A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

Above is a GIF I created. After writing on crab mentality and the Filipino First Policy --I got inspired to write about why mud crabs change color. Mud crab dishes are one of my favorite foods in Surigao City. The color is dark but when it's cooked, it goes red. The Tavern Hotel is among the best places to get a mud crab dish.  Now, it's time to do science as a daily hobby. Sure, I'm no chemist or biochemist. However, researching and studying science as a hobby is sure fun. Here's an explanation from The Conversation : A crustacean’s exoskeletons contain several chemicals called pigments, which give the crabs and prawns their colour. One of these is an orange-ey pigment called “astaxanthin”. This is a member of the family of pigments that is responsible for colouring many of the yellow, orange and red animals. When the crustaceans are alive, the astaxanthin is tightly wrapped up and trapped by a special protein called “crustacyanin”. This is why live crabs and prawns us...

Should we panic or should we not panic? Life during the COVID-19 pandemic was deadly. What we must remember is that COVID-19 was a novel virus at that time. Meanwhile, the human metapneumovirus (HMPV) has surged in China. Should we immediately assume that "Oh no! Another lockdown is coming for the world!" or should we remain calm? I feel tense right now, even as I'm writing this. Partly, it's because I'm an outgoing person. Another reason is that I recall the number of Filipinos (both politicians and civilians) who do not follow simple guidelines. Right now, I can expect more racist attacks because I'm ethnically Chinese. I could even explain for all I care that (1) I was born in the Philippines, (2) I was raised in the Philippines, and (3) explain fluently that I never lived in China. The problem is that racist Filipinos do exist--never mind that the Philippines is a melting pot of several cultures! The recent Alice Guo (Guo Hua Ping) controversy where people...

As a foodie, I personally love to eat sea snails. However, natural resources aren't infinite. I haven't eaten the giant sea snail of Vietnam either. I've been eating Vietnamese food every now and then. What I realize is the ecological role of crown-of-thorns starfish (to regulate coral overgrowth). However, crown-of-thorns starfish can become a pest in huge numbers . Centipedes and spiders have their role but an infestation is another problem . An infestation of crown-of-thorns starfish is bad for the environment. The giant sea snail ironically eats these crown-of-thorns starfish . People should start to think of the ecological value rather than demand it for the sake of it. It's a truly magnificent work of nature. There's the need to harvest anything conservatively . It's all about respecting the circle of life. 

People often argue that it's not the system but the people who run it. Some people have their examples like the late former Philippine president Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" C. Aquino III and former Philippine vice president Atty. Maria Leonor "Leni" S. Gerona-Robredo. They would say that both Noynoy and Leni are "prime examples" why charter change isn't needed, just a change of people in power. Some people even say that the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines is "inviolate". If that's so then what happened to Article XVII that makes it open to amendments? Why wasn't that even used? That means even making a new constitution isn't illegal per se--unless one did what Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. did during the martial law era! However, if we understand simple psychological science, we need to look at basic psychology. Please, I don't need a doctorate in certain degrees, in the Greenbelt Universities, to understand that there are mist...

Son Dakika In this random blog, I would also write about science and medical articles when I feel like it. I'd like to recall the amazing story of Chandra Wisnu from Indonesia, whose wife never left him even after he became "infested" with the bubbles. There's so much ignorance about neurofibromatosis. For starters, it's not contagious  as it's actually a genetic disorder .  For the overview, the Mayo Clinic gives this definition and why it's not just disgusting but also painful , which makes it more unbearable than a scar left behind: Neurofibromatoses are a group of genetic disorders that cause tumors to form on nerve tissue . These tumors can develop anywhere in the nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord and nerves. There are three types of neurofibromatosis: neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1), neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2) and schwannomatosis. NF1 is usually diagnosed in childhood, while NF2 and schwannomatosis are usually diagnosed in early adulthood. T...

GeeksforGeeks I remember the dread of having to study the periodic table. Then again, wasn't school really a dread because of one thing--the fact that the system cares more about grading for the sake of grading instead of grading based on learning . Chemistry is one subject I had some disgust during the second grading (since I personally dislike doing stoichiometry problems). Sure, I can overcome my fear of stoichiometry by watching videos on how it's used but I still feel doing those problems can be a chore. I would like to revisit another wonderful tool in science--the periodic table. Sure, I hated memorizing it back when I was a child. I had to memorize it at 10 years old. We had to restudy it at 3rd year of high school under the K+10 system. Doing the history of science makes science a lot less tedious. I remember my hilariously stupid line of asking, "Who invented math?" back in 4th year of high school. It's part of growing up or not? I looked at the inventio...

