Pinoy Scientifique

“Are those who have knowledge and those who have no knowledge alike? Only the men of understanding are mindful” - Qur’an 39:9 *** “Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward.” This is the opening sequence of the 2000 film “X-Men,” which was narrated by the character, Charles Xavier (a.k.a Professor X); directed by Bryan Singer and written by David Hayter for its movie adaptation. X-Men has been a popular comic book superhero team created by Marvel comics since it debuted in its first issue in 1963. A more compelling history about the creation of this comic book team and characters were inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States, when African-Americans were still fighting for equality in the American society. Most of its characters are called “mutants,” people who have evolved and developed distinct abilities or powers. In the X-Men storyline, being mutant is considered dangerous and often subjected to discrimination, much like how African-Americans have experienced that can be traced in years when slavery was a common trade. But in reality, mutation are small changes in the DNA of every living things, including humans. And having special “abilities” and “powers” have yet to be determined like selfhealing in a short period of time or manipulating metallic elements like a clay-do. However, researchers recently discovered that among human races today, a group of people has showed signs of mutation and developed the ability to stay longer under the sea without any oxygen support, and these are our neighbor the Badjao (or “Bajau”). We have known them to be “sea nomads,” whose groups often live in the vast ocean most of the time. We often see them selling handicrafts made out of marine resources like shells and pearls, however, oftentimes we see them becoming beggars in the streets. Despite this, they have a larger spleen than most of us “normal” humans, the size of their spleens turned out to be the reason for their ability to dive in the sea and stay longer without breathing, according to the researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen. The findings were published in a scientific journal called “Cell” in its

The Department of Trade and Industry (www.dti.gov.ph) reported that international tourist arrivals to the Philippines rose by 16.1 percent to 1.4 million visitors for the period January-February 2018 compared to its level in the same period last year.

South Korea remained the country’s top tourism market with 25.2 percent share of the total Philippine tourist arrivals from January to February 2018, with 354,700 visitors. China was second with 256,880 visitors in the country, followed by the United States with 193,985, Japan with 117,300, and Australia with 50,404. April 2018 issue, their research title was “Physiological and Genetic Adaptations to Diving in Sea Nomads.” The researchers were Melissa A. Ilardo, Ida Moltke, Thorfinn S. Korneliussen, Jade Cheng, Aaron J. Stern, Fernando Racimo, Peter de Barros Damgaard, Martin Sikora, Andaine Seguin-Orlando, Simon Rasmussen, Inge C.L. van den Munckhof, Rob ter Horst, Leo A.B. Joosten, Mihai G. Netea, Suhartini Salingkat, Rasmus Nielsen, and Eske Willerslev. The spleens are responsible for the storage of red blood cells that carry oxygen. Based on the research, the Badjao people have 50 percent increase of spleen size, and it was presumed that the organ can pump more blood cells into the body as they dive deep into the ocean, and in turn prevents the human body from

In Baguio City, for example, a measure before the City Council seeks to charge visitors “congestion and ecology fees” for their use of motor vehicles when in the mountain resort. “The unending traffic fiasco in the summer capital has become an inevitable reality. Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures, and while we are no experts in traffic management, we must now make a bold move to tame traffic as our City is drowning in vehicles,” Councilor Edgar Avila said in a SunStar Baguio report.

A P200 to P400 daily congestion charge will be imposed during holidays. The fee of P200 per day will be becoming “starved” from oxygen. However, the Badjao people is shared not only by our Filipino society but also in other Southeast Asian countries where they also thrive like in the coastal communities in Malaysia and Indonesia. In fact, the Badjao people are less bothered by political boundaries of nations as they drift with their boats almost all of the time. But there is one recent scientific finding that can be cherished as ours, and can be considered a major discovery to have happened perhaps in the history of the Philippines. We thought early human settlers in the country had thrived for at least 70,000 years ago, however the recent findings by archaeologists in the Kalinga region, in northern Luzon suggested that it might have

In Cebu, the once-a-month closure of the sandbars and dive sites in Sumilon island is a way to limit the number of visitors and to allow the recovery of resources.

Those measures in Baguio and Cebu cities would not have been implemented years ago when government’s direction was to seek more arrivals. Not anymore, not with the abuse of resources evident in the air we breathe and the water we swim in or drink.

A tourism innovation forum will be held in Cebu in June as an activity of the Cebu Business Month. It will be a good time to design new and more ways to prevent further degradation, rather than take up only how to keep the tourists coming.