the mere idiocracy of social distancing in schools

1. classrooms

supposing the classrooms are so wide that students can sit 1.5m apart from each other and of course that the teacher’s voice is loud enough to be projected to a classroom where students are seated in rows of 8 and 5 columns. at 1.5m apart from each student, thats maths i cant even do. and of course students dont get banded right? cos the idea is to minimise interaction among the students.

2. recess times

of course that would mean that each class has its own recess time. assuming that 1 curriculum day can be split to provide individual recess times for each of the 40 odd classes that a typical sch might have. now what abt the canteen aunties who dont have to wear masks. they are facing 1000 over students. God bless them.

3. after school activities

and of course, ALL the students will have the discipline to play only as an individual class after sch hours. because students dont have friends who are in other classes right. so they dont mix. and yes, when teachers tell students to maintain social distancing, the newest sport they pick up is tennis. so obedient.

4. supposed allowed morning assembly vs no mass gathering

so whats this about not allowing mass gathering. well………………………….. lets leave it at that. cos you know… we still need to ans to public if things go wrong.

kudos to the highly unsuccessful but highly successful cover-backside-scheme  called social distancing program in schools. and congratulations to the people who actually think its effective. its been 5 weeks too long.

 

a single cell that is the size of a grape

Gromia sphaerica. seems that this is an enlarged form of an amoeba……. that grows up to 1.5 inches in diameter. was discovered in 2000. (i’m 9 yrs late on this news.. )

this is a deep sea creature cell, that is mobile, somehow propelling itself on the sea bed. they can move across terrains, even against currents.

check out the trails these cells leave behind..

apparently, this has caused some major discussion on the evolution of bilaterals, which are organisms like us that have a line of symmetry down the middle. but im not getting into that, cos that includes fossil study and precambrian era which im totally not familiar with…

well, not all single cell organisms are mircoscopic. for one, the eggs that you eat are all single celled. though not accurately considered an organism. the ostrich lays the largest egg, making ostrich egg one of the largest cell ever discovered to date.

the sea pearl or sailors’ eyes is another marine based single cell photosynthetic organism. scientists suggest that the cellular contents can actually break into many protoplasts that form their own cell membrane. technically making it a multicellular organism. its called Valonia ventricosa.  its the largest bubble algae that grows to the size of a tennis ball!!!

wow.

other extinct large single cell organisms include Fusulinids growing up to 5cm in length. and Nummulites, growing up to 6cm on average.

 

why do humans need to sleep?

since you read in my earlier post that honeybees dont sleep……. here i was wondering why humans do……. and i realised, that probably thats the time our body takes whatever rest it needs to recuperate and rejuvenate to carry on with the next day’s activities effectively..

but our brain doesnt sleep when we are sleeping. perhaps thats the time the brain does what it needs to do, rather than working for us….

so here’s what i found out..

you see, sleep is not just abt the brain. its abt repairing the rest of our body too. when we are awake, we are constantly using up our body. digestive system is constantly working, cells are being damaged all over our bodies, muscles are being overworked, and…………. all that extra information that is in our memory that have nowhere to be stored, those need to be washed out.

so this sleep time gives our bodies time to heal, recover and get ready for another hard day’s work.

how much sleep you need to recuperate, depends on the individual. if you wake up feeling refreshed, you probably had enough sleep. if you still feel lethargic, you need more sleep, which may sometimes be compensated by short nap times.

of course, waking lethargic could just mean that you dont want to start the day, but that’s got to do with individual motivation isnt it.

so, its abt resting, fully, without thinking or doing anything….. and the best way to rest without much distraction is to sleep…

here’s some pointers on how you can get a good night’s sleep.. with more medical explanations.

