at iba pang planeta ay umiikot sa Araw, samantalang sa Ptolemaic system lahat ng nasa kalangitan ay umiikot sa Earth. Ang Dialogue ay inilathala sa Florence sa ilalim ng isang pormal na pahintulot mula sa Inquisition. Noong 1633, hinatulan si Galileo na "masidhing pinaghihinalaan ng erehiya" batay sa naturang aklat, na inilagay sa Listahan ng mga Bawal na Aklat at nanatili dito hanggang 1835 (matapos ang mga ideyang itinaguyod dito ay pinayagang mailimbag noong 1822.)[5] Sa isang aksyon na hindi inihayag sa panahong iyon, ang paglathala ng ibang kahit anong mga sulatin o isusulat pa lang nya ay ipinagbawal din.[6]

Overview

Habang sinusulat ang aklat, tinawag ito ni Galileo bilang kanyang Dialogue on the Tides, at nang dumating ang manuscript sa Inquisition para sa pahintulot, ang pamagat ay Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea. Inutusan syang tanggalin ang anumang banggit ng tide sa pamagat at baguhin ang preface, dahil ang pagpahintulot sa naunang pamagat ay magmumukhang pagpahintulot sa kanyang teorya tungkol sa tides, na nagtangkang patunayan ang pisikal na galaw ng Earth. Dahil dito, ang pormal na pamagat sa pahinang-pamagat ay Dialogue, na sinundan ng pangalan ni Galileo at ng kanyang pwesto sa akademiya, na sinundan naman ng isang mahabang pangalawang pamagat. Ang pangalan kung saan kilala ang naturang aklat sa ngayon ay sinipi mula sa isang bahagi ng pangalawang pamagat. Dapat itong tandaan kapag tinatalakay ang layunin ni Galileo nang isulat ang aklat.

Ang aklat ay inilahad bilang serye ng talakayan, sa loob ng apat na araw, ng dalawang pilosopo at isang karaniwang tao:

* Si Salviati ay nangatwiran para sa posisyong Copernican at naglahad sa ilan sa mga direktang pananaw ni Galileo, at tinawag siyang "Academician" bilang pagbibigay-karangalan sa pagiging kasapi ni Galileo sa Accademia dei Lincei. Ipinangalan sya mula sa kaibigan ni Galileo na si Filippo Salviati (1582–1614).

* Si Sagredo ay isang karaniwang taong may matalas na pag-iisip na sa simula ay walang kinikilingan. Ipinangalan sya mula sa kaibigan ni Galileo na si Giovanni Francesco Sagredo (1571–1620).

* Si Simplicio, isang matapat na tagasunod kay Ptolemy at Aristotle, ay naglahad ng mga tradisyunal na pananaw at mga katwirang laban sa posisyong Copernican. Sya ay ipinangalan daw mula kay Simplicius ng Cilicia, isang komentarista tungkol kay Aristotle noong ika-6 na siglo, ngunit ang pangalang ito ay pinaghinalaang isang double entendre, dahil ang Italiano ng "simple" (tulad ng "simpleng isip") ay "semplice".[7] Si Simplicio ay inihambing sa dalawang kontemporaryong pilosopo na makaluma, Ludovico delle Colombe (1565-1616?), pinakamatinding katunggali ni Galileo, at Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631), isang katrabaho sa Padua na tumangging sumilip sa teleskopyo.[8] Si Colombe ay pinuno ng isang grupo ng mga katunggali ni Galileo sa Florence, na kung tawagin ng mga kaibigan ng huli ay "the pigeon league".[9]

Bagama't ang aklat ay pormal na inilahad bilang pagsasaalang-alang sa dalawang pananaw (na syang kailangang gawin para ito ay mailathala), malinaw na ang panig na Copernican ang nakakuha ng mas mahusay na pangangatwiran. Dahil sa ganitong makaisang-panig na pagtalakay, marami ang tumukoy dito bilang isang klasikong halimbawa ng katwirang Straw man. Kung ano ang naging talakayan kung si Simplicio ay naging kasingtalas at kasingmaalam lamang ni Salviati ay bagay na haka-haka, dahil walang sumubok na magsulat ng isang bersyon ng dialogue kung saan ang mga tradisyunalista ang nanaig.

Ang dialogue ay hindi nagtalakay sa Tychonic system na naging sistemang nagustuhan ng simbahang Catholic sa panahon ng paglathala. Sa sistemang Tychonic, ang Earth ay hindi gumagalaw ngunit hindi rin Ptolemaic; isa itong magkahalong sistemang Copernican at Ptolemaic. Ang Mercury at Venus ay umiikot sa Araw (tulad ng sa sistemang Copernican) sa mga maliliit na bilog, habang ang araw ay umiikot naman sa di-gumagalaw na Earth; Ang Mars, Jupiter, at Saturn ay umiikot sa Araw sa mas malalaking bilog, na nangangahulugang sila ay umiikot din sa earth. Ang sistemang Tychonian ay matematikong katumbas ng sistemang Copernican, maliban lang sa ang sistemang Copernican ay humuhula ng isang stellar parallax, samantalang ang sistemang Tychonian ay walang ganitong paghula. Ang stellar parallax ay hindi pa kayang sukatin hanggang sa ika-19 na siglo, at samakatwid sa panahong iyon ay walang mabisang patibay na mali ang sistemang Tychonic sa batayang empirical, o ni isang di-mapag-aalinlanganang patunay na tama ang sistemang Copernican. Ang sistemang Copernican ay mahihinuha mula sa laws of motion and gravity ni Newton, lamang ang mga ito ay hindi pa nailathala hanggang 1687.

