Seawater all around, but none for drinking. Image by egroj.

The taste of seawater is a dead giveaway: too much salt can damage the human body.

Remember that seawater is 3.5% or (35 g/L, or 599 mM) salt or dissolved minerals¹. If you drink seawater in a desperate attempt to survive out in the ocean you would just do more harm to your body and increase your chances of dying instead of living long enough until rescue arrives.

This would lead to Hypernatremia (hyper= too much + natr= sodium + emia=in the blood) a condition of having too much salt and too little water in your body². Simply because your body will work extra hard to get rid of the increased excess salt. This process requires water and since your body is the only source of water with lower salt concentrations, you would actually need more water to survive. It would make your situation much worse than before.

Dehydration would worsen and your chances of making it out alive is greatly decreased. That’s one of the perils of being lost at sea, you’re surrounded by water and yet not a single drop is readily safe for drinking.

Image by egroj

1. salinity measurement is a total of all the salts that are dissolved in the water. Although 35 parts per thousand is not very concentrated (the same as 3.5 parts per hundred, o/o, or percent) the water in the oceans tastes very salty.Source
2. This water loss can occur from illnesses with vomiting or diarrhea, excessive sweating from exercise or fever, or from drinking fluid that has too high concentrations of salt. Source.

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We commonly know the E. coli (Escherichia coli) as the bacteria that can cause serious food poisonings and a PR and marketing disaster for food manufacturers. But this only caused by a strain of E. coli called O157:H7, the rest of other strains are harmless and in fact have been living inside the intestines of warm-blooded organisms like cattle and humans.

Just recently, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have engineered a strain of E. coli to produce bio diesel fuel directly from biomass without the aid of additional chemical modifications.

“Biosynthesis of microbial fatty acids produces fatty acids bound to a carrier protein, the accumulation of which inhibits the making of additional fatty acids,” Steen says. “Normally E. coli doesn’t waste energy making excess fat, but by cleaving fatty acids from their carrier proteins, we’re able to unlock the natural regulation and make an abundance of fatty acids that can be converted into a number of valuable products. Further, we engineered our E. coli to no longer eat fatty acids or use them for energy.”

After successfully diverting fatty acid metabolism toward the production of fuels and other chemicals from glucose, the JBEI researchers engineered their new strain of E. coli to produce hemicellulases — enzymes that are able to ferment hemicellulose, the complex sugars that are a major constituent of cellulosic biomass and a prime repository for the energy locked within plant cell walls.

Plant waste, such as those from the food industry can now be a source of bio diesel fuel thanks to this engineered strain of E. coli. Another use would be to directly farm plant matter, the kind that we humans don’t use for food, and we have ourselves a source of bio diesel that is renewable, sustainable and potentially cheaper.

Hopefully, this would not lead into a genetic nightmare or be used by the West to retain control over the fuel-producing industry. Then again this might be just another exercise in wishful thinking.

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For our homework in Biology class (yes, I’m taking up my last Bio class for the rest of my college life) we were asked to look for the scientific names of the plants/vegetables mentioned in the folksong “Bahay Kubo” (Nipa Hut).

It’s been years since I last heard of or even sang the song so I consulted Google for the entire lyrics. And here it is:

Bahay kubo, kahit munti

ang halaman doon ay sari-sari

Singkamas at talong

Sigarilyas at mani

Sitaw, bataw, patani

Kundol, patola, upo’t kalabasa

At saka meron pang

Labanos, mustasa

Sibuyas, kamatis

Bawang at luya

Sa paligid ligid

Ay maraming linga

So now, the next step is to look up for the English names of the vegetables mentioned in the song. Some would just directly query Google by typing “scientific name [Tagalog name of vegetable]” and click on the first few links displayed.

I didn’t do that because it will be a “hit and miss, then try again” exercise because sadly, there aren’t that many websites that readily provide scientific information about vegetables in their Filipino/Tagalog names.

Besides, knowing the English names of those vegetables would be a fun exercise in my translation skills and an opportunity to learn a new thing or two. Like, I never knew that the English name of “singkamas” was Mexican turnip and that “winged beans” are what we call “sigarilyas” in Tagalog. If only more students used the internet more intelligently, then our teachers would not discourage us in using it as sources for our school works. But that’s a whole story for another time.

