say “no” to Captive Whale Sharks

i actually didnt follow up on this for a long time.

but to read this news on wildshores made my day really irritable today.

and here’s part of my petition.

Dear Honorable Minister of National Development,
CEO of the Singapore Tourism Board,
and Resorts World at Sentosa

[In addition to the written post below, i would like to say that i’m deeply disappointed that the government hasnt already said “no” to the marine park in RW at Sentosa. if you know how sad it is to watch captive whale sharks and dolphins, you would never allow this to happen. these are large animals that are meant to be in the ocean. not kept in a small tank so that little children can see then swim in circles. dolphins have been known to commit suicide when held captive. how much worse can animal abuse get? The Cove is already an excellent documentary. hasnt Singapore been known to set trends? We dont always follow what the masses are doing, but we weigh the consequences and stand by our decisions. at least, thats my impression of our government. “Sir, please take a stand, and do not allow captive whale sharks and dolphins.”…]

is Singapore really going to allow Resorts World at Sentosa have a marine theme park with a tank of whale sharks!!!!!!!?????

i exclaimed when i read the news. do you know how big whale sharks are? these animals needs alot of space. they need huge ocean space. not a tank, where little kids scream and knock on the glasses.

it seems they also took dolphins from the philippines. now under going training to become a show-dolphin.

these animals arent meant to be held in a tank. if you are talking abt small fish, its not that bad. these animals need a  large area to grow. they are social animals. they need company. they need freedom.

it breaks my heart and makes me cry. cant we do something?

please go and sign the petition .

please sign up on facebook, “i will boycott Resorts World Sentosa and its Marine Life Park” if they dont stop the import of whale sharks and dolphins.

please help to make a difference. the resorts world will still attract tourists without having a marine theme park.

and for tourists from everywhere else in the world, there is nothing more exciting than taking a cruiser out to sea to watch orcas and whale sharks. watching captive ones cannot ever give you that satisfaction.

 

 

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random thoughts for the week

i think whitney housten writes some of the best songs i know…….

why do ppl still eat sharks fin? or like what goon says, “why are you biased towards sharks?” they are all animals……… yea… why???

how does one get to burdened by all the things you have to do and forget time. could i be one to forget my birthday one day?

marriage is a wonderful thing to have, if it brings happiness to everyone. i guess, even if 1 person isnt happy, a celebration of the marriage wouldnt be fitting.

lights at clark quay are so pretty.

the pianist i saw today was so amazing. i guess there’d be better ones around, but, its simply lovely seeing ppl play so effortlessly, fluently, indulgingly.

music melts my heart.

should i go overseas to study? how to leave my family in this condition?

when can i get my lazy day? i really just  want to stone all day long and waste a few days away.

open house was so ridiculously busy, i cant imagine ppl finding all nooks and crannies to have meetings.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  

feel like sitting at the breakwater and watch the waves crash in. watch the planes fly overhead. feel the wind blow at my face. and hear the faded background noise.

staggering is too hard. the unknown is scary.

 

 

another non-photosynthetic plant

the previous non-photosynthetic plant i read abt was the Ghost plant.

this is yet another plant (holoparasite), that doesnt harvest the light energy, but rather uses fungus to aid in its energy requirements.

Monotroposis is a really small plant, that grows close to ground. about 5cm in height. the fungus is attached to its roots, and the plant gets nutrients for its daily cellular activities from that.

the lack of need to capture light energy means its chlorophyll is pretty much redundant and disintegrated, allowing for other pigments to show up. so the reproductive organs show up in some pinkish purplish colour.

there are bracts, which cover the reproductive organs. and these bracts are brown in colour.

apparently, according to scientists, the reflectance patterns on the bracts resemble leaf litter. making the entire plant seem like its just part of the leaf litter. avoiding predation from herbivores.

interesting eh….

the article also wrote abt how insects pollinate if they cant spot the well-camouflaged plant. speculation is, strong scents attract the insects…….

guess there’s more to investigate isnt it………

 

hammerhead sharks see all around

so, seems that its only now that scientists had the brains to do an experiment to find out why hammerheads have hammer shaped heads…

and tests suggest that they have eyes in such fantastic position that they can see distance and depth more accurately than other sharks whose eyes isnt positions at such far ends of the heads.