Hindi kailanman sineryoso ni Galileo ang sistema ni Tycho, gaya ng makikita sa kanyang mga lihaman, itinuring ito bilang kapos at di-kasiya-siyang kompromiso. Ang dahilan ng pagkawala ng sistema ni Tycho (kahit pa man sa maraming pagsangguni kay Tycho at kanyang gawa sa aklat) ay maaaring makita sa teorya ni Galileo tungkol sa tides, na syang nagtakda ng orihinal na pamagat at prinsipyo ng pagsasaayos ng Dialogue. Sapagka't, habang ang sistemang Copernican at Tychonic ay geometrikong magkatumbas, sila ay dynamikong magkaiba. Ang teoryang tidal ni Galileo ay nangailangan ng aktwal, pisikal na pag-inog ng Earth; ibig sabihin, kung totoo, magkakaloob ito ng uri ng patunay tulad ng siyang ipinagkaloob ng Foucault's pendulum dalawang siglo ang lumipas. Nang may pagsangguni sa teoryang tidal ni Galileo, wala ng pagkakaiba sa pagitan ng sistemang Ptolemaic at Tychonic.

Ang talakayan ay hindi lamang umikot sa paksang pang-astronomiya, bagkus sumaklaw ito sa halos buong kapanahong agham. Ang ilan sa mga ito ay para ipakita kung ano ang tingin ni Galileo ay tamang agham, tulad ng pagtalakay sa gawain ni William Gilbert ukol sa magnetismo. Ang ilang bahagi ay mahalaga sa pagtatalo, sinasagot nila ang mga maling katwiran laban sa paggalaw ng Earth.

Isang klasikong katwiran laban sa paggalaw ng earth ay ang kawalan ng pakiramdam sa bilis sa ibabaw ng earth, kahit na tumatakbo ito sa bilis na 1600 km/h. Sa ganitong pangkat may isang eksperimentong isip (thought experiment) kung saan ang isang tao ay nasa loob ng isang barko at hindi makakapagsabi kung ang barko ba ay nakadaong o mahinahong tumatakbo sa tubig: inoobserbahan nya ang tubig na tumutulo mula sa isang bote, ang isdang lumalangoy sa isang tangke, ang mga paru-parong lumilipad, at iba pa; at ang kanilang mga kilos ay pareho lang tumatakbo man o hindi ang barko. Ito ay isang klasikong pagpapaliwanag ng Inertial frame of reference at pinapabulaanan ang tutol na katwiran na kung tayo ay tumatakbo ng ilang daang milya kada oras habang umiikot ang Earth, lahat ng bagay na inihulog ay mabilis na maiiwan at matatangay papuntang kanluran.

Ang bulto ng pangangatwiran ni Galileo ay maaaring hatiin sa tatlong uri:

* Pagtanggi sa mga tutol na katwirang iniangat ng mga pilosopong tradisyunal; halimbawa, ang eksperimentong tungkol sa barko.

* Mga obserbasyon na di-tugma sa Ptolemaic model: mga yugto ng Venus, halimbawa, na simpleng hindi mangyayari, o ang waring paggalaw ng mga sunspot, na maipapaliwanag lamang sa loob ng sistemang Ptolemaic o Tychonic bilang resulta ng di-kapanipaniwalang kumplikadong pag-ikot ng axis of rotation ng Araw.[10]

* Pangangatwirang nagpapakita na ang eleganteng pinagbigkis na teorya ng Kalangitan na dala-dala ng mga pilosopo, na pinaniwalaang nagpapatunay na ang Earth ay nakapirme, ay mali; halimbawa, ang mga bundok sa Moon, mga buwan ng Jupiter, at ang mismong pagkakaroon ng mga sunspot, kung saan wala ni isa ay bahagi ng lumang astronomiya (bagama't ang mga ito ay may medyo kaduda-dudang kaugnayan, sa dahilang wala sa mga phenomenong ito ay may direktang kaugnayan sa mga tanong tungkol sa paggalaw ng earth o ng araw).

Sa kabuuan, ang mga katwirang ito ay matagumpay na nanatili sa mga tuntunin ng kaalaman ng sumunod na apat na siglo. Kung paano ito naging kapani-paniwala dapat sa isang di-kumikiling na mambabasa noong 1632 ay nananatiling isang pinagtatalunang paksa.

Nagtangka si Galileo ng isang pang-apat na uri ng katwiran:

* Direktang pisikal na katwiran para sa paggalaw ng Earth, sa pamamagitan ng pagpapaliwanag ng pag-akyat-baba ng tubig dagat (tides).

Bilang isang paliwanag sa dahilan ng pag-akyat-baba ng tubig dagat o isang patunay ng paggalaw ng Earth, ito ay isang kabiguan. (Sa totoo lang, ang pundamental na katwiran ay nagkakasalungat sa loob, at talagang tutungo sa dulong pasya na ang pag-akyat-baba ng tubig dagat ay hindi umiiral). Subalit si Galileo ay nahibang sa katwirang iyan at ginugol ang "Ika-apat na Araw" ng talakayan dito. Ang antas ng kabiguan nito ay, tulad ng halos lahat ng may kaugnayan kay Galileo, isang bagay na pinagtatalunan. Sa isang banda, ang buong isyung ito ay kamakailan inilarawan bilang "cockamamie."[11] Sa kabilang banda, ginamit ni Einstein ang isang magkaibang paglalarawan:

Ang pag-asam ni Galileo ng isang mekanikal na patunay ng paggalaw ng earth ang siyang nagligaw sa kanya papunta sa maling teorya ng pag-akyat-baba ng tubig dagat. Ang kabigha-bighaning pangangatwiran sa huling pag-uusap ay malamang mahirap nyang matanggap na patunay, kung hindi lang sana sya nakain ng kanyang pag-uugali. [Emphasis added][12][13]