 

my first sighting of an octopus!

at pulau semakau yesterday. others actually saw more stuff… like sea urchins and yellow nudibranch and sea stars…….

anyway we all know that octopuses are intelligent creatures. though they only have 1 brain, they have 3 hearts. and their oxygen is transported in copper-containing haemocyanin. seems that it more efficient in transporting oxygen under really cold conditions.

so how to they escape predation? they try not to be seen. mostly by camouflaging. the arms of the octopus contain numerous nerve cells. numerous. and these are also linked to chromatophores. chromatophores are pigment containing cells that give skin colour to cold blooded animals. and in octopuses, chromatophores can contain 2-4 of these colours: brown, black, yellow, orange, red. as if changing colour is not enough, octopuses can also change the texture of their skin to camouflage better.

in the video you can seen the brownish octopus changing into sand colour. its amazing! someone also said that the arms of some octopus can independantly change colour, so it doesnt have to be in a single colour to camou itself.

then later the octopus squeezes into a burrow. cos it doesnt have a skeleton, nor an exoskeleton. so, its basically like a ball of ‘squish’…

anyway, octopuses also can squirt black ink, mostly made of melanin (the same kind that you have in your skin, but i dont know what makes it fully black/not black).

of course its main defense is to swim away quickly, which i assure you, they are capable of.

so back to the arms. these specialised arms also contain chemoreceptos. that allow it to taste what its arms are landed on. and the suction stuff that they have are so cool, the octopus actually knows when its arms are stretched, cos its alot more flexible and stretchable than most other organisms..

octopus also has got fantastic orientation and eyesight… its brains has this thing that allows it to orientate itself on a horizontal plane.

wonderful octopus…

so thats at pulau semakau.

and seems like cyrene reef is a forbidden island… only those invited can go… SOOOOOO………… now, ive got something to work for…. need to study these different types of seagrasses and get rid of my fear of stepping into waters covered with meadows of thick seagrasses……. takes time doesnt it…

i so want to learn diving…………………. someday…………………. sigh…

 

jewels of semakau

wasnt in the mood yesterday to post, but had a great trip and did good transects… and what we did after the transects survey was even better… we saw ascidians, crabs, soft and hard corals, plenty of anemonies, snapping shripms and of course, my highlight of the day was my first sighting of an octopus… read on for more info. for pics, check out my deviantart.

this was the briefing… weather was good. great and cooling infact. after a safety briefing, we set off.

learnt 3 new seagrasses today. serrulatus, thalassia and syringodium. the other 2 i learnt last time was called halophilus and enhalus. but walking through the water this time round was quite frankly a little nerve wrecking. we were told to not step on stingrays and stonefishes, which definitely included the possibility of stepping on one under all those seagrasses.

once we ended the transects, it was our time to explore and here’s what i found…!

ascidians on seagrass

Hairy crab

Snapping shrimp in its hole. wasnt able to get a video of it cos these creatures are so sensitive to changes in anything……

fanworm. couldnt get a nicer video of one coming out of its funnel/tube attached to the coral.

octopus: trying to run away. and the same octopus camouflaging. check out the video on my vodpod!

purple and blue sponge. it takes water in through 1 of its hollows and filters out through another smaller hollow… and get all its nutrients it needs…

anemonies!!! anemonemonemo…………..

ive got a video of my playing with this anemone…. believe me, the big anemonies are capable of reeling things (and i mean anything) into themselves…. someone said you can even put your finger into it… of course, i didnt dare. maybe someday i will… video of this in youtube/msspegasus.

my first living bivalve sighting too!!!! dont know which bivalve that was though…

lots of coral pics, am not putting them up. pls see my deviantart if you are intersted.

the whole morning was fantastic, except for the time when i found out i dropped NPark’s walkie talkie…….. gosh i felt damn bad. it was inside a ziplock bag, so supposedly waterproof… but we still needed to fine the walkie… tracked back for so long, got others to help in the combing of the area i did transect on………. and i finally found it after almost 30 min of searching….

the ziplock bag had a hole and the walkie was fully soaked. sigh……

so, what have i not seen yet?? nudibranches, sea stars, sea urchins and sting rays…. till then…

 

medical conditions you never heard abt

Wim Hof – doesnt feel cold

also called Iceman, this guy doesnt feel cold at all. swam under ice, climbed mountains in shorts, stayed in a container fill with ice for more than an hr… says he practices Tummo, type of yoga that trains your body to create intense heat.

