Biology: Symbiosis of Drynaria Fern and Acacia Tree - More than Commensalism

June 6, 2016, 6:06 am

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I like Drynaria, for caring its host and vice versa through symbiosis - a perfect bond that humans have yet to learn someday.Photos and Poem by Dr Abe V Rotor

Drynaria fern covers the limbs of an acacia tree. Tagudin, Ilocos Sur

I like the Drynaria 

I like Drynaria for her feathery foliage in the distance like the proud peacock and the turkey trotting to win favors of their flock;

I like Drynaria for her sturdiness in the wind, cooling the summer air and keeping the coolness of the Amihan in December;

I like Drynaria for her resiliency, bending with the limbs and branches, turning upside down and up again the next season;

I like Drynaria for sleeping through the dry months while her host takes the show, verdant green, robust and free;

I like Drynaria for resurrecting from a state of turpor, as if she defies death and perpetuates life while others simply die;

I like Drynaria for her economy in sustenance, living on captured dirt and rain, yet discreet of such austere living;

I like Drynaria for touching the clouds with her host taming it to fall as rain and shared by all creatures around;

I like Drynaria for her ability to multiply fast through invisible spores, in one sweep of the wind are sown in far places;

I like Drynaria for its benevolence to many creatures, tenant and transient, keeping their brood in her bosom;

I like Drynaria giving the martines birds a home, where it sings in joy and praise and thanksgiving for a beautiful world;

I like Drynaria for keeping company to passersby, to tired souls in the shadow with her host, in dark and unlikely hours;

I like Drynaria for giving off oxygen and taking in carbon that poisons the earth and living things, among them no less than I;

I like Drynaria, for caring its host and vice versa through symbiosis - a perfect bond that humans have yet to learn someday. ~

Martines birds, long thought to be extinct locally, find shelter 
and home with the Drynaria, and the host acacia tree.

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Part 2: Global Warming Disturbs Our Climate

June 7, 2016, 4:53 am

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Dr Abe V Rotor

Gas emission is the principal cause of global warming.

Organisms lose track of biological signals due to change
in climate. This kapok tree blooms off-season.

Abe V Rotor

Here is a background on global warming and its impact on our atmosphere (air), lithosphere (land) and hydrosphere (water).

1. During the 20th century, the average atmospheric temperature went up by at least one degree Fahrenheit. Small as it seems, this rise in temperature is sufficient to activate tornadoes, hurricanes, rains and floods. It also helps widen temperature range to extreme levels, creating abnormalities in weather conditions. Scientists explain why the El Nino phenomenon (which comes every five or ten years) is becoming more and more erratic, causing much destruction, especially when it is too wet on one side of the globe, and too dry on the other.

2. The reason why our atmosphere is getting warmer is because of the so-called greenhouse effect, which means that more of the heat of the sun is absorbed and stays longer, causing increasing levels of heat-absorbing gases like carbon dioxide. Our cars and factories are the principal sources of these gases.

3. Rising temperatures cause pronounced atmospheric heating. Hotter air and water along with higher relative humidity altogether stimulate evaporation, cloud formation and eventual precipitation. When there is extreme cold and hot air, a wind system develops, growing into cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes.

4. Hotter climates cause ice thinning on mountaintops, breaking down of icebergs and floes, melting of the polar ice. The law of displacement explains why our seas are rising, and because all oceans and seas are interconnected, the effect becomes a global one. The first to suffer are those living on low-lying areas. Unfortunately, most cities and town are found on lowlands, near seaports and along major rivers. Thus the next exodus will be ecologically caused. We can call it mass eco-migration. A very disruptive kind of resettlement is needed, dwarfing the kinds of settlement during the era of colonization and conquest. Today’s planners are revolutionizing the concept and design of human habitation that would be decongested and environmentally conserving.

5. There will be a major shift in farming systems where new frontiers will be opened, while others will be abandoned. Adaptation strategies of crops and animals, review of land use policies and programs are back on the drawing boards. Again, environmental conservation will receive special attention.

6. Wildlife migration patterns, niches and distribution, will be greatly affected as their natural habitats are destroyed or modified by changing climate. All living things, without exception, are affected by the man-induced phenomenon of global warming.

(Continued)

Global Warming Breeds Super Bugs

June 7, 2016, 4:57 am

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Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

In one article in this blog, “Industrialization is Driving Our Climate Wild,” I discussed how global warming affects agriculture. In this one I will present how the present phenomenon affects our health and welfare, and why we should gear up against the possible epidemic spread of pests and pathogenic diseases.


Aedes egypti transmits dengue or hemorrhagic fever, a disease that can spread into epidemic in many parts of the world, including the Philippines. (Wikipedia) 

Leptospirosis, also called infectious jaundice, became known as a disease recently when Manila virtually remained underwater for days as a result of monsoon rains intensified by a series of typhoons. The disease’s symptom is yellow coloration of the skin. The causal organism is a spiral bacterium, hence the name, and is endemic where public sanitation and personal hygiene are neglected. One can contact the disease through infected rodent and other animal urine. According to reports, most of the victims acquire the disease from polluted drinking water or wading in flood streets. The suspected carrier is the Rattus rattus norvigicus or city rat, counterpart of the field rat, Rattus rattus mindanensis.

How do we know if a person has contacted the disease? At first, the symptoms are like those of an ordinary flu, which may last for a few days as the pathogen incubates in the body. If not treated immediately, the infection may lead to hemorrhages of the skin or mucus linings and eye inflammation. Extreme cases may lead to irreversible damage to the liver and kidney.

As floodwaters drive the rats out of their subterranean abode (such as canals, culverts, and sewers), they take refuge in homes, market stalls, restaurants, even high rise buildings and malls, bringing the infectious bacterium directly to its victims. The migratory nature of rats also explains how leptospirosis can reach people living far from the flooded areas.

Bubonic Plague or Black Death

This brings to mind the dreaded scourge of mankind in the Middle Ages, bubonic plague. Rats are the carriers of this bacterium-caused disease also called the Black Death. It was so deadly that it claimed the lives of at least 100 million people with 25 million in Europe alone. It stopped man’s progress that the period was appropriately described Second Dark Ages. It spread around crowded cities and towns, with the pestilence peaking with climatic upheavals, such as what we know today as the El Nino phenomenon. Historical accounts are usually laced with superstitious beliefs. With the arrival of Renaissance (Rebirth of Learning) in the 15th century the whole incident was shelved and filed away in archives. But scientists today are piecing up together evidences which may indicate that climate had something to do with long-term cycle of the disease.

The bubonic plague appeared in the United States at the start of the 1900 and then in India in the late 1970’s, but thanks to modern medicine the disease was effectively controlled even before it reached epidemic stages. Between 1941 and 1945, the Japanese used the plague bacteria in war, by rearing the germs clinically and using flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) as carrier. The idea is to sow pestilence, thereby defeating the enemy both in the battlefield and at home. After successfully testing the bubonic plague bombs on China, Japan aimed the new biological weapon against its number one enemy, the U.S. The attempt failed when the American forces dropped two atomic bombs in 1945 obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the end of World War II hostilities.

Adverse Weather and Common Ailments

Common ailments are usually tied to adverse weather conditions. Following are same examples:

1. The outbreak of boils for one is more likely to occur under hot, steamy weather. The same is true with many bacterial and fungal skin diseases.

2. Influenza outbreaks coincide with extreme changes in weather conditions, normally, towards the rainy season and start of the Siberian High (cold months).

3. Typhoid cases are higher during the rainy season, particularly when there is a flood. It is the floodwater, mixed with sewage and other organic waste that carries the pathogenic bacterium, Escherichia coli.

4. Dengue Fever mosquito larvae, Aedes egypti may aestivate in the dry season. But once rains come it starts breeding in empty bottles, old tires, basins and clogged gutters. Rain and flood enhance the population and spread of mosquitoes, which spread not only dengue but malaria, too.

Global Warming Disturbs Our Climate

Here is a background on global warming and its impact on our atmosphere (air), lithosphere (land) and hydrosphere (water).

1. During the 20th century, the average atmospheric temperature went up by at least one degree Fahrenheit. Small as it seems, this rise in temperature is sufficient to activate tornadoes, hurricanes, rains and floods. It also helps widen temperature range to extreme levels, creating abnormalities in weather conditions. Scientists explain why the El Nino phenomenon (which comes every five or ten years) is becoming more and more erratic, causing much destruction, especially when it is too wet on one side of the globe, and too dry on the other.

2. The reason why our atmosphere is getting warmer is because of the so-called greenhouse effect, which means that more of the heat of the sun is absorbed and stays longer, causing increasing levels of heat-absorbing gases like carbon dioxide. Our cars and factories are the principal sources of these gases.

3. Rising temperatures cause pronounced atmospheric heating. Hotter air and water along with higher relative humidity altogether stimulate evaporation, cloud formation and eventual precipitation. When there is extreme cold and hot air, a wind system develops, growing into cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes.

4. Hotter climates cause ice thinning on mountaintops, breaking down of icebergs and floes, melting of the polar ice. The law of displacement explains why our seas are rising, and because all oceans and seas are interconnected, the effect becomes a global one. The first to suffer are those living on low-lying areas. Unfortunately, most cities and town are found on lowlands, near seaports and along major rivers. Thus the next exodus will be ecologically caused. We can call it mass eco-migration. A very disruptive kind of resettlement is needed, dwarfing the kinds of settlement during the era of colonization and conquest. Today’s planners are revolutionizing the concept and design of human habitation that would be decongested and environmentally conserving.

5. There will be a major shift in farming systems where new frontiers will be opened, while others will be abandoned. Adaptation strategies of crops and animals, review of land use policies and programs are back on the drawing boards. Again, environmental conservation will receive special attention.

6. Wildlife migration patterns, niches and distribution, will be greatly affected as their natural habitats are destroyed or modified by changing climate. All living things, without exception, are affected by the man-induced phenomenon of global warming.

The Making of Superbugs

Global warming affects even the lowly and microscopic organisms.

They are called gamu-gamu or simut-simut. These are the winged termites. These ordinarily shy, tunnel-dwelling insect suddenly take into the air at night in a swarm, attracted by light in our homes and towns. There is a new breed of super termite that has destroyed thousands of homes in Southern United States since the 1950’s after it was accidentally introduced from China. The insect continued to develop resistance to eradication despite U.S. advances in biology and chemistry.

