Lucio Fan

Lucio Tan, that freakinly rich business tycoon, who influences our life from toilet papers to booze, is ahemm.. a Chemical Engineer. (You think that's outrageous? You think so??!) It's a great inspiration. I can still fulfill my dream of becoming filthy rich and be a Chemical Engineer! So what about him? He was invited only, as the guest speaker during the 71st Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers' National Convention in Tagaytay this year, during which he stood behind the lectern and mumbled something short of an incantation. I never understood a word. Yeah, he's Chinese, and the diction is, forgive me, intolerable. But who cares?? It's "tito" Lucio and as much as I wanna say, I AM STARSTRUCK! So I dragged several of my fellow attendees and commanded them to scatter in reconnaissance of the auditorium looking for possible secret doors where "tito" Lucio might exit. We set our radio frequencies and vowed to alert everyone, only to find out he's going out exactly where he got in. No bodyguard obstructions, no paranoid actions, just a slow walk down the center carpet with PIChE officials. When asked to pose for a picture, tito Lucio politely obliged. My friend, upon seeing him, realized something. He's old.


I can't see me...But at least I'm closer. Wait was that cheap perfume?


I am gasping for visibility in this photo, which no one in our delegation would take(because that means they'll not be in the picture,duh). We have to run after tito Lucio's secretary (we thought she's his secretary) and her camera, and gave her our email then beg to upload the pic on Facebook and tag us. Obviously, I am not the only one who thinks he's a STAR!

Meet yourself in...is that hell?..

On one hand, Mitch Albom's the five people you meet in heaven is simply riveting. I am not really an emotional person, but Albom's command of simple prose feels like it's dragging you and saying: For God's sake, cry!, for which I vehemently refused, but not without a certain uneasiness. Plus, Filipino readers might be familiar with some parts of the novel. (I will not spoil it, I will not, I will..haha) The Philippines is mentioned in the book, including words like "inas" whom Albom translated as Mommies, "sundalong" as soldiers (I could have written Albom and said FYI, DROP THE ng..), and our National Costume also takes a scene. (umeeksena, Eddie: what are you wearing? Filipina girl: Oh, this? Ukay-ukay...)




Tuesdays with Morrie? Ugh. No effect. Dying is not a dilemma. It's what comes after dying that's haunting humans. If ever there is such a thing. In this novel, Albom says there is.

On the other hand, I badly wanna have a copy of this book. My friend Jessica once again displays her wit, and the extraordinary craft of the English language, with this piece. I've read a random sampling of the 500 in her column in the Philippine Star, (that's Emotional Weather Report), and I can't help but, yeah, agree. Some of them, the teacher who said you'll never reach anything, the bully, the professor who made math intolerable for you, the neighbor who never stopped yelling since they got their videoke machine, and many more. ALthough, probably in the course of reading it I might meet myself in hell.



500 vs 5. Apparently, hell's population is bigger.

Hegelian, eh?

Centuries ago, Newton laid physics firmly to the ground, only to be uprooted by Einstein. Now, Einstein could be wrong.




1915:

In Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the curvature of spacetime plays the role that electromagnetic fields play for electromagnetic forces. Gravity is local: if a mass is jiggled, ripples in the curvature travel out at the speed of light.

In a phenomenon called Entanglement, Einstein's special theory of relativity might not really be that special. You might as well also find out what "locality" means in a quantum mechanical sense , aside from referring to your "baranggay."
Check out:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=was-einstein-wrong-about-relativity&photo_id=62110551-CB23-5016-990E7C3A8BD3C91B

The photo above is only part of a slideshow entitled Timeline: A Changing View of Reality, also in the Scientific American website.

A billion different angles

"Some of the angels in heaven believe that every single eye that sees God's creation is God's own eye. For who has said that God does not have many billions of eyes? Perhaps he has scattered billions of small photocells over creation so that he can see what he has created from several billion different angles. Since humans can't swim many hundred yards under the sea, he has given the fishes eyes, too. And humans can't fly, but at any given time a living carpet of bird's eyes is lying below the sky, peeping down at earth. But this isn't at all. Sometimes, it happens that a human being lifts his eyes towards his heavenly origin. Then it's as if God sees himself in the mirror."

(excerpt from Jostein Gaarder's book

Wonderful.

Lessons repeat themselves..

Intro to Biochemical Engineering List of Topics

I.Basic concepts of Microbiology and Macromolecules
1. Structure of Cells
2.Important Cell Types
3.Water in Living Systems
4.Molecular Structure of Living Matter
5.Carbohydrates
6.Lipids
7.Nucleic Acids
8.Proteins

II.How do Cells Work?
1.Central Dogma
2.DNA replication, transcription and translation
3.Metabolic regulation
4.How cells sense its extracellular environment

III.Kinetics of Enzyme Catalyzed Reactions

IV. Applied Enzyme Catalysis.

V. Major Metabolic Pathways
1.Overview of Metabolism
2.Carbon Catabolism
3. Respiration
4.Photosynthesis
5.Biosynthesis
6.Fermentation

VI. Alteration of Cellular Info
1.Mutation
2.Selection of Desirable Mutants
3.Natural Transfer for gene transfer and rearrangement
4.Genetically Engineered Cells

VII. Microbial Growth
1.Batch Growth
a.cell nutrients
i.macronutrients
ii.micronutrients
iii.growth media
b.growth cycle
c.measurements of microbial growth
i.direct method
ii.indirect method
2.Continuous culture in chemostat, turbidostat, auxostat, and retentostat.
3.Effect of Environmental Conditions on Microbial Growth
i. Temperature, pH, osmotic effects, and oxygen concentration

VIII.Industrial Microbiology

It's reporting type. What else is new? I like the part about alteration of cellular info, especially selection of desirable mutants. I may be a mutant, but I warn you, I am not desirable.

Now decode this.

While, again, at a futile attempt to pry at the mind of "my friend" Jessica at jessicarulestheuniverse.com, I came across this article, apparently reposted from Scientific American guest blog. Well, this one is interesting.

At the age of 17 he began dissecting corpses from the church graveyard. Between the years 1508 and 1512 he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti—known by his first name the world over as the singular artistic genius, sculptor and architect—was also an anatomist, a secret he concealed by destroying almost all of his anatomical sketches and notes. Now, 500 years after he drew them, his hidden anatomical illustrations have been found—painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, cleverly concealed from the eyes of Pope Julius II and countless religious worshipers, historians, and art lovers for centuries—inside the body of God.

You can check out the full article at http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-2010-05-26.
I'm beginning to think of what other body parts did he possibly conceal in his drawings. ha ha. Another thing, check out the comments. They're as full of info and insights as the article itself.

Typically Him

Me: What do you call this? (Pointing to a figure on the bedsheet of a friend.)
Him: ummmm...
(After 1 min..)
Him: Seal. That's a seal. (After probably choosing between sea cows, dugongs, and manatees)
Me: (Raising my eyebrows in agreement) And what do you call a seal's offspring?
Him: Still a seal? (on a sarcastic tone..)
Me: Duh. I mean a young seal?
Him: A baby seal! (on an even more sarcastic tone..)
Me: Wanna die?
Him: Dunno. Ano nga ba?
Me: (Feeling superior, as If i know something of cosmic significance.) It's called a pup!
Him: Oh really???? Thank you for that NUGGET OF WISDOM! (this time, sarcasm is superlative..)
Me: *sigh*