click on the hyperlink above, the give you a video to show the range of vision for a scalloped hammerhead shark.

scalloped hammerhead shark

for those who are lazy, basically, the shark can see everything above it, and everything below it at any positioning of the eye. thats apart from having great binocular vision (which humans have too, but just not that great).

and by moving their heads from side to side, they get to cover a wider angle of vision too……

each eye’s vision overlaps 32 deg. which eventually gives hammerhead sharks (scalloped) a binocular vision of 184 deg. from all my searches, i find that humans have a binocular vision of 180 deg. thats not that far off. so why is this so important to a shark?

apparently, other sharks which have a more forward facing pair of eyes (like lemon sharks) have a binocular vision of 159 deg.

lemon shark

i guess this means that the hammerheads are able to find prey, or detect predators more easily than other sharks could. and in the water, where danger comes from everywhere, that would be a good feature to possess….

cool isnt it!

how come other sharks didnt evolve the same? hmmm…

 

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space food, evolution and neurons

for some reason, i was highly sought after by ppl from all walks of life especially between the period of 1-4pm… amazingly, i survived. and have more to come..

after being torn apart by almost everyone in the world today, im here, retaliating by doing my highly deserving reading of news in my feeds.

check out what NASA has been doing when they have nothing to do… coming up with new reciepes. seriously, wouldnt it be neat to try space food?

i also always thought that once neurons die, they die forever. but that was knowledge i learnt way way way back in 2002………….. 6 yrs later, information was bound to have improved/changed.. and now, scientists show that polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids boost the growth of neurons. maybe ive not read the article right. or i havent read the full paper. but there are variations to this. and i am a little tired to look up the technicalities. (one day when im freer)

evolution of future humans? the article is SO good, im so inspired and happy…

but i dont have the energy to be creative now, so i’ll write when i can…

i got to go home now… 🙂

 

Pledge a Plant

recieved an email, as my school is part of SWCDC’s 1000000 Native Plants project. but anyone can pledge, so here’s the info.

Cut paper use, save the trees, reduce climate change.

 

A new initiative, Pledge a Plant – Carbon Offset Challenge @ South West was rolled out during Clean and Green Singapore 2010 held from 30 October – 1 November 2009. This initiative seeks to offset the amount of carbon emissions from our daily activities by encouraging youths and the public to pledge to adopt clean and green habits.

Every pledge will generate $10 worth of corporate sponsorship, up to a total of $60,000, which will be used to plant trees and shrubs in the district.

We would like to encourage you and your organisation to pledge to adopt clean and green habits and help us to raise the sponsorship to plant in the community. You can pledge here or at http://www.swcdcecogreen/pledgeaplant.

Every single pledge makes a difference to the environment. Grow the Movement. Pledge to adopt clean and green habits today.

 

I SAVED A LIFE TODAY!!!!!!

ok no… im not that kind of a SUPERhero…

but hero i was alright!

outside my condo today, there was a road traffic accident. car that was turning out crashed into a bike. i didnt see the accident, but i did see a lady squatting beside the injured biker weeping. a teenager who stood by his car. and his dad who was trying to help the weeping lady. another guy stood by the far pavement and was probably calling for an ambulance.

as i walked down, i saw the scene, and wondered, “should i help?”

yes, i had the obligation to.

i waved across and shouted, “excuse me, i’m a first aider. do you need my help?”

they nodded and waved for me to cross over. the nice guy who called the ambulance walked be across the busy road.

not like i do first aid everyday, but, i knew the chances of a spinal injury were very high in a RTA. but the biker’s helmet was already removed. so i left it as that. his abdomen was moving up and down, so he was still breathing. and that meant he was still alive. i checked for his pulse, to see if he was in cardiogenic shock. pulse was normal. breathing was shallow.

the next thing i was supposed to do was to do a head to toe check, BUT, i decided not to touch anything. so i went on to check his level of response.

“sir, i’m going to check your eyes now.” i said.

opened his eyes. pupil dilated. i should have checked the other eye, to rule our head injuries, but i didnt. but at least he was able to respond. at least its not a severe head injury.

i held his hands, and asked him to squeeze when i asked questions.

seriously, i think i was very calm and collected and handled the situation quite well.

the weeping lady was also in a state of shock, constantly mumbling and worried that the man was going to die.

to distract her, i asked if she had a bottle of water, so that i can dap on the man’s lips. she said she didnt want to stand up because she’s afraid she’d faint.

what else could i do?? i waited, as i checked for vital signs.

along the way, another motorist stopped by. he approached the dad, who directed him to me.