Notes

1. ↑ Maurice A. Finocchiaro: Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992, University of California Press, 2007 ISBN 0-520-25387-6, 9780520253872
2. ↑ Journal for the history of astronomy, 2005
3. ↑ Gindikin, Semen Grigorʹevich (1988). Tales of physicists and mathematicians. Birkhäuser. p. 62. ISBN 9780817633172. http://books.google.com/books?id=Vhx--jfFN8IC&pg=PA62. Retrieved on 22 February 2011.
4. ↑ http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080829.w50booksdialogue/BNStory/DAVA+SOBEL
5. ↑ The Trial of Galileo: A Chronology
6. ↑ See Galileo affair for more details, including sources.
7. ↑ Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe (1959), Penguin Books, 1986 edition: ISBN 0-14-055212-X, 978014055212X 1990 reprint: ISBN 0-14-019246-8, 9780140192469 [1]
8. ↑ Stillman Drake: Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography, Courier Dover Publications, 2003, ISBN 0-486-49542-6, page 355 : Cremonini and delle Colombe
9. ↑ "La legha del pippione". "Pippione" is a pun on Colombe's surname—which is the plural of the Italian word for dove. Galileo's friends, the painter, Lodovico Cardi da Cigoli (Italyano), his former student, Benedetto Castelli, and a couple of his other correspondents often referred to Colombe as "il Colombo", which means "the Pigeon". Galileo himself used this term a couple of times in a letter to Cigoli of October, 1611 (Edizione Nazionale 11:214). The more derisive nickname, "il Pippione", sometimes used by Cigoli (Edizione Nazionale 11:176, 11:229, 11:476,11:502), is a now archaic Italian word with a triple entendre. Besides meaning "young pigeon", it is also a jocular term for a testicle, and a Tuscan dialect word for a fool.
10. ↑ Drake, (1970, pp.191–196), Linton (2004, pp.211–12), Sharratt (1994, p.166). This is not true, however, for geocentric systems—such as that proposed by Longomontanus—in which the Earth rotated. In such systems the apparent motion of sunspots could be accounted for just as easily as in Copernicus's.
11. ↑ Timothy Moy (September 2001). "Science, Religion, and the Galileo Affair". Skeptical Inquirer.
12. ↑ Foreword; By Albert Einstein; Authorized Translation by Sonja Bargmann.(passages omitted)
13. ↑ Paul Mainwood (2003-08-09). "Thought Experiments in Galileo and Newton’s Mathematical Philosophy" in 7th Annual Oxford Philosophy Graduate Conference. 7th Annual Oxford Philosophy Graduate Conference. , quoting page xvii of Einstein's foreword in G. Galilei (1632/1953). Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Translated by Stillman Drake. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: The University of California Press.

Bibliography

Drake, Stillman (1970). Galileo Studies. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08283-3.

Linton, Christopher M. (2004). From Eudoxus to Einstein—A History of Mathematical Astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82750-8.

Sharratt, Michael (1994). Galileo: Decisive Innovator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56671-1.

Kemikal na taglay ng ihi ng pusa kinatatakutan ng mga daga

Ayon sa bagong tuklas ng ilang siyentista [1], may kemikal sa ihi ng leon at iba pang carnivores (mga hayop na kumakain ng karne) na naaamoy ng mga daga at kinatatakutan nito.

Nagsimula ang mga mananaliksik sa pag-aanalisa sa ilang espesyal na olfactory receptors na nadiskubre noong 2001 pa na tinatawag na trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs) [2]. Makikita ang mga receptors na ito sa karamihan ng mga vertebrates. Ang mga bubuwit, halimbawa, ay may 15 nito, mga daga 17 at ang mga tao ay meron lang 6. Hindi pa gaanong natutukoy kung anu-anong mga kemikals ang dumidikit dito.

Natuklasan nila na ang isang myembro ng pamilya ng mga receptor na ito, tinatawag na TAAR4, ay matinding nahihimok ng ihi ng pusang bobcat, na tinitinda bilang panlaban sa mga daga at kunehong umaatake sa mga halamanan. Natukoy at napiga nila ang kemikal na nagpapahimok sa receptor, ang kemikal na kung tawagin ay 2-phenylethylamine.

Ang sumunod na ginawa nila ay tingnan ang epekto ng kemikal na 2-phenylethylamine sa pamamagitan ng paglagay ng ilang tulo nito sa kulungan ng mga bubuwit at daga. Napansin nila na umiiwas ang mga nakakulong na hayop sa lugar na pinaglagyan ng kemikal. Nang binura nila ang kemikal na ito sa ihi ng leon sa pamamagitan ng isang enzyme at nilagay ang naturang ihi sa kulungan, hindi na ito iniiwasan ng mga bubuwit at mga daga.

References

1. Ferrero, D. M. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA advance online publication doi:10.1073/pnas.1103317108 (2011).
2. Borowsky, B. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 8966-8971 (2001).

Mga imahe ng Pilipinas sa ilalim ng España

Happy Fathers' Day!

Mga pelikulang pang-Father's Day na napanood ko kamakailan

1. The Road


2. Ink


3. World's Greatest Dad


4. Taken


5. Hanna


6. Kick-Ass


7. Kramer vs. Kramer


8. The Boys Are Back


9. Transamerica

Seminar sa Utrecht University

Ngayon ko lang narealize kung sinu-sino yung limang audience sa seminar ko tatlong araw ang nakaraan. Yung isa pala yung nagsulat sa aklat na Elements of Applied Bifurcation Theory, although never ko naman talaga nagamit ang aklat na iyan. At mukhang natutulog sya (or at least nakapikit ang mata nya) sa huling kalahati ng aking seminar. LOL.

Yung isa naman ay kilala ko na kasi nagmeet na kami nung Workshop on Resonance and Synchronization. Retired na pala sya, pero isa sya sa dalawang hindi kailanman pumikit ang mata sa buong seminar ko. Sya ang nagsulat ng librong Nonlinear Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems. At di ko rin kailanman nagamit ang libro na yan although nabuklat ko na yan noon.

Yung nag-coordinate naman ng seminar ay ang nagsulat ng Local and Semi-Local Bifurcations in Hamiltonian Dynamical Systems na never ko rin nabasa.

Dati pala ay American time ang gamit ng Pilipinas

Unang nalaman at nakuha ko ito mula sa isang German mathematician dito sa Netherlands:

the (Spanish) government of the Philippines switched from American to Asian date in 1844 (or 1845). And in fact, the American date had only been in use where the Spanish DID govern. In 'rebellious' places like most (all?) of Mindanao the Asian date had already been in use before.

Marami pa talagang aspeto ng kasaysayan ng aking bansa ang hindi ko alam. Absent siguro ako nung tinuro ito.

