lekowala!

So, the other day we were at the East Coast Park beach playing with the sand when Josh picks up a “brain”, well a hard fruit the size of a lime that looks much like a brain. It took me a while before I did a double take and realised, my goodness, he had picked up a rare legume… the fruit of a member of the bean family.. That family of plants basically contains the peanut, soya beans, rain trees, in essence anything that has a pod, to be more accurate, a legume. the legume is a fruit that has 2 valves that will split along a line and reveal beans, which essentially are seeds. A pod is more layman and can be applied loosely to other fruits.

Anyway, what Josh had picked up was a rare native of Singapore called Cynometra ramiflora L. var. ramiflora, its an inhabitant of back mangroves, which basically means, somewhere behind the mangroves where the ground isn’t so muddy anymore and resembles more a a forest.

Why rare? When I revised the group for the Flora of Singapore, I listed it as “probably extinct”, following a previous status accorded to it by other botanists. After a few years, someone else spotted it along one of the offshore islands. So it was really great that Josh simply picked up the legume from the strand line along the east coast park beach.

Here’s Josh presenting the rare legume. He had inadvertently picked it up and brought it to the at first unappreciative local authority on the Caesalpinioid legumes of Singapore.

This is Matt contemplating the size of the fruit. Its hard and corky so definitely buoyant. I am not sure where it came from though but at least it is here.

I looked around the strand line for more of the fruit and found another. How serendipitous.

Here’s my botanical illustration of the species.

I was watching Makansutra on the Asian Food Channel when suddenly I felt the TV screen with Seetoh eating his chengtng swaying. He had just mentioned that the chengtng he was eating from that shop was not sour, so the ingredients were of high quality.

I thought it was a giddy spell, as I have had one two many meetings these few days. But having experienced the swaying buildings before in March this year (see this post by me and this post by Otterman), I knew it may be another tremor. I could definitely feel the sway, so I asked the wife, wassup? She was listening to snow patrol and suddenly felt giddy and then we saw the one of our kids’ bag hanging on the doorknob sway. And then the building swayed a little again…. So we decided let’s just walk down stairs bringing the kids who thought it all fun. So before I could feel paiseh about it, I met quite a few block members hanging around the pavement and looking at the buildings. The ground floor of the flats across the junction were also gathered some people who were also looking up at the buildings.

Called Siva, because he would probably be online and being so Web2.0 savvy could check out what was happening. I remembered also that he knew where to check in real time the websites that reported earthquakes, but he didn’t answer handphone, so called Ladybug who was at a seminar/class but didn’t feel anything even though her friend later said the projector screen was shaking… Finally got Siva and he checked up the useful USGS site to tell me that it was a Sumatran earthquake measuring about 8 in magnitude. Check out his first post today about it here and the second one on how to report tremors.

Check out also Leafmonkey’s extensive and interesting perspective of Singaporean’s reactions to the tremors.

Later our upstairs neighbour recalled that she was trying to put her baby to sleep when felt the bed moving, so she listened out to see if there were anyone in the block screaming, a measure of how serious the situation was and then went back to tuck her baby into bed.

Here are some pictures at Sengkang. By this time the crowd slowly petered out.

One of the families brought down a suitcase.

By this time, the crowd was petering off and I was relaying to them Siva’s news that it was a sumatran earthquake.

extra notes

Jen said she felt giddy cos maybe she had been too busy with her flu and work

Siva said that he felt giddy cos he thought he was fighting off an infection and overworking on lectures

I said I felt giddy because I thought, that’s it, must be the many meetings I have attended this week.

Its not as bad as the first time I went to UK for a Plant Systematics Course in Reading University way back in 1999, But I still feel it…. jet-lag.  Its a strange feeling to be awake when everyone else is fast asleep and I got to get up so early each day.  But I guess the experience of the conference more than makes up for it.

Preparing some revision lectures in Evolution.  It is the funnest topic ever but teaching it can be difficult cos it ain’t like molecular biology where everything tends to be more cut and dry.  Which is why I like Evolution again.  Cut and dry is fine but Evolution and chance and the endless possibilities of natural selection just does it for me.  Its a wondrous feeling to study it and find a weird creature like the aye aye.