We trace this superb resistance on two views. First, this super termite is the survivor of chemical spraying. Pesticides may have eradicated the weaker members of its population, but the survivors carry the acquired resistance. After several generations, and the super termite was formed. This genetic advantage may explain the species’ survival, but what about its successful geographic adaptation and distribution? This brings us to my second observation.

Frequent rains and floods predispose wood to soften or even rot, making it more palatable to the cellulose-eating insect. It prefers old wood and the southern states have houses as old as the Mayflower expedition. These conditions provide a perfect termite abode, and together with its symbionts, protozoa in its stomach and wood fungus as pre-digester, termite empires continue to spread from one house after another.

Then at swarming time (which now occurs more frequently than once a year), it is easy for a new termite swarm to start new colonies, which today can be as convenient in book shelves, wooden appliances, apparadors, and office files, as well as posts, beams, floors and walls. And by the way, according to Discovery TV channel, termites strangely eat twice as fast, given an ambiance of loud metallic music (or noise). Watch out for the floor!

The Case of the Fire Ant

We encounter red ants, Solenopsis geminata, in the kitchen, picnic grounds, and garden. According to old folks, when they emerge from their nest to seek shelter on higher grounds, carrying their young and food, they proclaim the arrival of heavy rain.

But it is not this kind of ant of which we are more concerned now. In Florida, a super red ant has spread all over the state and is still moving via floodwaters. A mass of ants, by the thousands, would simply float on water currents landing on a new territory, and then break into several colonies. That is how efficiently the ant is spread, a new adaptation that other ants do not possess.

The sting of this super ant contains a poisonous formic acid. A person who is allergic to it could die from just a single sting. While this ant may be beneficial in one way by devouring destructive insects on the farm, the very sign of its presence in such magnitude is alarming. The US Department of Agriculture even uses GP (Global Positioning) Satellite to monitor and identify the foragers’ locations and sizes of their colonies to assist in their eradication.

The Case of the Super Bacteria

In 1993, tens of thousands of people in Milwaukee suddenly got sick and the suspected culprit is a bacterium that lives in the cloudy waters of Lake Michigan which supplies the areas’ potable water. But Lake Michigan has long been polluted. From the view deck on Sears Tower, one can smell the foul odor of the lake. What is surprising is that the pathogen has found a way to defy ordinary water treatment methods.

Such is how the Milwaukee pathogen has proliferated. During the El Nino of 1993, melting snow joined the floodwaters, washing down animal manure and other organic wastes from upland farms and homes, and dumping them into the lake. This has the effect of fertilizing the bacterium. Ecologists call this sudden bacterial upsurge “bloom”, which is similar to the algal bloom phenomenon.

To control the epidemic, drinking water had to be boiled, and water treatment methods intensified until the bacterium is eliminated. These procedures are necessarily very costly operations.

Deadly Dinoflagellates

On the estuaries of Maryland and North Carolina a strange disease has been harming humans and was only first observed 1993. For a time it baffled doctors and scientists until it was traced to Plasteria, a dinoflagellate - a microscopic unicellular organism that behaves like both a plant and an animal. It carries chlorophyll to enable it to manufacture food by photosynthesis, and being equipped with flagella and amoeboid form, it could live freely on the estuaries in huge numbers or as a parasite of fish and other organisms.

It attacks fish by ambushing it with neurotoxin. Once inside the fish body the amoeba-like creature enters the blood stream, and secretes an acid that dissolves tissues and internal organs, killing the fish. This explains the massive fish kill that occurred in these estuaries in 1991.

In turn, the toxin as well as the immature form of the dinoflagellate, enter the human body through infected fish. Even if a person recovers, he suffers permanent loss of memory, and adversely affected speech and coordination, as discovered by scientists from the University of Maryland.

Where did the dinoflagellate come from and how did it spread into the estuaries? From nearby pig farms, with the slurry flowing downward to the estuaries. Fertilizers, farm chemicals, and organic wastes, follow the same process. Flooding and poor drainage controls exacerbate the situation, favoring the growth of the dinoflagellates.

The culprit in Red Tide is another algal bloom, but is located at coves and harbors. Organic materials and wastes flow down the river during floods and onto the sea where they fertilize the red tide dinoflagellates. In the Philippines the red tide species is Pyrodinium bahamense compressa. This happens when the water is warm and there is plenty of sunlight. The organisms multiply very rapidly that due to their enormous numbers, the water appears red, hence the term Red Tide.

The biblical story of the Nile turning red, as in one of the plagues of Egypt during the time of Moses, was a case of the Red Tide phenomenon. One would appreciate this better on entering Cairo coming from Sinai desert across the Suez Canal. From there one can see how near the Nile is to the Mediterranean Sea. During flood seasons the Nile deposits its load of silt and organic delta-building materials, consequently obstructing water flow. The area has become as a cradle of the Red Tide.

Hantavirus from Mice

In New Mexico that is a desert country, a strange kind of disease was discovered that affects the heart, kidney and liver. Dr. Ben Moneta, a descendant of Navajo Indians, and a graduate of Stanford University, came up with the answer. His findings may also re-open the puzzle of how the Navajo civilization suddenly perished.

Whenever the desert begins to get more rains, vegetation is increased, and so is the number of animals living in the area. The once barren area becomes suddenly fertile, causing the mice population to rapidly increase. Mice are carriers of a deadly hantavirus that adversely infect humans. Dr. Moneta found out that as early as in 1923 a medicine woman warned that if a mouse gets in contact with clothes or anything worn, these apparel should be immediately burned to prevent infection. This led him to believe that the hantavirus is not new. It must have existed for millions of years, but its resurgence is becoming clear.

Delphi Project

In the idle Los Alamos desert is a new center. Its Mission code name is Delphi Project. Here, scientists are studying killer bugs (organisms which can launch an attack and destroy many lives and properties). It is a race with time and as the clock ticks, man should be able to prevent any catastrophe reminiscent of the Bubonic Plague. AIDS (Acute Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome) is already prodding us to move fast.

The message is clear. Let us restrict careless activities that favor the making of super bugs.~

Author’s Note on SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)

According to Time Magazine, a more likely, and frightening, possibility is the unstable SARS coronovirus which has mutated since it left its origin in Guangdong, China. Now it has become a more virulent and contagious virus as evidenced by samples taken in Beijing and Hongkong. The spread in China and other countries is expected to rise, causing untold numbers of deaths. While there is no specific connection between global warming and SARS, it is established that unstable and unfavorable climatic conditions expose millions of people to health problems.
 
Left:  Water contaminated with microscopic algae, such as Euglena, may render a whole reservoir unfit for human consumption. Right: Green algae may “bloom” under intense sunlight and nutrient-rich water, the cause of fish kill. 






Algal bloom of the poisonous Caulerpa taxifolia on the Mediterranean seafloor is thought to be a result of global warming. Jellyfish outbreak is spurred by global warming.

Industrialization is Driving Our Climate Wild

June 7, 2016, 5:02 am

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“Except for nuclear war or collision with an asteroid, no force has more potential to damage our planet’s web of life than global warming.”   Time, Feeling the Heat        

                                                                     Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature - School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

                                                                                                              

There is a ballad sang by Pat Boone, the theme aptly goes like this. “Sometimes, an April day will suddenly bring shower… rain to grow the flowers.” 

"Greenhouse gases" mainly Carbon and Sulfur form a gaseous soup in the atmosphere 

April in the Northern Luzon is normally the driest of all months. Pag-asa’s record for rain is nil. But a tropical depression may bring along rain that wakes up dormant seeds and make the fields green. But it also douses the fire of the flowers of the fire tree (Regia) and Dapdap (Erythrina)

Our climate is changing for the worse. April may still be the warmest month of the year but, at the same time, we are getting frequent thunderstorms that cause flashfloods and instant traffic jams. Early rains cause grasshoppers to prematurely change colors - brown to green too soon, while proceeding to turn beaches into jellyfish haven. 

A Different Kind of Summer 
 
Summer may need a new definition when cicadas fill the eerie summer air, while termites and winged ants swarm before June. The June beetle appears as early as in April. So much summer squash lay in waste in the fields, unharvested because of just one untimely rain. This phenomenon also wakes up the weeds, only to dry up in their juvenile stage. Such false signals of early rain could mean losses of early crops which farmers often plant at the start of the monsoon. 

Rainfall is as erratic towards the end of the year as at the beginning. For example, the price of vegetables soared in 2002 when the tail of the monsoon season stayed too long. Onions, garlic, most leafy vegetables, like cabbage and cauliflower, and practically all cucurbits (from ampalaya to cucumber), were adversely affected by unexpected summer rains.

Buildup of Pests and Diseases 
Creating a big problem for farmers is the buildup of fungal and bacterial diseases, along with the redoubling of pests. Many organisms, which include insects, nematodes, fungi and bacteria, aestivate during the dry season. Imagine these organisms rising from their dormancy like a sleeping genie, proceeding to attack the nearby plants. 
As a farmhand, one notes that when the day is hot and along comes a sudden rainfall, old folks would turn their heads around and, imitating the sound of the house lizard, sigh, “Agparuar manen iti igges.” (This untimely rain is going to breed pests.) 

There is something biblical in their prediction, but the scientific basis is that the rain softens the shell of aestivating insects, opens the spores of fungi and bacteria, converting the surrounding environment into one favorable for their growth and development. A sudden rain wakes up a colony of mites ensconced in a curled leaf, incubates a batch of locust eggs buried in the ground, activates resting spores of Pythium (a rot-causing fungus), and softens nematodes tough skin. Considering the short life cycle of these organisms, their mode of infestation coincides with the life cycle of their main and alternate host plants. Whole fields can be destroyed instantaneously.

But plant damage due to physical stress is also just as devastating. Imagine watering your garden on a very hot time of the day. Plant cells are directly damaged by sudden changes in temperature. It also affects the efficiency of osmosis (the intercellular movement of water and dissolved substances from one cell to another), which is vital to the plant’s physiology. 

Man-Induced Atmospheric Disturbances 
While too much rain falls unexpectedly in one area, there is equally the chance that other areas are not getting enough of it. This is one characteristic of the current global warming, despite of the increase in air moisture in the air by 10 percent in the last two decades. Uneven distribution of rainfall is exacerbated by factors that are mainly man-induced. 