Hindi ang DNA kundi ang mga protina ang nagbibigay buhay

Nakakainis minsan na ang bagal kong magbasa. Andaming librong dapat/gustong basahin pero ang bagal kong magbasa at ang bilis ko madistract kapag nagbabasa. Kaya madalas sa tren lang ako nakakapagbasa. Pero ganun pa rin either naaantok ako o nadidistract ako sa landscape.

ENIWEY! Sinimulan kong basahin ang librong Investigations ni Stuart Kauffman at maraming mga magagandang teorya ang kanyang nabanggit. Chapter 2 pa lang ako. Napaka-attractive yung tinatawag nya na "collectively autocatalytic systems". Sabi nya, hindi ang DNA transcription-translation ang tunay na pangunahing katangian ng buhay kundi ang buong organisasyon ng mga protina na nagtutulungan para mangyari ang mga proseso na kailangan para mabuhay ang mga chemicals/matter na bumubuo sa isang buhay na bagay.

Mahalaga ang DNA at RNA pero may isang yugto ng kasaysayan ng mga molecules (molecular evolution) na mga protina o kaparehong molecules lamang ang nag-eexist. Ito ang tinatawag na "prebiotic stage" at malamang nangyayari pa rin ito sa ating paligid ngayon. Ang patuloy na interaksyon ng mga molecules sa yugto ng prebiotic ay nagbunga sa pinakaunang buhay na bagay (living cell). Mga 3.5 billion taong nakaraan ito nangyari.

Yung tinatawag na "autonomous agent" ay dinefine nya sa Preface bilang "a system able to act on its own behalf in an environment". Isang halimbawa ay ang paggalaw/kaugalian ng isang bacterium para makahanap ng pagkain. Tama yung sinabi nya na lahat ng buhay na cells at organisms ay mga pisikal na sistema "lamang" (physical systems): binubuo lamang sila ng mga pinagsamang molecules. Sa ganyang aspeto, ang halaman, halimbawa, ay walang pinag-iba sa bato: pareho silang pisikal na sistema. So ang tanong nya: Ano ba dapat ang meron sa isang pisikal na sistema para "it can act on its own behalf"?

Sa ganyan ding pagtingin, (tingin ko lang; hindi pa ito nababangit sa libro so far) walang pinag-iba ang buhay na bagay sa lipunan. Ang isang buhay na bagay ay hindi lamang pinagsamang mga molecules--ang pagsama-sama ng mga molecules ay nabuo sa isang napakatagal na proseso na maaari nating tawaging napakalaking eksperimento ng kalikasan (nature's experiment). At ang kinalabasan ng prosesong ito ay ang pagsama-sama ng mga tamang uri ng molecules para makabuo ng isang buhay na bagay. Ganundin ang lipunan. Hindi lamang ito pinagsamang mga tao--ang pagsama-sama ng iba't ibang uri ng mga tao ay nakabuo ng isang klase ng lipunan. Ang pagsama-samang ito ay ibinunga ng mahabang kasaysayan (history) ng interaksyon ng mga tao sa kanilang paligid at sa isa't isa... At nagbabago/nag-eevolve din ang lipunan...

Mahabang kwento pero napakainteresante, at least para sa akin.

Ano ngayon ang kaibahan ng mga buhay na bagay (living things) sa mga di-buhay na bagay (non-living things)? Sana matapos kong basahin ang librong ito ni Kauffman.

Quote of the day: socialism has not failed

Hindi ko pa talaga nabasa ang buong article (oo, ang bagal ko magbasa) ni Pao-Yu Ching na Rethinking Socialism: What is Socialist Transition, pero gusto ko lang i-quote yung dulong paragraph:

During the past century, thousands of millions had taken up the task to advance their societies toward socialism. Unfortunately, the first round of attempts to build socialism failed. We need to learn from their valuable experiences, because thousands of millions will take up the task again in the future. Socialism has not failed, because we have not yet entered its threshold.

Maraming economic data

Para sa mga nananaliksik sa ekonomiks, maraming mga datos ang makukuha sa website ng Groningen Growth and Development Center. Medyo kaunti nga lang ang datos sa Pilipinas kasi mukhang ilang bansa lang ang pinagtutuunan nila ng pansin.

Meron pa kayang gumagamit ng Windows Live Messenger?

Microsoft goes on the defensive with Skype acquisition
By Mikael Ricknäs
May 10, 2011 08:33 AM ET
Source: ComputerWorld

IDG News Service - Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype is largely seen as a defensive move by analysts, as the company struggles to keep up with the likes of Google and Facebook on the Internet.

There is a huge battle that only continues to intensify over where users go on the Internet for their services. Companies including Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft need to attract users, and that is what a deal to acquire Skype is all about, according to Paolo Pescatore , analyst at CCS Insight.

Microsoft seems to feel it needs to fight back, and the deal looks like a largely defensive move to prevent its rivals from acquiring Skype, Pescatore said. Microsoft doesn't really need to make the acquisition, because it has all the technical assets it needs to compete with Skype...

Read more

Palayain ang mga nanay! Happy Mothers' Day!

Ang pagtulong sa gawaing bahay ay isang paraan ng pagpapalaya sa mga nanay nang sa gayon sila din ay makalahok sa pagpapalaya ng bayan.

---

Tula ni Lorena Barros

Ano ang isang ina?
Mayamang hapag ng gutom na sanggol.
Kumot sa gabing maginaw.
Matamis sa uyayi.
Tubig sa naghahapding sugat.

Ngunit ano ang isang makabayang ina?
Maapoy na tanglaw tungo sa liwayway,
sandigang bato.
Lupang bukal ng lakas sa digma.
Katabi sa laba't alalay sa tagumpay ang aking ina.

---

Mother's Day Proclamation
By Julia Ward Howe 1870

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Ode to Isaac Newton by Edmund Halley

Sa mga magaling sa Tagalog dyan, pakitranslate naman nito.

Written in 1686 by Edmund Halley under the original title:

To the illustrious man Isaac Newton
and this his work done in fields of the mathematics and physics,
a signal distinction of our time and race.

Translated from Latin by Leon J.Richardson.