This music is dedicated to the sub-littoral zone where the creatures have provided so much for us, especially a sense of wonder to students young and old.

You can download it here. Remember to think about starfish walking beneath the surf of the ocean as it meets the land as you listen to it..

Starfish

I happened to pass by the Angsana tree today and managed to get a shot of this.  It was quite sad to see that branch dangling off the boom of the crane.  It was this image that really got me to think that perhaps a road hump could have solved all the problem.  Read more about this in Habitatnews, which incidentally is on a second wind and being updated furiously.  That’s great for busy Singaporeans who want nature news on the go.

Ivan’s the Rambling Librarian.. he is also my secondary school classmate… I had lost all contact with him until Siva inadvertently reunited us, since Siva knows a LOT of people. I remember he score lots of points with the ART teacher Chikgu Rahim because he could do some real nice water colour paintings while we were trying our best to use stencils to draw “No Smoking” and trying not to paint outside the lines… we were art morons in his presence.

I knew he was doing stuff on Garageband, so when I got hold of a neat Macbook recently, I dabbled with GB a little and got hooked. Saving up to buy my new axe… cos someone borrowed my Ibanez and never returned it and I can’t remember who. 24 frets some more… sheessh. Well, I guess that’s that…Anyway, the neck was warped beyond tune and the action was way to high so fretting was a bit painful on the fingers. It was also getting old and giving me random electric shocks..

So I did a few things with Garageband and jammed out an acoustic melody with some strumming here and there with the good old ovation one sunday morning and decided to send it to Ivan. I was quite impressed by how he added the lead… I don’t know what effects he has but the harmonics at the later part of the solo just agreed with me. The mashup was clearly a 1+1=3 kind of situation.

He gave it a neat title too… read more on his part here

Here’s the podcast

Counting the leaves of one of the branches of the big tree in SING bot gdns.  Recounting them as I had learnt in Chokher Bali.. by Tagore.  Its pure communication with the tree; I’d like to believe.

Learn about mozzies and parasites the fun way.

http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/malaria/

We were suppose to have gone to Tamil Nadu last December to do some community project “Project Uthavi“, but as I was monitoring the Hindu (a free national e-newspaper in India) WHO, and CDC travel health using my RSS news reader (Omea on Windows, and NetNewsWire on my iBook), we got a little worried. I also bookmarked it on my del.icio.us (after a tutorial from techsavy Siva) using the tags chikungunya and dengue.

So at the last quarter of last year, India was on two-pronged Dengue and Chikungunya alert and soon enough Chennai was hit by both. Some of the numbers of suspected cases were staggering (amounting to several lakhs, i.e. hundred thousands). I saw this 17 Oct 2006 WHO India report on Chikungunya. The figures are based on suspected cases… so may have been grossly estimated but still its a WHO report and I was taken aback at the numbers.

17 October 2006 (http://www.who.int/csr/don/2006_10_17/en/index.html)

“From February 2006 to 10 October 2006, the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia has reported 151 districts in 8 states/provinces of India affected by chikungunya fever (see below). The affected states are Andhra Pradesh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Delhi. More than 1.25 million suspected cases have been reported from the country, which 752,245 were from Karnataka and 258,998 from Maharashtra provinces. In some areas reported attack rates have reached 45%.”

I was soon on a daily lookout for any new cases since the trip was to be in early Dec 2006 and the monsoons were on. I was glad the Hindu was really updating the nation on regular basis. We postponed our visit to this May where it was the dry season.

Today I was at 7-eleven and the StraitsTimes report that Singapore has “imported” cases of Chikungunya. It reminded me of this CDC “Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USA” Oct 24 travel notice. The US has also had Chikungunya imported as well.

Some of the page’s links

• MMWR: Update: Chikungunya Fever Diagnosed Among International Travelers — United States, 2006
• MMWR: Chikungunya Fever Diagnosed Among International Travelers — United States, 2005–2006
• Chikungunya fever outbreaks in India: “Chikungunya in India” (WHO)
• “Chikungunya Fever, A Re-emerging Disease in Asia” (WHO South-East Asia Regional Office)”

About 30 mins ago, Siva called me and asked (told/ordered?) me to blog this cos it was pertinent in the light of the StraitsTimes article.