Swarm of jellyfish spurred by global warming.

Carbon Dioxide from automobiles and industries is not only increasing the “greenhouse effect”, but is also creating uneven distribution of clouds. As a result we have unpredictable rainfall distribution. When this coincides with El Nino which is a cyclical phenomenon of unusual drought and flooding occurring in opposite places, a severe climatic condition, such as those that occurred in 1972, 1986 and 1995, occur. Crop losses alone over the world ran into billions of dollars. 


Industrialization and agriculture have become on the long run strange bedfellows, so to speak. And the irony is that, while agriculture spurred the growth and development of industrialization, it the latter’s by-product – pollution - that is destroying the relationship once conceived to be compatible, thus threatening the lives of millions of farmers all over the world. 

Erratic Weather and Pest Buildup
 Perhaps not many people know that infestation by migratory pests is enhanced by climatic adversities. But there is a correlation between weather and pest buildup. Migratory locust-(Locusta migratoria manilensis - (Photo) assemble into the migratory phase or what is called swarming, after small groups (congregans) coalesce repeatedly, snowballing into larger and larger populations. This is happening in drought stricken areas where there are patches of green, such as irrigated farmlands and small valleys. As food is consumed quickly with the drought worsening, the insects, in thousands or millions, migrate riding on air currents. Guided by instinct to places where they can find food and a mate, they thus sow famine and human desolation everywhere they visit. Devastations in China, India, Southern United States and Mindanao are not distant memories. 

As a witness to the locust control program in Lubao, Pampanga, one notices the lahar-affected areas starting to dry up as solitary locusts pack up into groups and begin attacking sugarcane, the only standing crop soon after harvesting rice and corn. That was 1995, an El Nino year.

Leafhoppers likewise ride on wind currents and could cross the sea that far in spite of their minuscule size. Leafhoppers are carriers of serious diseases of plants such as the dreaded tungro disease of rice that can wipe out a potential bumper crop. Spores of pathogens may also be transmitted this way, not to mention the foot-and-mouth pathogen that affects hoofed animals, blight and rust fungi of crops – and the dreaded influenza virus that affect man.

New Concept of Force Majeure
 Even as we bring back to the drawing board technologies from both old and new agricultural schools of thought, we may not be ready for solutions when it comes to an erratic climatic condition. Sometimes we are tempted to redefine force majeure to include vagaries of the climate that nonetheless result into crop failures as destructive as those caused by floods or typhoons. Traditional agriculture is often blamed as the first and easy culprit. In the open Philippine fields, our crops thrive on the mercy of the elements. Advanced countries on the other hand, have improved better facilities (such as drip irrigation and greenhouses) to minimize the effects of potentially unruly weather and changing climate. Even so, the cost of production is increased whenever such measures are used, imputing on the price of the commodity. 
 
Saltwater intrusion into farmlands and rivers, as a result of rising levels of our seas, is not clearly defined under the terms of crop insurance such as those of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC). The same is true in the case of acid rain, which can wipe out an entire crop, or cause starvation of livestock. But with climatic conditions predisposing animals to foot-and-mouth diseases, as well as crop destruction through climate-induced pest buildup, insurance companies still have to rewrite their contract to have these claims covered. 

Acid Rain 
It is not only on the pattern and volume of rainfall distribution that bother us. On a number of occasions, this writer has seen field crops, lawns and gardens scorched by acid rain. Acidic reaction is manifested primarily by lesions of leaves with the leaf buds first affected, followed by gradual drying up around these spots under the heat of the sun. Either leaves dry up, or the whole plant defoliates, but in extreme cases trees suffer of dieback, which is the drying of growing tips of branches. Many plants do not recover from this stage, especially during summer, thereby providing the fuel for spontaneous forest fire. 

As we continue to spew noxious gases (such as sulfur and carbon dioxide) into the air, water molecules bind with the sulfur or carbon radicals, to form acid rain. The spiked water molecules condense into rain, reaching up to acidity levels of 4 pH. Most plants thrive best within neutral 7 pH. In acidic soils, plant nutrients become locked up, so that even soils that are fertile do not produce a good harvest as expected unless their pH is adjusted to normal range. This requires a tedious and expensive rehabilitation effort.
___________________________________________________________________ 
The increasing cases of climatic adversities endorse a re-definition of force majeure which shall serve as guide to banks and insurance companies. Meanwhile, planners are urged to go back to the drawing board to review current agricultural technologies, and land use policies. At the same time, more and more farmers are cultivating crops under greenhouses and other controlled conditions such as drip irrigation, zero tillage and natural farming to get rid of chemicals deleterious to human health. As this is done, 86 countries, signatories to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (except the US), are working to effectively curve the deteriorating conditions of the earth’s atmosphere. 
________________________________________________________________ 
 
Plants have different water, CO2 and temperature regimes 
 
What are the effects of changing climate on plants? First, it is important to classify plants according to their water requirement. There are those that thrive best under dry condition, the xerophytes, such as those living in the desert, while others are water loving such as rice.  Even our common crops are classified according to various levels of water regime, so that any significant change in their water supply greatly affects them. 
Imagine that as the sea level rises, more and more areas become flooded. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC), much of the shorelines we know today will vanish if sea levels rise as predicted by computerized models. There will be changes in natural vegetation and it will be necessary to plan out cropping systems to fit into the changed landscape. The job would be as crucial as adjusting cropping systems with increasing temperature and Carbon Dioxide concentration. 

In a research conducted at the UST Graduate School, with Dr. Reynaldo Tabbada as adviser, any increase in CO2 concentrations from present levels estimated at 350 ppm, may be favorable to the early post-germination development of mungbean, a typical representative of legumes. Cereals also respond favorably to raised CO2, but it is the expected doubling of CO2 levels within the next 70 to 80 years that causes us some apprehension. 

Flooding also contributes to the increase in methane gas production as a result of expanding swamplands. Wider areas are likely to be planted to rice as the rate of precipitation increases. Rice culture is known to contribute significant amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere.

The levels of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane gas have jumped 30 percent, 15 percent and 100 percent, respectively, from pre-industrial levels. All these indicate that our atmospheric blanket is getting thicker and heavier, and that more heat is being trapped. Even with holes in the ozone layer atop the Antarctic region, and lately on the Arctic, the earth cannot sufficiently dissipate the heat to a state of balance.

A average increase of a mere half degree Celsius in global temperature noticed during the last century may be dismissed as “slight” were it not for the consequences felt in alarming proportions, such as the heat waves. Even with the use of models, the global temperature will continue to rise from a low estimate of 1.4 degrees Celsius to as high as 5.8 degrees Celsius by year 2100. This is 50 percent higher than predicted only a few years ago.

Except in acclimatization studies, heat tolerance is something we have not given much attention to in our current crop researches. What we usually do is to assign plants to different temperature regimes, with broad classifications, such as tropical, temperate, or semi-tropical and semi-temperate. As global temperature builds up, the frontiers of agriculture will move northward to occupy areas normally too cool for certain crops to grow. Tropical crops on the other hand will follow suit, in effect replacing temperate crops.

Primer on Greenhouse Effect 

 Many of us must have heard the term “Greenhouse Effect” many times to a point that it has become part of the dictionary. Greenhouse effect is an analogy. And there is no simpler way to illustrate the “trapping” of heat inside a closed chamber such as a glass house where plants are raised even if the weather outside is unfavorable for plant growth and development. Greenhouses are not as popular in the tropics as they are in temperate countries. In these places, winter is severe. Sometimes it comes early as in a frost and the plants perish before they are harvested. 

Here is the mechanism of the greenhouse effect. Let us say that for every ten rays (heat value) of the sun that enter the glass roof, nine are reflected back to the atmosphere, and one is retained in the process. If this is repeated many times over, the inside of the greenhouse becomes hotter than outside. If out of ten ray units, seven are reflected back thereby causing three to stay, the heat buildup is proportionally more rapid and intense. 

Our atmosphere is like a greenhouse, its roof is the atmosphere. When the sun strikes the earth, the atmosphere retains the heat for sometime, otherwise our planet will be cooler than it is now. It is this heat level that maintains a climate favorable to life as we know it. When it is cold we need a blanket to keep us warm. Similarly the atmosphere serves as a blanket for our planet. 

This blanket is not at all fixed and stable; it had undergone changes in the past. The last Ice Age was preceded by a decrease of our atmospheric temperature, a phenomenon that had recurred cyclically during the succeeding millions of years. It is only at this time, at the advent of industrialization that man’s activities have definitely influenced the structure and behavior of our atmosphere.

In his masteral thesis, “Global Warming: Its Ethico-Theological Implications,” presented to the UST Graduate School, Fr. Allan M. Otodoy, concluded that the expansion of the greenhouse effect is a clear sign that modern civilization is on a destructive path. It raises ethical questions of environmental issues that all of us need to know and ponder upon.

We have tinkered, and continue to tinker, with our natural environment such as in the way we use energy, principally fossil fuel. By so doing, we alter, if not destroy, the ecosystem. We as a species always aimed at satisfying our needs and wants, while elevating our standards of living without regard for the finite resources of the earth.

Additionally, we have been indifferent to confront the problems of inequality in the distribution of these resources – agricultural and industrial, and well, natural resources – those we often consider as free. Poverty contributes as much to the degradation of out environment as the creation and use of goods and services that only the affluent can afford.

Industrialization has erased much of our gains in agriculture, and has negated our efforts to preserve the environment. We cannot have the best of two worlds, but we can come up with a formula of development that best serve mankind.  x x x

Environmental Revolution - Global Revolution Today

June 7, 2016, 5:03 am

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Dr Abe V Rotor
 Living with Nature - School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Miss Grace Velasco

738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

 
Global warming, painting by AVR

People think that what the world needs is a revolution.  Three philosophers have three formulas of an environmental revolution. 

•  Rudolf Bahro, author of The Alternative, claims East Europe’s non-capitalist road to industrialization has been shaped by the same growth ideals and methods as has Western capitalism, and that the working classes of both West and East have the exploitation of nature and the Third World as common. Defending their own societies’ privileged positions on the world market, both camps add to global inequity. For which Bahro calls for a new social movement – the environmental movement, a grand coalition of people’s forces, a rebuilding of society from the bottom upwards. 