Lo, for your gaze, the pattern of the skies!
What balance of the mass, what reckonings
Divine! Here ponder too the Laws which God,
Framing the Universe, set not aside
But made the fixed foundations of his work.

The inmost place of the heavens, now gained,
Break into view, nor longer hidden is
The force that turns the farthest orb. The sun
Exalted on his throne bids all things tend
Toward him by inclination and descent,
Nor suffer that the courses of the stars
Be straight, as through the boundless void they move,
But with himself as centre speeds them on
In motionless ellipses. Now we know
The sharply veering ways of comets, once
A source of dread, nor longer do we quail
Beneath appearances of bearded stars.

At last we learn wherefore the silver moon
Once seemed to travel with unequal steps,
As if she scorned to suit her pace to numbers -
Till now made clear to no astronomer;
Why, though the Seasons go and then return,
The Hours move ever forward on their way;
Explained too are the forces of the deep,
How roaming Cynthia bestirs the tides,
Whereby the surf, deserting now the kelp
Along the shore, exposes shoals of sand
Suspected by the sailors, now in turn
Driving its billows high upon the beach.

Matters that vexed the minds of ancient seers,
And for our learned doctors often led
to loud and vain contention, now are seen
In reason's light, the clouds of ignorance
Dispelled at last by science. Those on whom
Delusion cast its gloomy pall of doubt,
Upborne now on the wings that genius lends,
May penetrate the mansions of the gods
And scale the heights of heaven. O mortal men,
Arise! And, casting off your earthly cares,
Learn ye the potency of heaven-born mind,
Its thought and life far from the herd withdrawn!

The man who through the tables of the laws
Once banished theft and murder, who suppressed
Adultery and crimes of broken faith,
And put the roving peoples into cities
Girt round with walls, was founder of the state,
While he who blessed the race with Ceres' gift,
Who pressed from grapes an anodyne to care,
Or showed how on the tissue made from reeds
growing behind the Nile one may inscribe
Symbols of sound and so present the voice
For sight to grasp, did lighten human lot,
Offsetting thus the miseries of life
With some felicity. But now, behold,
Admitted to the banquets of the gods,
We contemplate the polities of heaven;
Discern the changeless order of the world
And all the aeons of its history.

Then ye who now on heavenly nectar fare,
Come celebrate with me in song the name
Of Newton, to the Muses dear; for he
Unlocked the hidden treasuries of Truth:
So richly through his mind had Phoebus cast
The radiance of his own divinity.
Nearer the gods no mortal may approach.

Dinner

Kalapati sa puno

Hindi ako nagsisi sa aking desisyon na sumama sa dinner kasama ang dalawang bisitang siyentista: Fred Turek at Steven Shea. Pito kami sa mesa tapos naging walong tao dahil humabol si Serge Daan sa bandang panghimagas na. Masarap ang pagkain... at libre.

Sumama lang naman ako kasi gusto ko din marinig ang dalawang kilalang bisita sa isang impormal na setting. Sa makalawa kasi ay magbibigay sila ng pananalita tungkol sa pinakabagong pananaliksik na nagawa nila na may kaugnayan sa nutrition, metabolism, and the brain. Masaya ang kwentuhan lalo na ang mas seryosong diskusyon sa bandang huli tungkol sa aming ginagawang research. May mga bago akong nalaman at naisip na gawin tungkol sa aking partikular na gawain.

Yan lang siguro bilang pagmarka sa gabi kung kelan naiputan ako ng dalawang beses (likod at harap) ng kalapati. Sa loob na kami nagdessert matapos ang insidenteng iyon.

Hindi ako nagsisi kasi swerte daw ang maiputan ng ibon. Hahaha!

Ang kwento ng pinagmulan ng tao

The untold story of evolution

Around six million years ago in Africa, human history began. But how exactly did hairy, tree-dwelling apes, become modern 21st-century people?

By Tim Radford
Source: The Guardian

We share almost 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Photograph: Paul Lovelace/Rex Features

Human evolution must be the greatest story never told. It begins in an unknowable past and continues mysteriously for the next five or six million years. Is it a thriller, an epic or a comedy of errors? There is no dust jacket, no title page, no dedication, no acknowledgements. Almost all the text is missing, apart from the occasional phrase, sentence or paragraph, seemingly torn at random from the great six-million-year narrative. If the story of humanity is a single volume, then only the last page survives.

Every so often, scholars find yet another fossilised scrap of the missing narrative, a new character enters, and the plot takes a new twist. Some things are clear: the story began in Africa, between 5m and 7m years ago, with the last common ancestor of two kinds of chimpanzee and of Homo sapiens sapiens. Charles Darwin calculated as much when he began telling the story in The Descent of Man (1871). "We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World," he wrote.

Anthropologists agree on the human-ape connection. The consent is there in the titles of books published in the past 40 years: The Aquatic Ape, The Naked Ape, The Third Chimpanzee, The Talking Ape, Our Inner Ape, The Thinking Ape, The Monkey in the Mirror, The Hunting Apes, The Ape that Spoke and The Artificial Ape.

These books are all attempts to work backwards, from what we are now to what we might have been. The fact that zoologists, anthropologists and palæontologists can write so many books with the word "ape" in the title tells us two things. One is that the evidence is so sparse that people are free to frame a favourite hypothesis about what it was that made humans different. The other is that the human-chimpanzee connection is so clear that there is nowhere else to begin.

First, the family likeness: chimpanzees struggle for status, vocalise, communicate, play politics, use subterfuge, show aggression, reject outsiders, groom and support each other, betray each other and resort to violence or sexual bribery to get their way. Chimpanzees display awareness of self, ability to reason, and a grasp of numbers. Chimpanzees are opportunistic omnivores that also make and use tools for gain, and groups of chimpanzees in the wild have separate traditions, practices and ways of doing things that they pass down the generations. That is, chimpanzees have culture. Chimpanzees and humans have a genetic kinship so close that they share almost 99% of their DNA.

The Victorians called them "man-like apes". Twentieth-century scientists and observers started referring to humans as naked apes. Early in the 21st century, some taxonomists and conservationists began a campaign to change the chimpanzee genus from Pan to Homo, so close are the parallels between the species.

