otterman's posterous - "Anyone who can email can now blog"

February 3, 2009

New Kent Ridge Heritage panels

acroamatic twittered that he "noticed a new Kent Ridge heritage trail marker next to the old one at UCC."

Well, last week, the Office of Environmental Sustainability who manages the committee for the Kent Ridge Heritage Trail sent an email that our second storyboard in campus was up. This one is about NUS's history.

This series of storyboards are put up as and when there is funding, time and opportunity. So it might be awhile before text authors have contributed to or a graphic design that is urgently edited is seen physically on the road. I actually forget it all until an urgent summons about relevant final proofs are received and that makes it all the more exciting!

We will mention the panels during the Battle of Pasir Panjang Commemoration Walk.

The first two are near the University Cultural Centre and the others will eventually be placed between NUS and Kent Ridge Park and will fit in to other existing storyboards at Kent Ridge Park and Reflections at Bukit Chandu. Which also links to the Southern Ridges trail. A long walk if you are up to it; all you'd need is fine weather!

Click here to download:

New_Kent_Ridge_Heritage_panels.zip (515 KB)

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January 28, 2009

Spot the monkey!

Three, young and good looking long-tailed macaques rummaged my student's bag (quite appropriately, I might add) that we had left behind in one of the boardwalk shelters while mapping nearby. They leapt up the roof and onto the nearby Avicennia alba tree nearby when I came by to collect the bags.

They are still wary of people, a good thing, since enough people are terrified of approaching cats let alone monkeys. Heaven forbid they see a crab-eating macaque in the mangrove; a glance might have them scuttling for their cars.

All I had was my handphone's miserable camera so I took a perfunctory few shots that I now inflict on you and then we all watched each other in the breeze as the tide raced in.

Click here to download:

Spot_the_monkey.zip (299 KB)

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January 28, 2009

Mangrove whipray at Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve

A few are still dropping by to forage with the tide. Managed to photograph one through the slats of the boardwalk with my beat-up handphone!

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January 24, 2009

Happy 25th anniversary Macintosh!

The Macintosh was introduced to the world on 24 January 1984 (see this Daily Telegraph story) and a quarter-century later, the excitement macusers like myself feel remains as fresh as ever. These few videos might give you an inkling:

The first computer I used was an Apple II that I learnt to use in my secondary school Apple Club and explored further at the Serangoon Gardens Community Centre's Computer Club in great. After emerging from the army a couple of years later in 1987, I found the field dominated by IBMs and the DOS OS system at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

In 1988, physicist Bernard Tan was the Dean of Science. A musician and macintosh enthusiast, he opened the student-run Computer Based Learning Centre (a room opposite LT22) - a room full of macs and a few pcs. He roped in the undergraduates running student societies for support and to help popularise the idea. So we sat down to discuss the CBLC with our friends who were setting it up, but it was mainly about the management issues of a student-run computer room - we had no inkling about the mac. It was only months later when I went visited as a user that I was electrifed. I converted a Wordstar 4 document to MS Word and it was an almost miraculous experience, a breath of fresh air, something I even feel today!

Thanks to the 'early adopter' embrace of fisheries biologist and physiologist Khoo Hong Woo, a few machines became available at the Zoology computer room and teaching museum (now the Marine Lab). Macs were extremely expensive then, and so the many machines these places both provided (Mac 128k, Mac SEs and the Mac IIcx) were a lifeline during my undergraduate years.

Happy 25th anniversary Macintosh!

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January 13, 2009

The Labrador kopi shops are no more

This food stop has witnessed many a tall tale since days of old, being a traditional part of field trips to the nearby rocky shore and a pit stop for long bike rides heading west from the south of Singapore. I confess I never could remember the favoured stalls, and am not even sure if the food was exceptionally good. Finding a seat could be a struggle, the floor was oily, it wasn't brightly lit and stalls seemed crammed against each other.

But it was special, as places like these are wont to be. It was a rare gem of old Singapore squirreled away in the protective bosom, it had seemed, of the nearby cliff. The people, their interaction and response to you and the physical space somehow helped to suggest the flavour of an older time, when tolerance was in greater supply and everyone was not in a rush.