• Ivan Illich on the other hand, criticizes modern society and its failure to cater to human needs. He believes that the privileged today are not those who consume most but those who can escape the negative by-products of industrialization – people who can commute outside the rush hours, be born and die at home, cure themselves when ill, breathe fresh air, and build their own dwellings. People must arm themselves with the self-confidence and the means to run their own lives as far as possible, especially as big institutions like schooling, medical care and transport today are creating more problems than they solve. Politics is no longer a simple Left-Right choice; man must have a choice of energy, technology, education, etc., he calls vernacular values.

• According to Andre Gorz, the ecology struggle is not as an end in itself but as essential part of the larger struggle against capitalism and technofascism. He champions a civil society shifting power from the State and political parties to local community and the web of social relations that individuals establish amongst themselves. The State’s role is to encourage self-management among the citizens. He envisions a utopian future where “the citizens can do more for less,” and the development of a rich, all-round personality.

 What are we really fighting for?

I remember a student of mine asking me this question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” On the surface this question does not touch ethics and morals, or social and economic matters. But it does. It also pertains to legislation, such as the issue whether we should advocate total log ban or selective logging. It even boils down to analyzing a syndrome known as “tragedy of the commons.” Let us analyze it based on the three stages of moral judgment, which according to Dr. Tai is based on the Ten Commandments, the first stage being that of moral judgment (man’s duty to man), the second stage (man’s duty to society), and the third (moral neutrality on the environment). 

The first and second stages of moral judgment were not the issues in the early development of human society because man was governed by the naturalistic concept, such as trees provide many things that support life. Since evolutionary time, plants have been providing the basic needs of man – food, clothing, shelter, medicine and energy. The harvesting of plants and their products has been part of human sustenance, and as such they must be used properly. This ethnic view was also the basis of early agriculture. It is the key to a sustainable relationship between man and nature that lasted for eons of time.

The essence of naturalism began to fade as communities grew, and as people moved and lived in cities. The concept has been taken for granted even as people became learned. Like a gold rush, new lands became the targets of economic exploitation, until the frontiers were pushed to the limits. New lands were placed under agriculture, which included our own Mindanao. Accessibility to forests and the wildlife became more and more feasible. Original forests were replaced with ranches and plantations. Economics was the name of the game. In spurred the second Green Revolution and agriculture spurred the growth of trade and industry of the world. It eroded the ethnic relationship between man and nature. Beliefs about the tree spirit, forest deities and nature worships became regarded as pure superstitious beliefs and legends relegated only to fiction and comics.

The final blow followed – industrialization. It is not only food that preoccupied man. Want over need has incessantly driven man to convert lands into golf courses, human settlements, industrial sites, and all kinds of infrastructures. Imagine how easy, and how short a time it takes to destroy a whole forest which nature built for hundreds if not thousands of years, with giant machines of today. It is said that by the time we finish reading a paragraph of average length, three hectares of forest shall have been destroyed.

We live in post-modernism

It is a paradox to be living tomorrow today. We grope at the forefront of progressive innovation which usually means “violating traditional norms or ideas in all fields if human concern,” quoting Dr. Florentino H. Hornedo. “The human being who has abandoned his essence, nature and origin has also given up purpose and aim of existence. Life then becomes a “free play” of what forces may come which “construct” existence. Neither is there personhood or self to be ethically responsible for one’s action,” - which Dr. Tai called moral neutrality.

I go back to the question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This time the concept of the act has far reaching consequences based on the above-mentioned premises. I would return the question with reference to actual incidents. Who are responsible for the tragedies caused by mudslide from a logged watershed? In many incidents in China, the Philippines and elsewhere, thousands were killed and millions of dollars were lost. Such tragedies have been repeated even on a larger scale. 

Deserts continue to expand as a result of human activities, so with siltation of rivers and lakes, shortening their usefulness and life span. Dams become heavily silted as a result of cutting down of trees on their watershed. All over the world we find similar cases: the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Russia, desertification, and marginalization of farmlands – and the man-made calamities mentioned in Dr. Tai’s paper. The worst result in the endangerment of natural habitats and species, leading to irreversible loss of ecosystems and biodiversity.

Deer by a Stream - an Apparition

June 7, 2016, 7:07 am

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Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Deer by a Stream, acrylic painting by AVR 2000

Apparition  by a stream before a waterfall, 

biblical and one of mythology; 
it brings to reality a world of fantasy,

a yearning of beauty before the Fall. ~

Art of the Caterpillar

June 7, 2016, 7:11 am

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 Dr Abe V Rotor

Skeleton of a samat leaf

Caterpillar, when you are gone
two things come to mind:
the butterfly you have become,
and the damage you have done
and left behind.

Art, art, whatever way defined,
the subject on the wall,
or dripping on the floor,
art, art you aren't hard to find
after all. ~

Karimbuaya or Soro-soro is best stuff of lechon baboy and manok

June 8, 2016, 12:26 am

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To Ilocanos, no lechon is complete without karimbuaya. When combined with herbs and spices, karimbuaya lends the lechon a distinct taste and aroma. The milky sap of the plant has medicinal properties and helps remove the unpleasant odor of meat and fish.
Dr Abe V Rotor
 Living with Nature School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

 

Cebuanos and Manileños stuff lechon  with tanglad or lemongrass, the Ilocano style is to put in a native plant, karimbuaya.

Not so many people know that karimbuaya or sorosoro(Euphorbia neriifolia)  makes an excellent stuff for lechon and relyenong bangos. The mature leaves are chopped tangential and stuffed into the prepared pig to be roasted, so with dressed chicken - and bangus for broiling. It has high oil content in its milky sap. It leaves a pleasant taste and it serves as a salad itself. It has a slight sour taste. Like tanglad, sorosoro removes the characteristic flesh and fishy odor. Add chopped ginger, onion and garlic as may be desired.

One word of caution: The fresh sap of sorosoro may cause irritation of the eye and skin. Wash hands immediately. Better still, use kitchen gloves.
 


 Relyenong bangos with karimbuaya

Adobo with karimbuaya (inquirer.net)

Facts about Karimbuya or Sorosoro 
Philippine Medicinal Plants (Internet)

This information is helpful to medicine, pharmacology, botanical research, and to the public in general. It is the intention of this program, Paaralan Bayan sa Himpapawid to encourage the use of natural medicine and food, and to potential scientists to direct their attention to our own indigenous resources as the subject of their study.

Botany
Soro-soro is an erect, shrubby, branched, fleshy, cactus-like plant growing to 2 to 4 meters. Trunk and older branches are grayish and cylindric; medium branches slightly twisted and stout, fleshy, 4- or 5-angled or winged, the younger ones usually 3-winged, the wings lobulate, with a pair of stout, sharp, 2- to 4-millimeter long spines rising from the thickened bases of each leaf or petiole-scar. Leaves, arising from the sides of wings towards the end of the branches, are fleshy, oblong-obovate, 5 to 15 centimeters long; in young plants, longer pointed or blunt at the tip. Cymes are short, solitary in the sinuses, and usually of 3 involucres. Involucres are green or pale yellow, about 6 millimeters in diameter, with the lobes fimbriate.

Distribution
- Cultivated in gardens as a hedge plant.
- Nowhere spontaneous.
- Also occurs in India to Malaya.
Constituents
- Studies have yielded euphorbon, resin, gun caoutchouc, malate of calcium, among others.
- Phytochemical studies have yielded triterpenes like nerifolione, cycloartenol, euphol, euphorbiol, nerifoliene, taraxerol, ß-amyrin among others.
- Fresh latex yields 10.95% solid with 18.32% total resinous matter, and 24.50% and 16.23% of total diterpene and triterpene respectively.
- Phytochemicals yielded steroidal saponin, reducing sugar, tannins, flavonoids in the crude extract.
- Phytochemically analysis of leaves yielded flavonoids, phlobatannins, saponin, tannins, cardenoloids, phenol, and terpenoids. (see study below) (18)
- Study of an ethanol leaf extract isolated a new flavonoid: 2-(3,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxy-phenyl)-3,5-dihydroxy-6,7-dimethoxychromen-4-one. (see study below) (21)
- Study isolated eighteen new diterpenoids, names eurifoloids A-R (1-18) including ingenane (1 and 2), abietane (3-7), isopimarane (8-12) and ent-atisane (13-18) types, along with four known analogues. (see study below) (22)
Properties
- Considered purgative, rubefacient, expectorant.
- Leaves considered diuretic.
- Root is considered antiseptic.
- Latex considered purgative, diuretic, vermifuge and antiasthma.
- Studies have reported cytotoxic, antiarthritic, anti-inflammatory, wound healing and immunomodulatory properties.

Folkloric Uses
- Roots have been used for snake bites.
- Fluid from roasted leaves used for earache.
- The milky juice used for asthma, cough, earache. Also, used as an insecticide.
- Mixed with Margosa oil and applied to limbs in rheumatism.
- Tumeric powder mixed with the juice applied to piles. Thread steeped in the same mixture used for ligaturing external hemorrhoids.
- Milky juice used internally as purgative; rubefacient, externally. Applied to glandular swellings to prevent suppuration.
- Externally, applied to sores, cysts, warts, and calluses.
- Used as a drastic purgative.
- For internal use: decoction or infusion of 10 grams for 1 liter of water, 2-3 cups daily.
- Juice of leaves used for spasmodic asthma.
- Leaves used as diuretic.
- In India, used for bronchitis, tumors, leukoderma, piles, inflammation, fever, earaches, anemia and ulcers.
- In Malaya, used for earache.
- In French Guiana, leaves are heated, squeezed, and the salted sap used for wheezing in babies, colds and stomach upsets. Also used for infected nails, fevers, coughs and diabetes in NW Guyana.
- In Ayurveda, whole plant, leaf and roots used for abdominal complaints, bronchitis, tumors, splenic enlargement, coughs and colds.