“do you need any help? i have a first aid kit in my bike”

“i dont see any bleeding or wounds, so i think it’s alright. i cant move him, but at least his level of response is alright. he’s just in a bit of pain.” i said.

“ok, then i’ll go off…”

i was pleasantly touched to see another person come by to help, rather than stand and watch.

an SCDF officer finally came on a bike. i pondered for a while before i decided to walk to him and summarise (though i know they’d do a more thorough check anyway)

“he’s been down for abt 10-15min. hes still breathing, has a pulse. difficulty breathing. pupils dilate when i open the eye lid, level of response is fine.” i summarised.

the SCDF officer rolled his eyes down my shirt (and probably saw the St John Ambulance Brigade Logo), smiled said thanks and moved on to do the head to toe check on the guy. and later told the ambulance officers that he has a lower back injury and a small abrasion on his left knee.

i figured they didnt need my help anymore, and i needed to get my arse to sch anyway, so i didnt stay on. i verified with the SCDF biker who said i can go off, and then, he directed the traffic for me to cross. (so cool!)

as i walked off, i reflected. one of the things we are not taught in first aid is to have the confidence to approach casualty. and yet, that is the most important thing to have.

and i figured, more than all the coolness of rescuing a casualty, being a first aider is more than all the hype.

“where did i get the confidence from?” i asked myself.

if i know i could be of some help, and i didnt go to render any help, and the guy dies because of my selfish act, would i be able to sleep at night?

🙂

i might not have been much of a help, since i couldnt do much for internal bleeding/spinal injury, but at least i was available for help.

i feel good.

and i hope the guy gets better.

 

 

in holy matrimony

2 auspicious events in 2 days..

Friday, a family friend of mine got engaged. Amazing to see such warmness and openness between both families. Such warmness. And probably a genuine wish to welcome each other’s family.

If you know the context from which im describing this, you’d know why this was such a beautiful sight for me.

They are going to get married a yr from now and I wish them all the best.

yesterday, I went for a long lost friend’s wedding. There’s something abt weddings I find so special, it warms my heart everytime………. The priest said, “in witness of, bla bla bla, I’ll take this girl……….” In tamil. When you know the kind of trouble these 2 ppl had gone through, this sentence just means a lot more. I really had to hold back my tears. If I was watching the wedding alone in my house, I’d have certainly cried. I wish the both of them the most Blessed married life. And hope they’ll love each other for their faults as much as they love each other for the good that they are……….

As excited as I was to see her, I wondered who else I’d meet… and I did meet. 3 other long lost friends, one of whose face I had forgotten. Had been 10 yrs since I last saw him. Been almost 8 yrs since I last saw the other 2.

met Al. really nice guy. Ever since the drama that we did, I always have known him to be so dedicated and loving to his gf (now his wife). He just appeared shorter than I remembered him to be. Along came a bubbly little girl. “my daughter” he said with a smile.

 I’m so happy for him. A nice guy, a nice wife and a nice family.

 met Da. Totally don’t remember his face. But I remember the name. somehow, I thought I knew of that name in JC……. Met his wife too…

met Ra. She’s matured so much. Married. Has a 6 mth old kid. We gave each other a hug. she introduced me to her husband. And we agreed to meet up one of these days.

 It was a sight worth remembering. My 3 friends sitting around a table with their spouses who all know each other and a small kid running around……. they had been in contact with each other for quite a while. thats perhaps 8-10 yrs of friendship i had lost. friendship that i had forgotten i had lost. and yet, they still warmly said their ‘hi’ and genuine handshakes.

“how are you” they asked. and i remembered how we all just clicked together… and at this age, when you meet ppl you havent met in a while, the next question they’ll ask is, “are you married?”

“no” i said.

“going to? soon?”

i lifted my shoulders and made a crooked smile………..

🙂

In my heart, I wish they’ll be happy always…

ive got a wedding next saturday. and 2 more in december… i’m officially broke!