We stopped to listen to some flavourful tales in the middle of a bike rally, amidst a bemused and half-listening morning crowd while the peloton raced away. But for the Zendogs, it has always been about 'the journey not the destination.'

Notice was served to stall holders last year and today I learnt it has all been torn down. We can never conspire to meet there again, in that innocent little quarter that Singapore had forgotten to our relief. The relentless march that has robbed ordinary folk of simple, pleasant memories has claimed yet another victim.

Yet another tradition to share with our young uns' is lost. But we'll remember and conjure up other traditions. Meanwhile we wonder, what will replace this? Ironically, will it have been an MRT station that has contributed to its downfall and not the sort of travesty that frowns at me in the heart of town?

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January 8, 2009

NTU Bike Rally - 15 March 2009

The NTU Bike Rally 2009 falls on Sunday, 15th March 2009 this year and for the second year they will have two start points - East Coast Park (128km) and Nanyang Technological University (85km). The 128km route passes by Labrador Park, NTU, Kranji Reservoir, Seletar Reservoir, Pasir Ris Park and Changi Beach before ending back at East Coast Park.

This is the best long distance public ride in Singapore and I have ridden with them since 2003. I blogged about it a bit last year and in earlier years and will probably do so a few more times as we rouse ourselves up with preparatory, intermediate-distance rides and update the tips for long distance rides.

By riding there and back, I get to clock 160km and this year, my long suffering saddle gets replaced to something shamefully comfortable - well in theory at least!

A fun part of last year's ride was twittering the bike stats during the breaks and seeing the responses of Kevin in NY and John in Sydney appear on my mounted handphone! The news of the prata stop at Jalan Kayu was saddening for them of course, but it was a thankful break in the afternoon heat.

A bunch of my kakis have already confirmed their participation: Ladybug, Cat, Jo, Kaixin, Lekowala, Jas and Min Yee.

Visit the website at http://bikerally.ntusportsclub.sg

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January 8, 2009

Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark was the night, cold was the ground"

The West Wing episode, "The Warfare of Genghis Khan" mentions the gospel music of Blind Willie Johnson, his tragic story and an uplifting post eulogy.

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"When Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man. The stepmother then picked up a handful of lye and threw it into the face of young Willie."

'Willie Johnson's "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was the Ground" was included on the Voyager Golden Record on the Voyager spacecraft which left the solar system on December 16, 2004.'

See Wikipedia.

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January 6, 2009

YouTube clip: "Singapore - Crossroads of the East 1938"

Thanks to Chua Ai Lin for this link via the singaporeheritage mailing list.

"A tour of the British colony of Singapore in 1938. Footage from this film is available for licensing from www.globalimageworks.com"

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January 6, 2009

Trial of the ecology game, "Extinction"

Ecolabbies Jo, Ngan Kee and I finally hunkered down over the board game "Extinction: The Game of Ecology" during lunch time this Tuesday afternoon. This trial was to test the feasibility for its use in one of my modules.

Coloured hexagons on the board you see in the photo are habitats, each coloured dice a species—numbers reflect population size, cards are genes, one set of cards bring news of environmental change (sometimes catastrophic) and the spinner dictates species interaction (competition or predation), migration, reproduction and mutation opportunities. Barriers spring up that inhibit migrations and pestilence can strike one or more species...

It's an old game designed by Stephen Hubbell (of "The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography" fame) and marketed by Sinauer Associates (1972) and a second edition by Carolina Biological Supply (1978). I first played this game in the late 80's (the instruction mannual I was holding in the picture is more than two decades old) and I last played this about a decade ago.

Our trial today overcame some detailed, initial reading, helped by my familiarity from reading the game rules last year when I first thought of bringing this back to the classroom. But also, my labmates could appreciate the need to be patient while we grasped the game's details before rushing ahead.

We unravelled the extent of the rules and got competitive later, hiding more and more of our genotype from each other. NK's species actually got wiped out by a pestilence but we revived the species and she struggled along until TS injected fresh blood and almost ran away with the game. Eventually we called a halt after two hours.

The game allows you to deduce the significance of many issues in ecology and biologists will enjoy the added ecological and evolutionary significance.

I will try it out with the animal behaviour class if I can find enough TAs, since the class needs some understanding of ecology. And I can't wait to try it out with the ecology class next semester!