Folkloric
- Roots have been used for snake bites.
- Fluid from roasted leaves used for earache.
- The milky juice used for asthma, cough, earache. Also, used as an insecticide.
- Mixed with Margosa oil and applied to limbs in rheumatism.
- Tumeric powder mixed with the juice applied to piles. Thread steeped in the same mixture used for ligaturing external hemorrhoids.
- Milky juice used internally as purgative; rubefacient, externally. Applied to glandular swellings to prevent suppuration.
- Externally, applied to sores, cysts, warts, and calluses.
- Used as a drastic purgative.
- For internal use: decoction or infusion of 10 grams for 1 liter of water, 2-3 cups daily.
- Juice of leaves used for spasmodic asthma.
- Leaves used as diuretic.
- In India, used for bronchitis, tumors, leukoderma, piles, inflammation, fever, earaches, anemia and ulcers.
- In Malaya, used for earache.
- In French Guiana, leaves are heated, squeezed, and the salted sap used for wheezing in babies, colds and stomach upsets. Also used for infected nails, fevers, coughs and diabetes in NW Guyana.
- In Ayurveda, whole plant, leaf and roots used for abdominal complaints, bronchitis, tumors, splenic enlargement, coughs and colds.

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Acknowledgement: Philippine Medicinal Plants 

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Oregano (Coleus amboinicus) for Medicine, Culinary and Pest Control

June 8, 2016, 2:22 am

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Oregano is a centuries-old remedy for many ailments, from bad digestion to diabetes. It is an excellent food adjunct. To Italians, it is the secret of their cooking and making pizza, just as the Mexican make chilicon carne. Our own dinuguan tastes best with this aromatic herb.



Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday








Two types of oregano: local (dark green) and variegated (Italian). The variegated oregano is sensitive to Philippine condition. It was given to the author by Dr Domingo Tapiador who brought it from Rome where he was based with UN-FAO headquarters.

There is always oregano (Coleus amboinicus) at home, ready to ease cough and sore throat. I imagine myself wearing a handkerchief around my head, advising my family and neighbors not to take cough drops or antibiotics for simple colds.

I tell them to pick a young leaf or two of oregano and chew it while taking juice or soft drinks. Or blanch it, extract the juice, and add sugar and warm water. It is practical and there are no side effects. And what a feeling! No wonder the plant's name which comes from the Greek words, Ore/Oros means mountain, and ganos is joy. Joy on the mountain.

Pliny the Elder claimed oregano as a remedy for bad digestion. To Italians, it is the secret of their cooking and making pizza, just as the Mexican make chili con carne. Our own dinuguan tastes best with this aromatic herb.

On the other hand, I found out that oregano is an insect repellant. I noticed that mosquitoes, flies and roaches are kept away by its odor. Oregano has essential oil, thymol, which is also a strong antiseptic and disinfectant.

Warning: Oregano extract is not advisable for plant pest control, specially on garden plants, either as spray or sprinkle solution. It has allelophatic substance, which means it is phytotoxic to certain plants, causing stunting or death. Never plant oregano side by side with your favorite garden plants like rose, mayana, anthurium and ground orchid.


Plant oregano in pots by cutting, or the whole shoot or branch. It can grow in the shade or under direct sunlight, with moderate amount of water. During rainy months keep the potted plants away from too much rain water. Oregano grows best in summer, but don't forget to water it regularly. A full grown oregano can be made into cuttings which you can grow in individual plastic pots to supply the neighborhood - as token or gift. It takes a cutting to reach full growth in two to three weeks. ~
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FACTS ABOUT OREGANO Acknowledgement: Philippine Medicinal Plants (Internet)

This information is helpful to medicine, pharmacology, botanical research, and to the public in general. It is the intention of this program, Paaralan Bayan sa Himpapawid to encourage the use of natural medicine and food, and to potential scientists to direct their attention to our own indigenous resources as the subject of their study.

Botany
Suganda is an erect, spreading, branched, rather coarse, strongly aromatic, green herb, with fleshy stems. Leaves are fleshy, broadly ovate, 4 to 9 centimeters long, often heart-shaped, and somewhat hairy, with rounded toothed margins, with the tip and base decurrent. Flowers are small, and occur in distant whorls. Calyx is bell-shaped; the throat is smooth inside, with two lips, the upper lip being ovate and thin, the lower lip having four narrow teeth. Corolla is pale purplish and 5 times longer than the calyx, with a s
Distribution
- Cultivated for its aromatic leaves.
- Certainly introduced.
- Also occurring in India to Malaya.

Constituents
- Fresh leaves yield 0.055 volatile oil, largely carvacrol.
- Phytochemical screening yielded carbohydrates, proteins, phenols, tannins, flavanoids, saponins, glycosides.
- Aerial parts yielded essential oil with 28 constituents, 16 of which were identified. Thymol (83.39%) was the major compound, while 1-octen-3-ol, terpine-4-ol, eugenol, trans-caryophyllene, caryophyllene oxide and α-cadinol were present as minor constituents. (16)
- Study of flowers and aerial parts for essential oils yielded four compounds from flowers oil and twelve from the aerial parts. The major constituent was carvacrol in flowers and aerial parts, 50.98% and 77.16% respectively. Other constituents were p-cymene, ß-caryophyllene, and trans-a-bergamotene.
Properties
- Aromatic, carminative (relieving flatulence), emmenagogue (encourages menstrual bleeding) , diaphoretic (increase sweating), tonic, stimulant.
- In India, considered antilithiotic, chemopreventive, antiepileptic, antioxidant.

Uses
Edibility / Culinary
· As condiment, provides fragrance to salads and strong-smelling meat dishes.
· Sometimes, used as flavoring for drinks.
· In India, leaves of the green type often eaten raw with bread and butter. Chopped leaves used as a substitute for sage.
Folkloric
· In the Philippines, macerated fresh leaves applied externally to burns.
· Leaves are bruised and applied to centipede and scorpion bites. Also, applied to temples and forehead for headache, help in place by a bandage.
· Leaves in infusion or as syrup used as aromatic and carminative; used for dyspepsia and also as a cure for asthma.
· The Malays used the plant juice or decoction for pains around the areas of the heart or abdomen.
· Decoction of leaves given after childbirth.
· In Indo-China, given for asthma and bronchitis.
· The juice of the leaves for dyspepsia, asthma, chronic coughs, bronchitis, colic, flatulence, rheumatism. The dose is one tablespoonful of the fresh juice every hour for adults and one teaspoonful every two hours, four times daily, for children. As an infusion, 50 to 60 grams to a pint of boiling water, and drink the tea, 4 to 5 glasses a day. For children, 1/2 cup 4 times daily.
· For otalgia (ear aches), pour the fresh, pure juice into the ear for 10 minutes.
· For carbuncles, boils, sprains, felons, painful swellings: Apply the poultice of leaves to the affected area, four times daily.
· For sore throats, a decoction of two tablespoonfuls of dried leaves to a pint of boiling water, taken one hour before or after meals.
· In India, leaves are used traditionally for bronchitis, asthma, diarrhea, epilepsy, nephro-cystolithiasis, fever, indigestion and cough. Also used for malarial fever, hepatopathy, renal and vesicle calculi, hiccup, helminthiasis, colic, and convulsions.
· The Chinese used the juice of leaves with sugar, for cough in children, asthma and bronchitis, epilepsy and convulsive disorders.
· Leaves are applied to cracks at the corners of the mouth, for thrush, headaches; against fever as a massage or as a wash.
· Used for bladder and urinary afflictions, and vaginal discharges.
· Used as carminative, given to children for colic.
· In Bengal, used for coli and dyspepsia.
· Expressed juice applied around the orbit to relieve conjunctival pain.
Others
· Fresh leaves rubbed on clothing or hair at the time of bathing for its scent.
Recent uses and preparations
Respiratory ailments like cough, asthma and bronchitis: Squeeze juice of the leaves. Take one teaspoon every hour for adults. For children above 2 years old, 3 to 4 teaspoons a day inflated throat, and short lips.
Studies
• Antioxidant / Anticlastogenic / Radioprotective:
• Mast cell stabilization property:)
• Antimicrobial:
• Anticlastogenicity (inhibits dan\mage o chromosomes
• Anti-Inflammatory
• Antibacterial
• Forskolin / Antioxidant / Anti-Asthma / Pulmo-protective: • Insecticidal / Anti-Termite:
• Galactagogue The study aimed to gather information about the women's beliefs and experiences in the use of the herb. The participants felt their breasts become full with breast milk helped control postpartum bleeding and help "uterine cleansing.)
• Anthelmintic / Antimicrobial: • Effects on Cell Viability / Flavonoids:
•Wound Healing
• Diuretic Healing
• Forskolin / Healing / Lung Protective:
• Hepatoprotective Study
• Antibacterial Against Enteric Pathogens
• Antidiabetic / Antioxidant
Acknowledgement: Philippine Alternative Medicine (Internet)
Comments
Katmag said...

When I was a kid, we used to have oregano in our garden. My lola would always tell us how good it is for cough, and for the whole body mainly. When one of us had cough, my lola would immediately boil oregano leaves and make us drink. I've always loved the aroma of oregano. Now I know that it's not only a cough remedy but it is also an insect repellant.

Angeline De Guzman said...

My grandparents always advised us even when I was a kid to use herbal medicines because as they said, they are more effective. So whenever I had cough, my lola boiled oregano leaves and she let me drink the extract. It is really effective.

Francesca Concepcion said...

When I was younger, my father would always force me to drink the extract of Oregano every time I have a cough but I always refused. Maybe, it is because I don't like the aroma or the taste but as the years passed, I got used to drinking it until I have the initiative to drink it myself for the relief it brings me from a very disturbing cough.
Now, my younger siblings are experiencing the power that the Oregano has every time they have coughs, so I guess our home should will never lose this plant, so I advice every homes to have this plant. Another reason why homes should not lose this because, as I have learned through this article that it's not only for coughs but it can also serve as an insect repellant especially now that dengue is spread all over. ~

--------------------------------------------
Many homes have other useful plants on their backyards, such as
Soro-soro, a species of Euphorbia used to control ringworm;
Lagundi (Vitex lagundi) is good for fever and flu;
Alovera (Aloe vera) for burns;
Pandakaki (Tabernamontana pandacaqui) for minor cuts;
Bayabas (Psidium guajava) for skin infection and allergy;
Ilang-ilang (Cananga odorata) for natural freshener;
Sampaguita (Jasminium sambac) for lei and natural air freshener.