But the African chimpanzee is an endangered species, down to perhaps 150,000, while the human population is about to tip seven billion. The implication is that, long ago, the earliest human ancestors also lived in small social groups, and co-operated and competed for the resources of the woodland and the savannah. Why did humans become so different: bipedal, upright, hairless, with limited strength, feeble jaws, bad backs, embarrassingly large heads and brains with a cerebral cortex four times the size of a chimp's?

For decades, the conventional evolutionary lineage was a simple one: shambling simian stands upright, evolves into bipedal hairy brute, then slouching hairy brute with hand axe and finally into hairless human with BlackBerry. This is the ladder theory of human evolution. It was kicked away long ago. Discoveries in Africa – a femur here, a fragment of skull there, a pelvis, now and again a partial skeleton, a set of footprints fossilised in ancient volcanic mud – reveal a picture more of confusion than direction: a flowering of creatures more or less apelike or manlike, some of them possibly direct ancestors, some of them probably cousins along a parallel lineage, all of them trying to make a subsistence living in a very different Africa, millions of years ago. The fossils turn up in South Africa, East Africa, Ethiopia and even the Sahel. They have generic names such as Sahelanthropus, Ardipithecus, Orrorin, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Kenyanthropus, and their remains were unearthed from the dust, stone and mud sediments laid down 3m, 4m and 5m years ago.

Two million years ago, creatures that bear the generic name Homo begin to appear in the fossil record: Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, and with them appear worked stone tools, hand axes, things for chipping and cutting. Hardly any of these early human relics is complete. Palaeoanthropologists were once fond of saying that the entire human fossil record could be laid out on one table, or packed in a matching set of Gucci luggage, but this is no longer true. What is true is that even 2m years ago, the human lineage begins to look like a bush, with species sprouting in all directions.

And then the story starts to get really complicated. At some point, early humans get up and start moving. They spread. They pack their hand axes, leave Africa and start to colonise the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia. And there is more than one migration out of Africa: first Homo erectus or something even more primitive, and then, much later, Homo sapiens. And they continue to differentiate into new species. At one point in human history, around 40,000 years ago, modern humans must have shared the planet with at least four other human cousins: Homo erectus, the Neanderthals, a strange, small-brained human found only on the island of Flores in Indonesia, affectionately known as the Hobbit; and most recent of all, species X: a separate human genetic lineage identified in 2010 only by DNA extracted from a finger bone found in a Siberian cave.

What gave early humans their get-up-and-go? Why did humans develop large brains and long legs? Should the first mobile humans be classed as asylum seekers, driven from their native land by climate change? Or were they economic migrants, on the lookout for better opportunities in wide-open Europe and Asia?

Brains are what biologists call expensive items: the human brain at rest consumes 20% of the daily calorific intake. In other words, brains have to be fed. So a large, greedy brain becomes valuable only if it helps to deliver even more food and greater security. So was the larger brain a genetic mutation that increasingly delivered a selective advantage in the struggle for survival? And how did humans get from thinking about food-gathering strategies to thinking about taxonomy, tax-avoidance and Twitter?

The big brain story may have begun in the trees. Arboreal primates that search over wide areas for food in the canopy seem to know what is good for them: they often ignore easy supplies and go looking for special foods. They seem to have a notion of a balanced diet – protein-rich leaves and high-calorie fruits and not too much fibre – and they have been watched deliberately selecting plants with medicinal properties. All this requires a working memory, a mental map of where to go and what to look for. According to at least one study, the primates that hunt high and low for the quality fare tend to have larger brains than those that do not.

Then the human story begins at some point with climate change: in a cooler and more arid continent, once-arboreal creatures had to start exploiting the woodland and savannah. It would clearly be an advantage to stand up and walk on two feet, to see further, to have a hand free to carry an infant. Pair bonding – love and marriage to non-biologists – is already an evolutionary feature, and a bipedal male could go further to find food for his family, and carry it back.

"Darwin argued that bipedalism freed the hands," says Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum. "He was arguing that 150 years ago and it is still there. But there is another view worth considering: it could have begun in the trees. Orangutans, for instance, walk bipedally." To get to the tastiest forage, orangutans walk along branches, holding on to yet higher branches. So there could have been a long period when early members of the not-yet-human family walked on the ground, and lived in trees.

And by this time, brain size had begun to increase. There are new challenges, new opportunities, new foods to try and new difficulties to overcome. In the past three decades, researchers have floated a number of ideas about how the human story might have developed. Did hominids start to develop bigger brains because they lost most of their body hair? A hairless human with a talent for exuding sweat would be at less risk of overheating; longer legs would enhance the surface-to-volume ratio and keep the brain cool; and as a bonus, ticks, lice and other parasites would have nowhere to hide.

Or did hominids become free to develop bigger brains because their jaw muscles began to shrink, allowing the cranium to expand? Did early humans start to develop even bigger brains because they became increasingly efficient endurance runners that could get to a carcass before the hyenas and vultures, and strip away a nourishing meal of meat, fat and marrow? Did humans begin to stand upright by taking to the water – and to nourish bigger brains with high-protein deliveries of fish and shellfish?

Did humans discover the use of fire millions of years ago, long before the colonisation of Europe? Cooking would make plants both more nourishing and easier to digest; it would dispose of infections and pathogens in meat, and it would deliver greater supplies of energy per mouthful. Teeth, jaws and digestive tracts could shrink, and so brains could get bigger. Did humans grow bigger brains because the extra neural circuitry was needed to make sense of the demands of social and co-operative life?

"I think a lot of our brain is actually mapping relationships, and mind-reading our friends and enemies: what are they doing? You need a lot of processing power to do that well," says Stringer. "If you are starting to hunt animals, you have to out-think them, and that is driving the growth of more processing power and bigger memory. So I think the social brain and meat-eating was the key to that."

Somehow, out of this million-year-mix of food, fear and hunter-gatherer companionship in Africa, complex language emerged. The human who could frame the sentence "You wait behind that rock at the end of the ravine and I'll drive the deer towards you" has demonstrated awareness of cause and effect, of geography, of zoology, of strategy, of co-operation for future mutual advantage. Somewhere in such a sentence there is also the germ of the first play for two actors, the first computer game and the first adventure story.