Thanks to ecolabby Paul for the picture!

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January 6, 2009

Happy holidays with shingles

I breathed a sigh of relief when I filed for leave in mid-December, as it had been a tough half a year. I would be on leave until January and was planning on a few field trips with my students and resting.

After a few days, my head felt quite sore and really sensitive. Then a pimple appeared (a first for me) and then a burning ear infection kicked in. Inserting Vicks VapouRub in my ear gave temporary relief and I got ear drops from a clinic to treat it the next day. Since I was on leave anyway, I decided to avoid my research students who were busy with field work in December, just to be safe. Never know what I might have.

Well that thought turned out to be prophetic as two more "pimples" appeared, one above and one below the first one - the linear arrangement gave it away and it seemed I had come down with shingles - chicken pox round 2. Having experienced chicken pox as a kid, the virus had remained latent only to flare up later in life under conditions of severe stress, physical or psychological, apparently. Usually it does so in individuals over 50, oh well.

My rarely visited doc, a former classmate, confirmed the symptoms the next morning and peered worriedly while I struggled to raise my right eyelid which was now closed from a sagging forehead (sounds worse that it was). After some effort, I did manage to raise my eyelid and rolled my eyeball for good measure. He was relieved for the nerves to my eye had been spared.

Shingles blisters are localised around a specific area corresponding to the nerve tissue of origin so it was bad luck to get it on my right nostril, eyelid, forehead and scalp, rather than my body. However, I was just glad my eye and ear were not included in the virus' hit list!

I dutifully popped Zovirax every 4 hours 48 minutes from then on and after just one night of a body shaking (not jaw-shaking thankfully) fever, I was left to contend with a variety of throbbing and sharp pains on the right side of my head. After two days, I was thankful that my episode appeared to be a mild one.

The really odd thing was my incredibly oily forehead! I imagined I finally really knew how some teenagers feel and for the first time, actually used a face wash - there were some handy Shokobutsu tubes around and I managed to avoid bursting the fragile blisters.

I had heard of the anti-viral drug more than a decade ago when it cost in the region of $800 or more. I had to fork out $230. I know the antiviral list is not a long one so I looked it up several days later when I felt like looking at a screen and email my biology friends that amongst other things, I had learnt that:

The antiviral drug Zovirax or acyclovir is acycloguanosine, which

is a guanosine analogue that gets phosphorylated by viral enzymes to acyclo-GMP and then to acyclo-GTP by celullar kinases,
acyclo-GTP inhibits viral polymerase for which it has a much greater affinity (300x),
acyclo-GMP gets incorporated into viral DNA (as nucleoside substrate), causes chain termination and cannot be removed by viral repair enzymes.

Acyclovir is the first selective anti-viral,

Getrude B Elion won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1988 (along with her mentor Hitchings and one other, James Black for his work on beta-blockers),
it was only partly for the development of this drug because because she and Hitchings contributed to the development of a host of anti-virals; her resume includes drugs for leukemia, malaria, gout, immune disorders, AIDS, organ rejection - would hold 45 patents.
was with Burroughs Wellcome Laboratories at the North Carolina research triangle with Hitchings,
she was unable to get a graduate research position due to her gender (pre-war),
had an MSc w/research in Chemistry,
WWII resulted in a shortage of men in civillian jobs helped her get her position with Hitchings,
terminated her PhD when she was requested to go full-time which would have ended her lab work with Hitchings (who said she didn't need her PhD for their work),
later received multiple honourary PhDs (23 honorary degrees),
her mentor Hitchings encouraged her cross-disciplinary explorations,
she later ran a department with multiple-disciplinary research (chemistry, enzymology, pharmacology, immunology, virology, and equipped with a tissue culture facility),
her parents were Lithuanian and Polish Jews who settled in NYC,
her father, a dentist, suffered from the great crash of '24 but luckily for her, she had the grades to enter a free college,
was an enthusiastic teacher,
she died in 1999, RIP, at Chapel Hill, N.C.

If you read just one article about this lady, try this one:
http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/gelion.html

I went back to campus last Friday with evidence of my shingles bout clearly reflected on my forehead and determined to see to it I keep things simpler in the new year. Unfortunately, three people in the department had the flu and I picked up a chest cold.

Oh well.

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