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Lechón - National Dish of the Philippines

June 8, 2016, 5:29 pm

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Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School on Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

A family enjoys lechon on a weekend with relatives and guests. Pansol, Calamba Laguna 

Lechón is roasted pig, the most popular food served in fiestas and many gatherings, and for no particular occasion at all. Today, dial to order lechon, whole or say, a quarter, and pronto, the most delicious of all meat in the world is delivered to your doorsteps, hot and crispy.

Thanks to Spain which introduced the word which means suckling pig.  Thanks to China for serendipitous discovering lechon in a burnt village.  Thanks to the Pacific islanders for making lechon the center of celebration and unification among islands. Thanks to Mang Tomas et al for institutionalizing lechon as the national dish of the Philippines. Thanks to the many hog raisers - entrepreneurs, women and children - for keeping up with the big demand for lechon.  Cebu alone produced for the month of Dec 2010 some 65,000 lechón - indeed a world record. 

How important is lechon?  Basta - there's no way to describe it, the same way basta has no English.  Basta, lechon - superlative. Indeed, there is no substitute to it in any celebration -it is ultimate.

How do you gauge affluence of a host?  Lechon. A VIP coming?  Lechon. A bride- to-be or  bridegroom-to-be?  Lechon.  Balikbayan? Lechon.  Graduation? Lechon. After a funeral?  Lechon.  Winning a lottery?  Lechon.  First born?  Lechon. Para kay bunso (youngest)?  Lechon. 

Job promotion? Lechon. Birthday of a boss?  Lechon (either way).  Open house? Lechon (plural).  Political campaign?  Lechon (under Comelec's rule, of course).  Election victory? Lechon (shipload from Cebu or Davao, lechon capital after La Loma).  

As the litany goes, the Philippine air is the happiest in the world. Suddenly, guests pour in.  Suddenly, the karaoke becomes a concert center.  Suddenly, bottles arrive in cases, and the night never sleeps. 

You see, lechon is compatible with almost anything Filipino. Tinikling and rock, Kundiman and My Way. Wake and "For He is a Jolly Good Fellow." Barong and coat-and-tie. Five star and beach party. China or kamayan. Lunch or Dinner - that's given. Merienda and dessert, that's also given. Kitchen cooked and kilawin, likewise.  No wonder why some foreigners wonder why Filipinos love to eat.  Actually it is not the eating, but what accompany the eating - before, during and after.  It about nature - the nature of the Filipino molded by a rich diversity of culture  - Asian to European to American to  global.  It's a culture that runs in his blood, a melange of races in fact. The Filipino is is an example of  Epicurean philosophy in living a full life, no singular race can compare.  

Lechon attest to that. It is the center of cultural gravity. ~

----------------------------------------------------------------

Experience lechon, contryside style.  It's a tourist and balikbayan attraction, barrio life. Here the piglet is chosen from a pig farm.  The pig is not purebred by a crossbred. Native pig lechon is becoming rare unless you go to an ethnic community. 

From among a litter of five to ten, it is the bansot (smallest) that is usually picked for  lechon.  The robust ones are raised for meat to give more profit. There are however piglets that are grown purposely for lechon. They range from pre-weaned for lechon de leche, to grower size, 20 to 30 kilos. 

The pig is tied on all fours, blood is drawn out from its heart with a dagger.  The blood is collected, mixed with some vinegar and salt, and used to cook dinuguan, or as dip for kilawin (medium rare roast). 

The carcass undergoes thorough cleaning, first with boiling water to remove the hair, second, the skin is scraped and rubbed with tanglad or lemon grass and citrus leaves, until it becomes white; and third, the entrails are removed completely, and replaced with tanglad, chopped leaves of sorosoro or karimbuaya (Euphorbia), which serves as vegetable, and rice which cook with the lechon. Now the whole stuffed is impaled with a whole bamboo pole, each end long enough to rotate the stuff while slowly being roasted for hours on live charcoal. 

When cooked the skin is attractively golden brown and crispy, which is the lechon's imprimatur. It is brought before the celebrant in lavish ceremony from decors to choreography.  Hushes and ahs! can be heard from the guests. Now relegated to the chopping board, the guests start queuing, plates at hands, their palates anticipating the unique taste of the world's ambrosia of all food.~     

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Search for the best lechon


Building appetite on the roast (ilocos)


Lechon parade (Batangas)and lechon dance(Angeles Pampanga)


Miss Lechon 

Do you have a happy love life?

June 8, 2016, 8:12 pm

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The foundation of a full and sustained sex life is made up of proper diet, avoidance of toxic materials and vices, a regular physical exercise regime, positive attitude, adherence to morals and culture norms. Love and sex is a celebration on top of a pyramid built on this foundation. 
Dr Abe V Rotor

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“When we do not give or receive love in a balanced, harmonious, natural way, deficiencies occur in out innermost being. These deficiencies reveal themselves through many symptoms – depression, loneliness, destructive relationships, weight problems, bitterness, inferiority feelings, workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, a critical spirit, violence, sexual abnormalities, and many other forms. I believe we must treat the person on the other end of the symptoms.”

- Dr. Bernard Jensen, Love, Sex and Nutrition

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Here is a practical guide in attaining a happy love life.

1. Avoid stress and fatigue, and avoid smoking, alcohol, drugs, and food additives, as these accumulate toxic wastes in the body thus interfering with the body physiology. Avoid exposure to pollutants and chemicals. Poor diet, lack of exercise and nervousness, also interfere with the  proper functioning of our brain which diminish sexual vitality. Condition your mind before love making by affirming happy, loving, and caring thoughts. Maintain trust and confidence with your partner. Be calm, patient and kind. Remember that the body responds with what the mind dictates.

2. It is a fact that married people live longer and happier than single or divorced people. Single and divorced people are hospitalized more often, their death rate is twice, and they are more prone to nervous breakdown. Sex stimulates and rejuvenates our glands, particularly the hypothalamus of the brain which is the sex center. Active sex life helps prevent diseases and illnesses, by enhancing natural immunity. Since every part of our body is exercised during lovemaking- from the heart to the nerve endings. Sex is perhaps the best test of vitality and health.

3. There are people who are highly sexual, while others have very little interest in sex. This is human nature and there is no “norm” in this regard. However, good sexual attitudes can be developed. For example, proper advice can help a person overcome an experience that may be the cause of lack of interest in sex. Improvement in health leads to a more positive sex attitude. Recognize that lovemaking is teamwork, that the satisfaction of one can lead to satisfaction of the other. Age is another factor to sexuality. Although younger people are generally more aggressive, there are people in their middle or late age who can maintain the same level of sexual activity. Others become more aggressive in their middle age.

4. Keep your body healthy and attractive. This is the key to natural sexuality. Grooming cultivates natural beauty, irrespective of the color of the skin, shape of nose or eyes, height and built, etc. good health gives the gait in your movement, twinkle in your eyes, shine and flow in your hair, firmness of your muscles. It contributes to good posture. It makes your skin glow and lovable to be touched. It helps develop your personality to become likable and attractive. Magnetic personality, napapalingon, nakakapansin, pogi, sexy, are all related to body beautiful. Remember that natural beauty is a holistic expression, not only external attributes, but of qualities that emanate from within. It is an expression of “a healthy mind in a healthy body”, plus good character and fine culture.

5. Freedom and responsibility are inseparable in the defining sex. This is a simple guideline that governs human sexual behavior.

CONSENTING ADULTS, IN PRIVACY, WITHOUT COERCION OR HARM TO ANYONE, CAN ENGAGE IN ANY KIND OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR THEY DESIRE.

6. Be aware of the other attendant responsibilities in sex, such as the subject of pregnancy of sexually transmitted diseases. Sex education gives emphasis to responsibility in sex and marriage, particularly among young people.

7.A natural clock governs every person in his system. This is often referred to as biological rhythm. Although there is a general plan on how this internal clocks works, no two persons are tuned in to the same pattern - not even husband and wife. Try to live by your own biorhythms and learn to adjust with those of our partner. Recognize your moods and energies that change with the time of the day and night, with months and seasons. Lovemaking is mutually fulfilling when both partners have synchronized biorhythms. Generally human body is dynamic that it can reset itself daily and adapt to the changes in the environment.

8.Sex can become monotonous especially with modern life. Many people find little time to express tender love with sex. They employ a number of ways to vary their sexual expression as not merely satisfying a desire, feeling relieved and exhausted afterward - or just for the sake of giving in to their partner. Many more miss the spiritual element of lovemaking, whereby the act is a means to sustain a passionate emotion from which follow exhilaration, and a great feeling of satisfaction. Mantra yoga and Karezza are two Oriental lovemaking techniques that help transform an ordinary sex- oriented relationship into a loving, tender and harmonious one, enhancing a love-oriented relationship that bring together body, mind and spirit.

9.Food, Rest, Exercise and sunlight = Health (FRESH). This formula is easy to remember. Watch out for the food that you take. Eat health foods, and avoid those in the list of Don’t Eat which your family doctor gave you. A vegetarian is healthier and lives longer. Remember there is no substitute to adequate sleep. Maintain a healthy sleeping habit. Take a rest between heavy schedules, and avoid buildup of tension. Relax. Exercise regularly within your natural capacity. Do not over exercise. You need sunlight, more so if your are an office worker. Sunlight perks you up, breaks monotony, and takes out the blues in your life. It makes us closer to nature, and takes us to outdoor adventure. All these make a happy love life with your partner.

10.Be aware that of all creatures on earth only humans are endowed with sexual freedom which can be summarized as follows:

1. Sexual expression is not restricted to estrus periods or seasons of the year.
2. Humans have the ability to match their sexual desires with their moods and feelings. Hormones influence, but not dictate, sex life.
3. Humans can choose various sexual positions, instead of being restricted to one as in the case of animals.
4. Meaningful spiritual love and emotional feelings multiply the ecstasy of physical pleasure.

11.Learn to read and understand the sexual cycle. A woman’s menstrual cycle dictates her sexual moods. They feel sexiest at the midpoint of their menstrual cycle. There are people who are sexier in the morning than at night. There are also those who feel sexier in summer than during cool months, or vice versa. There are also times when men become sexier and this is indicated by rapid growth of their beard. Studies show that the most active time for sexual activity is in the evening, but lovemaking at this time is poor since the androgens (love hormones) are low. (They are highest between 8 to 12 a.m., and lowest at 6p.m.) Evening is convenient to most working people. If this is not enough, make up for it during weekends.