But there are no neat stories to be told of the first departure from the African homeland. Once again, the evidence is fragmentary, sometimes teasingly ambiguous, and capriciously rare. But there is enough to confirm the presence of early human species in Georgia, in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Britain as early as 800,000 years ago, and also in the Middle East and South Asia. The first migrants could have been pushed out of the country by climate change, or competition for resources, or the desire for somewhere new. They could possibly have made a direct crossing by water from the Horn of Africa to what is now Yemen, or they could have travelled up the Nile Valley and across what is now Gaza into Europe and the Middle East. This fabulous odyssey may not have been intended, it may have just happened. Hunter-gatherers follow game, and when the game disappears, they move on. All these first migrants needed to do was to hug the coast: first up the western shore of the Red Sea, and then down the coast of Arabia.

"They just extended in that ribbon of the coast, out of Africa, around Arabia, around the southern Asian coast: at low sea level, they could have got all the way to Java just on the coast. Then they just need to invent boats along the way and they can get to Australia," says Stringer. "One mile a year and you have gone all the way to Java in 10,000 years."

And in the course of this great adventure, the migrants change. New species appear, and with them, new behaviour. The Neanderthals become the first to formally bury their dead.

And long afterwards, modern humans turn up. Once again, the story begins somewhere in Africa, nobody knows for sure where, and once again, at least 60,000 years ago – and maybe, on recent enigmatic evidence of stone tools in Arabia, as long as 125,000 years ago – a new human species begins to leave Africa and spread around the planet, across all of Europe and Asia, and then finally across the arid freezing plains that will in time become the Bering Straits, to Alaska and then the whole of the Americas. Modern humans are still hunter-gatherers, but around 30,000 years ago there is evidence of sophisticated technologies based on stone and bone and shell. They use needles, decorate with ochre, create works of astonishing art, put on ornaments, and exhibit a sense of religion – the evidence for all these things lies alongside the human fossils. In Europe, these newcomers live alongside the Neanderthals, hunt the same animals, gather the same seeds and fruits. There is recent evidence that – somewhere in the European chapter of this story – modern humans and Neanderthals must have interbred, but in all other respects, the Neanderthals seem to be a different species.

Long before the end of the last ice age, the Neanderthals and all the other human species that have travelled the same road vanish altogether, leaving the newcomers alone of their kind, and in undisputed possession of the planet.

Maagang summer sa lupaing mahangin

Nakakatawa/nakakalungkot na short film tungkol sa isang Pinoy sa New York

Creative License



Created in 24 hours by Team Angry Doxen Films for the Brooklyn Film Race 2010 based on a theme (exaggeration) and surprise element (pizza). 1st Place Overall in the 2010 Film Racing Tour. For more information on Film Racing and to learn how to participate, visit http://www.filmracing.com.

For more information on the filmmakers, visit http://www.youtube.com/paolody

Dito ko napulot ang video na ito.

Nature podcast on the Fukushima nuclear emergency

Japan is struggling with a nuclear emergency following the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March. In this podcast, reporter Geoff Brumfiel brings us up-to-date on the situation at the Fukushima power plant.


Download the mp3

Egyptian Princess Mummy Had Oldest Known Heart Disease

Ang paniniwala ng maraming mga doktor at medical scientists ay makabago itong mga sakit na "blocked arteries" at "heart attacks". Inakala nila na ang lifestyle ng mga tao noong unang mga panahon ay hindi nagdudulot ng mga ganitong sakit. Ngunit ang paniniwalang ito ay mukhang magbabago dala ng bagong pananaliksik sa mga katawan ng Egyptian mummies. Ayon sa isang balita sa National Geographic, maaaring ang ikinamatay ng isang Egyptian princess na si Ahmose Meryet Amon ay coronary atherosclerosis, isang kondisyon na dulot ng buildup ng arterial plaque, na siyang naging dahilan ng heart attack o stroke.

Resonance tongues and hairs

Related post: Modeling the mammalian circadian clock

Ang nakakamanghang kwento ng mga enzymes

Nung highschool ay tinuro sa amin kung ano ang enzymes pero hindi ganun ka detalyado ang kwento kaya hindi ko sila gaanong na-appreciate. Ngayong mas biology papers ang mga binabasa ko ay lagi ko silang nakakasalubong sa mga binabasa ko. Medyo mahaba at madaming pasikot-sikot ang kwentong ito; maraming mga aspeto ng kwento na hindi pa natin alam, pero ang kabuuang kwento mula sa pagkabuhay hanggang sa pagkamatay ng mga enzymes ay nalaman na.

Ang kwentong ito ay maririnig natin mula sa mga cells na may nucleus; may mga cells na walang nucleus tulad ng mga bacteria at ng red blood cells natin. Tulad ng iba pang mga proteins, ang buhay ng mga enzymes ay nagsimula sa DNA sa loob ng nucleus. Ayon sa kwento, isang malaking enzyme katulong ang iba pang maliliit na enzymes ang pumupunta sa DNA at mula dito ay binubuo nila ang mga RNA. Ilan sa mga RNA na ito ay mananatili lang sa loob ng nucleus, pero ang iba ay lalabas mula dito sa tulong na rin ng ilang proteins na nakatira sa bakod ng nucleus (nuclear membrane). Ang mga messenger RNA (mRNA) ay magpapatuloy sa cytoplasm at dito sila ay magpapalutang-lutang. Makakasalubong nila ang ilang enzymes at iba pang molecules sa cytoplasm, pero may mga specific proteins na eventually ay makakasalubong nila na gagabay sa kanila papunta sa pagawaan ng proteins. "Hi mRNA, halika dito tayo pumunta," sabi ng malaking protein na ito.