Some of the articles that were of interest to me end of last year are highlighted as below:

Here’s an exerpt from one of the reports from the Hindu:Tamil Nadu dated Saturday, Oct 21, 2006. The Hindu is a free online newspaper in India.

“Students sought to be enlisted in the drive against chikungunya”

“The self-limiting disease, which persists for 15 days with or without treatment, was first identified in Tanzania in 1952, the Professor said. It then spread through Bangkok, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka and the Phillipines.

In February 2005, 2.58 lakh persons were affected by the disease in the Reunion Islands, and 3,500 in Mauritius. In December 2005, 80000 people were affected in Karnataka and 2000 in Andhra Pradesh in 2006. The disease was first identified in Calcutta in 1963, 1964 in Madras and 1973 in Maharashtra where the cases numbered several lakhs.

In Tamil Nadu, all districts barring the Nilgiris and Tiruvannamalai have been affected by the disease, he said. The Nilgiris does not have any incidence of chikungunya because of the cold weather conditions there. The disease has not affected Tiruvannamalai, where even malaria and filarial are prevalent, because of the awareness generated through students, Prof. Appavoo said.

First report

In Tamil Nadu, 1063 villages out of 58,105, 26 out of 104 Municipalities and the Salem and Chennai Corporations have recorded incidence of chikungunya, he said.”

Just a few days before that there was a report on Saturday, Oct 14, 2006 which described a massive rally on Dengue and Chikungunya awareness in Nagapattinam (south of Chennai)

“Dengue awareness rally
Staff Reporter

NAGAPATTINAM: People’s Development Association (PDA)on Tuesday conducted a massive rally to create awareness of the causes and consequences of chikungunya and dengue viral diseases among people.’

More on this CHIK (as WHO termed it) disease

WHO website

“Chikungunya Fever, a re-emerging Disease in Asia

Chikungunya fever, is a viral illness that is spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes. The disease resembles dengue fever, and is characterized by severe, sometimes persistent, joint pain (arthritis), as well as fever and rash. It is rarely life-threatening. Nevertheless widespread occurrence of diseases causes substantial morbidity and economic loss”

More on this WHO website

The etymology of the CHIK disease is particularly interesting… From the wikipedia on Chikungunya

“The name is derived from the Makonde word meaning “that which bends up” in reference to the stooped posture developed as a result of the arthritic symptoms of the disease. The disease was first described by Marion Robinson^[1] and W.H.R. Lumsden^[2] in 1955, following an outbreak on the Makonde Plateau, along the border between Tanganyika and Mozambique, in 1952. Chikungunya is closely related to O’nyong’nyong virus^[3].”

The FAQ on this National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, India website is also pretty useful.

I remember helping Siva organise BoSS I in 2003.  That was a big scale event at NUS and I was in charge of getting titles of talks and abstracts from keynote speakers.

This year, BoSS II crept up on me with Siva asking me to give a talk, just two weeks away from the symposium itself…  Couldn’t refuse, so said yes.

I have been rather busy lately so this talk was added pressure… and Siva wanted an entertaining talk with jokes but with a central take home message: a learning point…  where to get lah?  I ransacked my slide collection and chose those pictures I thought were worth sharing.  Ended up taking all those shots of Oliver sleeping on field trip.  He was a great field companion and we seriously shared lots of rolling on the floor kind of laughter.  And plus he was easy to bully.

Well, butterflies in my stomach just before the talk..  There was Prof Tommy Koh, followed by Peter Ng.  Then I had to contend with Benito in his field trips to Russia.  Golden tongue Siva was also speaking..  Liao..  Mojo hilang..

I summoned all I had and used my Palm Treo680 to review the slides.  Its super nifty and good for botanists who need to be well prepared.  (Siva was still doing some last minute boogie with keynote).

Well, the talk went better than I had catastrophised it to, so it was with much relief that I ate my sambal petai later on at Taman Serasi.