12.Reduce meal size as the day progresses and avoid high calorie snacks in the evening. But do not skip breakfast or lunch. Carbohydrates help calm and focus the mind. Protein food boosts mental energy, but avoid fatty foods when you want to be mentally alert. When planning out an active evening, like going to a concert, holding a party, or having a date, reduce your dinner, with protein food preferred over fatty and carbohydrates food. Coffee makes you awake, and drinking may delay your regular bedtime or makes you fall asleep. If you want to wake up refreshed and alert do not take alcohol in the evening before.

13.An enduring and fulfilling love life is one that shared together by husband and wife. Here are the basic elements essential to a lifelong relationship: trust and confidence, empathy (feeling with the older person), marriage (sex outside marriage cannot remain meaningful and does not usually last). Then there are seven virtues of married life, which a couple must mutually uphold at  all times.

The seven virtues of married life

• tenderness
• courtesy
• sociability
• understanding
• fairness
• loyalty
• honesty

14.One must free his or her mind from fallacies and myths about sex.

One thousand-and-one myths

• A woman never forgets her first lover.
• Big lips and abundant pubic hair indicates sensuality.
• A woman’s interest in sex is more emotional than physical.
• All women grow to look like their mothers.
• Beautiful women are too narcissistic to enjoy sex.
• Baldness indicates sensuality.
• The size of fingers indicates the size of the sex organ.
• Colored people perform better in bed than white people.
• Small breast indicates less sex desire.
• Religious people do not permit cunnilingus.
. Drugs increase intensity of physical desire and fulfillment.

These and a thousand-and-one myth can effect, and even destroy love life. This is where sex education and counseling comes in.

The foundation of a full and sustained sex life is made up of proper diet, avoidance of toxic materials and vices, a regular physical exercise regime, positive attitude, adherence to morals and culture norms. Love and sex is a celebration on top of a pyramid built on this foundation.

NOTE: Among the comments and suggestions I received from readers of my books, and audience on Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid, is include the topic of love and sex. In response to the request, I wrote this brief and direct guide about the subject. I used as main reference, Philippine Herbs to Increase Sexual Vitality, which Dr. Delia de Castro-Ontengco, Dr. Romualdo del Rosario and I wrote in 2000, with an encouraging message written by Senator Juan M. Flavier. ~ 

Bromeliads form a unique aerial ecosystem

June 8, 2016, 9:47 pm

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The central receptacle collects water from dew and rain which spills over to the adjoining leaf axils, making a contiguous pond. The sequence, like a series of terraces, makes water collection and retention efficient, giving chance for the various resident organisms to complete - and repeat - their life cycles. And for transient organisms to have their regular visit.

 Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

 

Brightly colored false petals of bromeliad attract insects and other organisms to fertilize its shy, short-live flowers. The bright pseudo flowers serve as markers in the dense and vast forest high up in the trees. Here bromeliads form colonies with connecting rhizomes, and with other epiphytes - ferns, orchids and lianas - make a unique aerial ecosystem. 

Domesticated bromeliads are popular ornamental plants in gardens and around homes. One disadvantages though is that it becomes a breeding place of mosquitoes and other vermin. It is because we have detached them from their natural habitat where they are part of a complex food web. Here mosquito wrigglers are preyed upon by naiads of Odonatans (dragonflies and damselflies), while the adults are trapped in spider webs. Tree frogs have their fill of flies and other insects.  Fish live in the axil ponds and can even transfer to nearby bromeliads and even to the water below to hunt and to mate.  While reptiles occupy the top of the food pyramid, hawks and eagles come to prey on them. Like a chain, just one link broken, and the system fails. 


Bromeliads, which includes the pineapple (the only edible member in the family), are nature's reservoir of miniature ponds that provide abode to many organisms from insects to fish. The central receptacle collects water from dew and rain which spills over to the adjoining leaf axils, making a contiguous pond. The sequence, like a series of terraces, makes water collection and retention efficient, giving chance for the various resident organisms to complete - and repeat - their life cycles. And for transient organisms to have their regular visit.

In this pond system, detritus accumulates and fertilizes the bromeliad as well as other plants around and below it, including its host tree, in exchange for its foothold and other benefits. And being epiphytic and colonial in growing habit on trunks and limbs of trees, bromeliads  form a unique aerial ecosystem with other epiphytes, and the surrounding trees.~    

 Only the pineapple (Ananas comosus) is the edible species in the large Family Bromeliaceae.

Article 10

June 9, 2016, 10:22 pm

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 Environment: The Other Side of Midnight.
The human species faces extinction through autotoxicity, from poisons we are creating and steadily accumulating to the point of irreversibility. 
 Dr Abe V Rotor

Only human thinks of himself god,

mingling with the gods of Mt Olympus,

naming himself saint or demigod,

judging himself no other than himself; 

beauty he builds and later destroys, 

ugliness neither can he define nor compare;

for who would dare tell he is wrong, 

when he thinks creation is under his feet,

self-proclaimed and all knowing

save humility and lessons of history, 

his impending and final defeat.   

 

 Floating plastic garbage, Manila Bay

 Artificial Island becoming into a plastic continent.

 Carthage, a flourishing economic power was razed during the Greco-Roman period.

 Sunken Pantabangan town rises from the grave in severe drought. AVR

 

Caulerpa taxifolia an invasive seaweed  in the Mediteranean.

 It contains Caulerpin, poison to fish and other marine organisms.

 

Smog on Good Friday. AVR

 

Picnic in a pier ruin, Sto Domingo, Ilocos Sur. AVR

Radiation from transmission tower is harmful to health, 

environment,and wildlife. Monuments of endangered 

and extinct wildlife. Fountain of Knowledge, UST Manila.  AVR

Lone tree on a hill, Tandang Sora, QC - AVR

Where have all the whales gone?

Museum of Natural History, Mt Makiling, Los Baños, Laguna. AVR

  

Garbage from Canada exported to the Philippines, 

suspectedly carried contraband materials.

 Eiffel Tower buried in smog, Paris France. 

 So with other big cities in the world.

 

Acid rain is generated by CFC gases and carbon particles in the air.

 Smoke belching vehicles tantamount to millions of mini-volcanos.

 It's equivalent to a supervolcano erupting every day. MM - AVR

 Noise pollution disturbs our peace and quiet, 

and our sensitibity to our environment.

 Industrial effluents contain toxic metals and radioactive substances.

 Erosion-siltation follows the removal of natural vegetative cover, Antipolo, Rizal. AVR

Exploring the wide, wide world of art

June 10, 2016, 2:39 am

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Modern tools, electronics and computers, have brought in a new face of art in all fields, challenging the true meaning of fine art, of music conservatory, of classics.

Dr Abe V Rotor 
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

Composite painting on Reviving the Spirit of Nationalism by a student artist. 

Student artists at work. Inter-school painting competition, University of Santo Tomas, Manila 2013

Art spans through epochs and ages - from the early Homo sapiens and possibly, the Neanderthals, to Van Gogh and Picasso - it is universal, timeless, yet evolving;

Art in fossils, art in totem poles, pyramids and ziggurats, etched on rocks, cast in metals – they are emissaries of history, and part of history themselves that speak of culture.

Prehistoric paintings in the caves of Lascaux, France, usher the birth of human art, the dawn of man's consciousness of the world outside the confines of darkness;

Stone age man expressing his genius in inventions, his triumphs over beasts, his skills yet his reverence to a god - the primordial art of living towards the making of a society;

The Renaissance bloomed in the fifteenth century through the Greco-Roman model, surviving the Dark Ages and imbibing part of it, that make culture varied and rich;

We are astonished by the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Da Vinci, as they were astonished by the art of lost civilizations - Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greco-Roman;

The latter could have learned their art from prototype cultures, and from cultures on the other side of the globe – the Aztecs, Chinese, Indians, prior to their colonization.

Exploration brought two worlds together, the East and West - the latter as masters of peaceful cultures, under a prototype globalization version of a master-slave relationship;

Art flourished and the lethargic schools of Classicism and Romanticism opened up; movements followed one after another – Realism to Impressionism to Expressionism;

On to Abstract Art which dominates today in various ultra-modern schools like surrealism, yet art continues to cling to its roots, making alive its ethnic and indigenous origin;

Modern tools, electronics and computers, have brought in a new face of art in all fields, challenging the true meaning of fine art, of music conservatory, of classics;

Art in advertisement, art in high rise, art in cinema, art in malls, art in athletics, fashion, body language, cars, drones, war, etc. – make us wonder what is art and what is not;


Crisis in art to fundamentalists and critics on their pedestals, revolution to avant-garde, futuristic in the computer, money in business, boom in media and communication art;

Art, where art thou heading for? When millions have not enough food, education, homes, in the midst of affluence, yet not enough sanity, not enough hope to live for?

Revolution in art in reverse: the bypassed involved, the gifted challenged, the uninvolved touched in their lives – for art’s meaning is to live with meaning. ~

 

Top, Futurism: Death by Genetic Engineering by AVR; Stop Nuclear Development, Love Life by a 12 year old summer art workshop participant.

Food, Food Everywhere - and not an hour to miss

June 12, 2016, 7:44 am

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Don't trust your senses with all the food around you and on media. Moderation is the rule. Even Epicurean disciples find true satisfaction not in wanton indulgence but moderation in everything.

 Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

Pinapaitan nga kalding (Ilk). Goat meat with chyme.

Kilawin (medium rare) goat meat, andpinapaitan.

Rice cake topped with crunchy bacon and fresh leak onion
  
A bowlful of mango-lettuce salad with rich dressing. Pork with asparagus

Chicken teriyaki with sesame or linga seeds.

Tempting to eat with fingers and while while freshly broiled. 