Rhett Lamb - 3 yr old boy who cant sleep…

this condition called chiari malformation, where the brain is squeezed into the spinal column, so the brain stem is compressed. affecting sleep, speech, circulatory system or even the respiratory system. because he didnt sleep all day, for almost a yr, he was very irritable most of the time. he finally underwent an op and he’s still recovering. they had to decompress that part of the brain

ashleigh morris – allergic to water

she cant bathe, swim or have water of any temperature on her skin, cos she gets painful rashes. her condition called aquagenic urticaria is extremly rare. even sweating brings out the rashes. that would be hard to be comfortable with.. this pic above is not hers btw.

Kay underwood – collapses everytime she laughs

she has this condition called cataplexy, where her muscles weaken at strong any emotion felt. even fear, anger, etc. she also has this condition called narcoplexy, which causes her to fall asleep without any warning.

congenital insensitivity to pain

birth defect. problem in which ppl cant feel pain. so if they are injured, and arent aware, they might just bleed to death. included several deaths from the person not being aware of sever internal bleeding and fractures.  some cases of the child biting off his tongue and not knowing it.

i think the pic above is fake though..

moebius syndrome 

unable to form any kind of facial features, cant smile, cant frown, cant show anger, cant laugh, cant even blink their eyes, cant move their eyes from side to side.. its as if the face is paralysed. its congenital, and occurs because the VI and VII cranial nerves are underdeveloped. how do they remedy their unability to blink? that must be torture. ):

 

Protected: self belief…… sigh…

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shark attack again

my previous post on sharks were just pics…

here’s more on sharks.

sharks are fish. but have a few differences.

1. they dont have bones. they contain cartilage instead.
2. they have no gill cover, which most fish have 
3. they dont have a swim bladder, which most fishes have for keeping upright
4. their skin isn’t covered with scales. its covered with denticles, a material thats like teeth. so their skin is rough and hard.

because they dont have a swim bladder, these fish have to constantly move their fins. otherwise, they just sink to the bottom. so you can understand why cutting off fins from sharks just kills them. and its just a really mean thing to do. like how oil pollution kills birds and other marine animals.

anyway, there’s this particular shark however, sandtiger shark, which swallows air. so, kind of helps to keep it afloat.

sharks replace their teeth very often! but of course! imagine violent attacks on other marine organisms and losing their teeth at the first instant! shark teeth are replaced approximately every 8-10 days.

some sharks lay fertilizsed eggs, some sharks keep the eggs in their uterus until its ready to be delivered.

sharks also have electrical sensors that allow them to sense life beneath the sand underwater.

seems that most shark dont attack human, and those instances that there are attacks on humans, its likely due to mistaken identity (like they think you are some yummilicious sea lion) or sense of threat to them. but no, normally they dont attack humans.

nevertheless, ask me to dive into a shark pool, and i might just pee in my pants…

all the sharks eat marine life, ranging from minute to large scale organisms.

irony is, the whale sharks (largest fish in sea) and basking shark (2nd largest) eat mostly plankton (smallest life form in sea) – because their throats are small, and they cant eat anything more than the size of a grapefruit! tiger sharks on the other hand, eat anything they think can be eaten. ppl have found car plate licenses in their stomachs!

Did You Know: a dwarf shark is as small as your hand!

DYK: there’s a shark called swell shark that barks like a dog!

DYK2: sharks dont get cancer, so it seems that their cartilage is being studied in hopes of making anti-cancer drugs.

DYK3: for every human that sharks attack, there are 400000 more sharks being killed by humans. so who’s attacking who now!!! :S 

good. now hopefully ppl eating shark fins soup will stop creating the demand for shark fins soup.

no demand = no supply = no finning of sharks = long live the ocean ecosystem

 

what goes on in your cell everyday…

dear kids,

if you are reading this, do check out this site. it’s got fantastic animation of what goes on in a cell everyday………

(if you appreciate biology for all its marvels!)

 

Exploding Head Syndrome

real condition it seems…. weird right…

ppl with this condition often hear loud noise coming from within their head. like the sounds of gun shots, roar, ringing noise, explosion. seems that it happens when they are in a state between sleep and awake states.

the creates a sense of fear and anxiety, resulting in increased heart rate..

might be caused by stress or fatigue. and generally women experience it more than man.

biologically, it might be caused by a temporary disturbance in the middle ear, which causes the sound…

creepy and weird….