Back in college, I recall having the idea of exercise being "too complicated". It doesn't have to sound complicated. I have my journey from 2013-2023 where I really lost much weight. After having a Mi-Band, I thought about how losing weight was something.  I ended up running into the video of this attractive blonde girl. I admit that I watched it partly because she's pretty. Then again, some videos with really ugly-looking people are entertaining when they have very good content. I watched the video and I could really laugh (and cringe) at the stupidity of the fat people in the video. Hearing them whine is really that annoying. The girl really talks about some sense in many of her videos. A lot of people are simply trying to become what they're not and try to defy the facts. It's just so stupid how fat acceptance people even shame people who are trying to lose weight. I've watched some weight loss stories and found out some of them had suffered a lot of he...

Wound Care Malaysia Facebook Page I've had a long-time interest in maggot therapy for wound treatment. I do have some diabetic relatives and I'm afraid, sooner or later, I may have to deal with foot ulcers. This page came from Malaysia and I'm not surprised at the diabetic rates in Malaysia. Some time ago, I was writing a business article where I discussed the Malaysian-Filipino sweet tooth demographic . It's no surprise that Malaysians have that sweet tooth predisposition. It's no surprise that diabetes is high in Malaysia too . Diabetes can lead to serious foot ulcers and these can lead to amputations. A revival in maggot therapy in Malaysia I ran into this article written by Sabrina Noor on maggot therapy . A certain female doctor named Dr. Nazni Wasi Ahmad from Malaysia managed to help bring back a treatment considered obsolete. During the war, medical maggots were used to help heal wounds faster. Now, it's really something to think about how modern technolo...

This is one topic I felt like I wanted to write down here. It's all about the boomer generation with people resistant to change. Boomers are typically born from 1946 to 1964. Having been a millennial (born 1991-1996) meant there were changes that would happen. Some things that are common today were luxuries yesterday. It was during the 1990s to early 2000s. I could remember being stuck with some obsolete technology back in the 2000s. It was a real challenge (actually) since I had to deal with a lot of boomers. A lot of boomers held the seats of authority. They can be parents, uncles, aunties, caretakers, and teachers just to name a few. I remembered wanting to have a personal computer. It was rather a convenient tool actually. I simply wanted to have that PC because it made encoding easier. What would the typical boomers say? Well, they say, "Back in our day, we had a typewriter so stop complaining and use the typewriter just like we did!" Then they get mad when the typew...

What really scared me was when my left eye got blurred. At first, I was hoping it was just a dry eye. I had my check-up done. My worst fears were confirmed by my cloudy vision. I had a cataract but at age 37? It was pretty young. It was a developmental cataract or a developmental defect . I was told that there was no other choice but to have surgery. I was pretty scared. I decided it was time to really view cataract surgery and discover the amazing use of laser cataract surgery. It's a good thing I dismissed the bogus claims of cataract-dissolving drops.  Above is a sample video of what was shown in the hospital. I was nervous at first about what could happen. Having been told by the doctor (and will not disclose further details out of respect for the doctor's privacy) that it'll take faster than the manual surgery was a relief. I was willing to spend more on laser surgery rather than have the bladed procedure. I could say I was scared of the bladed procedure. I heard that ...

It has been some time since I got vaccinated for COVID-19. Yes, we're achieving herd immunity. Yet, what truly bothered me in 2020 was the rise of the anti-vaxxers. There was even this crazy British conspiracy theorist named Kate Sheminari. During the pandemic, I decided to do a review of Louis Pasteur himself. Today, we have the Institut Pasteur in France, an international center for biomedical research. One may say that Edward Jenner was the man behind vaccination. True, we had Jenner and his fight against smallpox. We might as well discuss Louis Pasteur , the man whose name is used for the word pasteurization .  I remembered watching a cartoon about Pasteur himself. It's often easy to credit Pasteur for milk. That's why I decided to get some milk tea after every vaccination. However, we need to credit Pasteur for the use of the attenuated microbes. It's said that his first vaccine used on humans was the rabies vaccine. Meanwhile, the experiment started with chicken ...