Spicy caliente (ox hide)

Sinigang na samaral (malaga, Ilk)

Grilled pork with hot green pepper

Chicken inasal on banana plate; ukoy - fish and egg.
 Other ukoy recipe: squash and shrimps ukoy 
   

Arusip or ar-arusip (Ilk), green seaweed, served fresh with tomato, onion and a dash of salt. Sinkamas or yam, served with Ilocos Vinegar and salt
Tupig, rice cake with coconut, in banana leaves, cooked on charcoal,Patupat or sinambong, rice cake in woven coconut leaves cooked in boiling sugarcane juice

Brewed coffee, fried egg and bun

Our personality is reflected by the food we eat. Write an essay about this subject for your school.
Living with Nature, AVR

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A simple way to trap gamu-gamu (winged termites)

June 12, 2016, 8:24 pm

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Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

It's swarming season of gamu-gamu (winged termites), midges and gnats. Tape a cellophane or plastic bag around a lighted bulb as trap. Once trapped the insect loses its wings and is doomed. Gamu-gamu is fed to fish or dried as feed ingredient for poultry and animals. It is also served as exotic food. It is high in protein and believed to be an aphrodisiac.

What I have known earlier is a similar technique for outdoor by hanging a fresh branch with fine leaves like tamarind near a lighted bulb to attract the circling insects which then settle down on the branch, thus reducing nuisance caused by the insects' sheer number. The more important reason to trap these insects is to reduce their number in the long run.

Swarming is breeding en masse, an orgy, with pairs settling down after their celebrated nuptial flight, consequently to found new colonies. It is not surprising if termites are later found inside apparadors, among old piles of clothes and books, in bodegas and storerooms, in libraries and museums, in well tended gardens, and in beams and trusses of houses.

This is nature's way to disseminate the species and establish niches of new colonies to avoid species inter-competition. Here in the new colony the pair starts building a family which grows into thousands of members in their long lifetime. We can only imagine the destructiveness caused by one colony with the queen termite reproducing daily for a lifetime that may reach ten to even twenty years!

By the way, swarming is triggered by a biological clock that wakes up potential breeders, soldiers and workers, becoming males and females respectively, among termites, and ants. Nature fits them with two pairs of detachable wings, loads them with sex hormones, and extra calories in anticipation of the first strong rain that comes as early as April in the northern hemisphere. Then all of a sudden the night comes alive, with thousands, if not millions, of tiny flying insects swarming around any conceivable light in the house, street, around campfires, colliding with cars and banging against glass panes.

Swarms come from different colonies to interbreed in order to insure a stronger gene pool for the species, otherwise the species weakens through inbreeding.

The enigma of the insect world may not be fathomed by our searching mind, not even with the computer and modern laboratories. But definitely this simple devise - a plastic bag trap - erases some fear insects pose, and gives man a sense of victory against a persistent enemy. ~ 

Acknowledgment: Leo Carlo my youngest son, inventive as he is, raised the idea of this insect trap which he put it to work at home. It is my pleasure to share this practical, safe and  expenseless, technique through these photos.

Swarming is a biological phenomenon taking place mainly at the onset of habagat or monsoon.

Geometry: Mossy Pavement

June 12, 2016, 8:27 pm

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Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

Mossy pavement, UST Manila

I'm Gulliver among my kind,
yet unknown to them;
for I have grown in imagination
a world they can't fathom,.
where busy feet just pass by,
leaving but a sigh.     

Quiapo in Manila is named after thius plant - Kiapo

June 12, 2016, 9:52 pm

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 Pistia is a genus of aquatic plant in the arum family, Araceae. The single species it comprises, Pistia stratiotes, is often called water cabbage, water lettuce, Nile cabbage, or shellflower.It is an invasive plant in tropical and sub-tropical regions.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

Kiapo, photo by Dr Abe V Rotor  

Pistia stratiotes, as this floating plant is scientifically called, may cover an entire stream or waterway. It must have been abundant on the Pasig River in the area where Quiapo is located, hence the name of the district. In the same manner, Manila is derived from the name of a plant, maynilad a cat-tail of the genus Typha and Family Cyperaceae. The plant must have covered much of the shores and swampy areas of Pasig River. 

Summary of Invasiveness

P. stratiotes is a perennial monocotyledonous aquatic plant present, either naturally or through human introduction, in nearly all tropical and subtropical fresh waterways. It floats on the water surface, with roots hanging below floating leaves. Its growth habit can make it a weed in waterways, where it can kill native submerged plants and reduce biodiversity. It is a common aquatic weed in the USA, and may clog waterways in warmer states such as Florida. It is listed as a noxious weed or invasive aquatic plant in some states of the USA (USDA-NRCS, 2012).

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Wolsey Spider (Tegenaria parietina)

June 12, 2016, 11:30 pm

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Dr  Abe V Rotor

Assignment: Advanced Ecology, UST Graduate School

It's Wolsey spider, after the Cardinal,
who froze before this poor harmless thing,
yet he stood tall before Henry, the eight;
he lost to both, his head to the king.

It is sometimes known as the Cardinal Spider because of the legend that Cardinal Wolsey was terrified by the sudden presence of this strange creature in his room. He froze almost to death.

Trivia: How many legs has a spider? Will the lost legs of this spider regenerate? Spiders are beneficial to us and the environment, how? Write an essay about this topic.

"Rizal was a good student, above average, though not excellent."

June 12, 2016, 11:33 pm

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In remembrance of the national hero's 145 birthday on June 19, 2016.  

"There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves."

"He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination."

"The youth is the hope of our future."

Dr Abe V Rotor
 Living with Nature - School on Blog (avrotor.blogspot.com)
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio
738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

Dr Jose P Rizal (1861-1896)

Have you ever thought of comparing your grades in school with those obtained by our National Hero when he was a student like you? Well, don't be naive, and don't underestimate yourself.

Of the 21 subjects Rizal took in the University of Santo Tomas, he obtained

• 6 Sobresaliente or Excellent (1.0)
• 6 Notable or Aprovechado or Very Good (1.5)
• 8 Bueno or Good (2.0)
• 1 Aprobado or Passing Grade (3)

Based on today's standard, Rizal didn't qualify for an honor, and even if he met the average grade for cum laude, he was disqualified for getting a 3.0.

Rizal's lowest grade was in General Pathology, Its Clinic, and Pathologic Histology—Aprobado [Passed: 3.0] Why he fared poorly in this subject is a subject of guess, possibly discrimination, personal problems, or simply his heart was not really in medicine.

A cursory analysis of Rizal's academic records shows that he obtained perfect grades in Preparatory Course of Theology and Law. But his grades declined in Preparatory Course of Medicine, more so in the succeeding four years of medicine proper. Which points out to Rizal's superiority not in medicine but in other fields, unquestionably in philosophy and letters, and the arts.

Many biographers of Rizal find Rizal's record at UST not his best. Well, it is not in medicine we find Rizal the genius and the hero. It is in the holism of his person we look up to and set him model of greatness for Filipinos, his race, and for all mankind.

Here are the grades of Rizal in UST (1877-1882)

A. Preparatory Course of Theology and Law (1877-1878)

• Cosmology—Sobresaliente [Excellent; equivalent grade: 1.0]
• Metaphysics—Sobresaliente [Excellent: 1.0]
• Theodicy—Sobresaliente [Excellent: 1.0]
• History of Philosophy—Sobresaliente [Excellent: 1.0]

B. Preparatory Course of Medicine
(1878-1879)

• Advanced Physics—Aprovechado [Very Good: 1.5]
• Advanced Chemistry—Sobresaliente [Excellent: 1.0]
• Advanced Natural History—Aprovechado [Very Good: 1.5]

C. Medicine Proper

1st Year of Medicine (1878-1879)

• General Anatomy and Histology—Bueno [Good: 2.0]
• Descriptive Anatomy—Bueno [Good: 2.0]
• Exercises of Osteology and Dissection—Bueno [Good: 2.0]

2nd Year of Medicine (1879-1880)

• General Anatomy and Histology II—Bueno [Good: 2.0]
• Descriptive Anatomy II—Bueno [Good: 2.0]
• Exercises of Dissection—Bueno [Good: 2.0]
• Physiology, Private and Public Hygiene—Bueno [Good: 2.0]

3rd Year of Medicine (1880-1881)

• General Pathology, Its Clinic, and Pathologic Histology—Aprobado [Passed: 3.0]
• Therapeutics, Medical Matter and Art of Prescribing—Sobresaliente [Excellent: 1.0]
• Surgical Anatomy, Operations, External Medical Applications and Bandages—Bueno [Good: 2.0]

4th Year of Medicine (1881-1882)

• Medical Pathology—Notable [Very Good: 1.5]
• Surgical Pathology—Notable [Very Good: 1.5]
• Obstetrics, Sicknesses of Women and Children—Notable [Very Good: 1.5]
• Siphilography—Notable [Very Good: 1.5]

Rizal's academic records were presented in the 145th Discurso de Apertura (Opening Lecture) by Professor Regalado Trota José, citing the works of Spanish Dominican historian Fr. Fidel Villarroel, who labored in the archives and systematized its collection for 50 years which will be published this year to mark the quadricentenary of Asia’s oldest university.

Professor Jose, citing Fr Villaroel summed up Rizal was as student at UST.

1) Rizal was a good student, above average, though not excellent; but none of his classmates were excellent either. Rizal was not as gifted for Medicine as he was for the Letters and Arts.

2) In Madrid, his medical grades were the same or a little lower.

3) He is not on record as having ever complained about his grades in Santo Tomas, while he did complain about those he received in Madrid.

4) He was never discriminated against in Santo Tomas; on the contrary, he was favored with a dispensation which few students received.

5) Racial discrimination did not exist in his class, as shown by the fact that all his Spanish classmates fell by the roadside one by one in the course of four years.

6) In the fourth and last year in Santo Tomas, only seven students remained [out of the original batch of 24], and Rizal was one of them.

7) And he ended that year in second place.

How about your record? Go over your transcript. Yes, you can be great, too. However, greatness radiates beyond grades, beyond the walls of the university, beyond the imprimatur of power and faith; in fact, beyond life itself. Think about it this Rizal's birth aniversary. ~

Reference: The 145th Discurso de Apertura (Opening Lecture) to welcome the new academic year of the 400-year-old University of Santo Tomas (1611-2011) last June 6 at the UST Santisimo Rosario Church. The lecture, “Facebook Flashback: The Archives and the Story of the University (of Santo Tomas),” was delivered by Professor Regalado Trota José, UST archivist and commissioner of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Based on trom the works of Spanish Dominican historian Fr. Fidel Villarroel OP, who labored in the UST archives and systematized its collection for 50 years and wrote a massive multi-volume history of UST to be published this year in celebration to the university's quardricentenary.
NOTE: Please read Rizal My Hero, which follows this article.