At dito uusbong ang isang protein na later on ay magiging enzyme. Ang bagong-gawang protein na ito ay magpapalutang-lutang na naman sa cytoplasm, naghihintay ng pagbabago sa kanilang katawan (post-translational modification) at itsura (protein folding) para sila ay magkakaroon ng specific na gawain. Hangga't hindi pa nababago ang itsura nito, hindi pa nito maipapamalas ang kanyang potential. So sa ilang saglit ay makakasalubong nito ang isa o marami pang enzymes na magpapabago sa itsura nito; ang mahabang sequence ng amino acids na bumubuo sa protein na ito ay aayusin ng mga particular na enzymes para ang buong protein ay magkakaroon ng specific na hugis na syang kailangan para makapagsimula na itong gampanan ang kanyang gawain.



Ang bawat enzyme ay may kanya-kanyang gawain, pero sa kabuuan, ang gawain nila ay baguhin ang itsura at komposisyon ng mga proteins at iba pang molecules. May mga enzymes na magdidikit ng dalawa o mas marami pang molecules, meron ding mga enzymes na magpapabago sa hugis ng molecules.

Ang kanilang buhay ay panandalian lamang; ang tagal nito ay depende sa kanilang komposisyon ng amino acid at hugis. Dadating ang panahon na makakasalubong nila ang isang uri ng protein na magsasabi sa kanila na mag-retire na (ubiquitination). Minsan naman ay sasabihan din sila ng mga ubiquitins na magbago na sila ng gawain at sila ay ipapadestino sa ibang parte ng cell.

Ang dulo ng kwento ay ang kanilang kamatayan. Pagkatapos ng isang panahon ng pag-gampan ng gawain, pagtulong sa iba pang proteins, at pakikihalubilo sa iba pang enzymes at iba pang molecules, sila ay magreretire na. Sila ay bibiyakin ng ibang proteins at ang kanilang mga amino acids ay gagamitin muli sa susunod na pagbubuo ng mga bagong enzymes.

Paglilinaw: HINDI po ako kasama dun sa mga nakipag-girian sa mga police

Student protesters in Holland clash with policemen
By Dheza Marie Aguilar
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
01/29/2011

THE NETHERLANDS - In what was said to be the biggest student demonstration in the Netherlands since 1988, an estimated 15,000 students gathered in The Hague on Friday afternoon to protest against the planned budget cut for higher education.

Earlier in the day, hundreds of professors from different universities in the Netherlands also walked around the parliament dressed in their togas to support the budget cut protest.

But what started as a peaceful demonstration in Malieveld Park ended in a scuffle against the demolition police when about 500 students marched in front of the Ministry of Education where they were met with trucks and policemen on horseback. Volunteers also formed a barricade outside the building to prevent the protesters from storming in.

The situation worsened when protesters began hurling beer cans, bicycles, eggs and fireworks at the policemen. The police retaliated by chasing the rioters and hitting some with batons.

Twenty-five protesters were arrested, some of which, the police claimed, were part of radical groups. Before the Friday rally, the police announced that anti-fascist and radical groups are planning to distort the demonstration prompting them to increase security deployment.

A fine of 3000 euros and more

The biggest issue confronting the academic sector in the planned budget cut is the 3000-euro fine that a student must pay if he or she studied a year longer than the allowed time in finishing his or her degree.

Aside from the students, universities are also mandated to pay the same amount for every student who will study longer than necessary.

Argued the protesters, many students fully developed themselves in activities outside the mandatory curriculum like in management of student’s association, internship abroad or organization of student’s congress. They said that these are also important for companies when assessing them for future jobs.

Meanwhile according to universities, the budget will result in a loss of 7,000 jobs in their sector and a lower quality of education.

“Working class youth already don't have the money to go to a university and that won't change with the upcoming laws. That's why I want a free education of good quality for everyone. Also we are only being given information just by reading books, instead of showing the 'real life' practical experiences. I think that's because our society is too much based on the profit maximization,” said Thomas van Beersum of Hermann Wesselink College in Amstelveen.

He added that a lot of young people will not be motivated to get higher education because of the high expenses that it entails.

Aside from the fines, the government is also planning to scrap student grant and those who are planning to take their second masteral degree have to pay for it themselves. This means an expense of 15,000 euros every year for students planning on having their second masteral degree.

In addition to these major changes, the free use of public transport for students will be discontinued.

It is estimated that 20% of the total budget cut that the parliament is planning will fall on the academe.

“A free education should be an investment that will be given back later when people have a steady job and a good income,” van Beersum added.

In the current system every student who gets a bachelor’s degree receives a financial grant from the government. Outside those six years, if a student wants to pursue a masteral degree, he or she can get a study loan from the government. This is payable after he or she gets a job and income that will enable him or her to pay the government. But some students take 11 years to finish school.

If implemented as planned, overstaying students will immediately be fined this coming September.

Support for the academe

To show support and solidarity with the Dutch academe, some Filipino students joined the Friday rally.

Hiyasmin Saturay, daughter of a refugee who wants to enter a Dutch university next year, said the government should focus instead on helping students get a better quality of education. In recent years, the Dutch ranking in the list of the world’s top quality education continues to slide.

“Nandito ako ngayon para makiisa sa mga estudyante para tutulan ang pinaplano ng gobyerno na pinapagbayad ang estudyante ng lumalagpas sa study nila. Ang lumalabas, sila 'yung nagbabayad sa mga kakulangan ng gobyerno sa quality ng education, sa mali sa economy. Maghihirap ang mga estudyante. Ano na ang mangyayari sa kinabukasan nila?” said Saturay.

Meanwhile Kim Gargar, a Filipino scholar studying in Groningen, joined the protest to heed the call of the academe to oppose the budget cut.

“Pumunta ako dito para makiisa sa Dutch academic community. Isyu naman talaga nila ito although sa atin talaga mas malaki ang problema ng academe kaya kailangan ng international solidarity na din sa mga kapwa natin academecian dito sa Netherlands,” said Gargar.

No abrupt change

The rally showed most protesters waving “Op-Rutte” banners to criticize the policies of the new government led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

In his speech during the evening of the demonstration, Rutte said there will be no abrupt changes in the new education policies that they are pushing. He said the budget cut is necessary in order to bring the government’s finances in order.

The prime minister also appealed to the universities to use their reserve funds to alleviate the effect of the budget cut.