Going back, after obtaining the English names of those vegetables, it was only a matter of feeding those names into Google would their respective scientific names be readily available.

So here they are, in a neat tabular form for easy digestion.

A few things to remember when writing scientific names.

The genus or the first name is written with its first letter in the uppercase while the specific epithet or the second name is written with its first letter in the lowercase.

Underline each part of the scientific name separately.

Homo sapiens

If you’re not going to underline the scientific name, write it in Italicized form.

Homo sapiens

Why the strict rules? Well that would be discussed on the second part of this post along with the history of the scientific name. Happy learning everyone!

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One of the most basic cycles every student of Biology must know is mitosis. It is the process in which a eukaryotic cell separates the chromosomes in its cell nucleus into two identical sets in two daughter nuclei. (Rubenstein & Wick, 2008) It is generally followed immediately by cytokinesis, which divides the nuclei, cytoplasm, organelles and cell membrane into two daughter cells containing roughly equal shares of these cellular components. (Wikipedia)

Stages of Mitosis

It has four stages: Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase & Telophase. Other books or sources would give additional stages like Pre-prophase, interanaphase, etc. but I’ll be focusing on the basic stages for now.

Prophase

Replicated DNA condense into dark and dense bodies called chromosomes (chromo = colored, soma = body). Each chromosome is actually a pair of chromatids held together by a centromere. Then the centrioles separate from each other and move towards the poles of the cell. They then spin mitotic spindles as they move. These spindles will provide “scaffolding support” for the attachment and movement of the chromatids during the later stages of mitosis. At the end of prophase, the nuclear membrane and nucleolus have disappeared.

Metaphase

This is short stage wherein the chromosomes cluster together and align at the middle of the mitotic spindle so that a straight line of chromosomes can be seen.

Anaphase

During this stage, the centromeres that have held together the pair of chromatids detach and separate from each other. The chromatids, now called chromosomes again, move apart from each other and towards the end of each pole. When the chromosomes reach the poles of the cell, anaphase is over.

Telophase

At this stage, the chromosomes have reached the poles completely and begin to uncoil to become chromatid threads again. The nuclear membrane begins to reform and surround each of the new nucleus. The spindle breaks down and the rest of the cell splits in two via cytokinesis which forms two identical daughter cells.

To wrap up, here’s a video of the mitotic cycle to help you review.

————–

References:

Mitosis. (2009, June 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:23, June 30, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitosis&oldid=299423834

Rubenstein, Irwin, and Susan M. Wick. “Cell.” World Book Online Reference Center. 2008. 12 January 2008, from http://www.worldbookonline.com/wb/Article?id=ar102240

Video created by MsStokesBio

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When I was young, my grandmother told me that I would become rich someday because I have long fingers.

My reaction was, “what the…?!” I was only 10 years old by then. Thirteen years to date, I stumbled upon the same notion in this Yahoo! News story:

The length of a man’s ring finger may predict his success as a financial trader. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England report that men with longer ring fingers, compared to their index fingers, tended to be more successful in the frantic high-frequency trading in the London financial district.

Indeed, the impact of biology on success was about equal to years of experience at the job, the team led by physiologist John M. Coates reports in Monday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The same ring-to-index finger ratio has previously been associated with success in competitive sports such as soccer and basketball, the researchers noted.

The length ratio between those two fingers is determined during the development of the fetus and the relatively longer ring finger indicates greater exposure to the male hormone androgen, the researchers noted.

Previous studies have found that such exposure can lead to increased confidence, risk preferences, search persistence, heightened vigilance and quickened reaction times.

Read the whole story, though some would doubt it outright, it offers a good explanation of its scientific basis. With the current financial crisis looming in our horizons, many would find this interesting because most Pinoys are superstitious.

However, I take it on a positive note because small signs are enough to give us a little more push to be more hopeful as we face the coming times.

Though at this point, I’d like to emphasize that it’s not enough to be superstitious and look for signs or omens of good fortune. As shown in the story I’ve mentioned, it is worth nothing that having long ring fingers are not enough to become rich. Those who were studied were active and aggressive traders.

It simply means that we too must also be active and aggressive, not only hopeful, in doing the things that earn us wealth no matter its scale.

Good fortunes may be determined by hormones evidenced by long fingers, but it is with our hardworking, creative, resourceful and powerful hands that we actually make our wealth.

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