Part 3 - Fr Jose Burgos Achievement Awards

  Fr Jose Burgos Achievement Awards (Part 3)

A tribute to Fr. Jose Burgos, Filipino martyr who championed the cause of the native clergy, on the occasion of his birth and death anniversary which falls in the month of February (Feb 9, 1837 – Feb 17, 1872) 

Dr Abercio V Rotor (holding trophy) and family pose with provincial leaders led by Governor Ryan Singson (4th from right) after receiving the Fr Jose Burgos Achievement award.


Award conferred on Ilocano scientist, 12 others in ongoing 2015 Kannawidan Ylocos Festival

VIGAN CITY, Feb.4 (PNA) — A well-known Ilocano book author and scientist led 13 sons and daughters of Ilocos Sur who made their province proud in their chosen fields of endeavor received this year’s prestigious “Father Jose Burgos Awards” from Ilocos Sur Governor Ryan Luis Singson.

Singson conferred the Father Jose Burgos achievement award on Dr. Abercio Rotor, a native of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur in a simple rite Sunday at the President Quirino Stadium during the on-going 8th Kannawidan Ylocos Festival in Vigan, which began January 29 and will end February 13. 

2015 Fr Jose P Burgos Achievement Awardees with provincial officials of Ilocos Sur. Dr Rotor is seen at the center, uppermost row. 

Rotor was an award-winning author of “The Living with Nature Handbook” (Gintong Aklat Award 2003) and “Living with Nature in Our Times” (National Book Award 2008).

Rotor is presently professor of the University of Santo Tomas; school-on-air instructor, (Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid, winner of Gawad Oscar Florendo for Development Communication) DZRB 738 KHzAM Band, 8 to 9 o’clock evening, Monday to Friday.), an outstanding teacher in the Philippines (Commission on Higher Education – CHED 2002); a Filipino scientist (DOST-Batong Balani);

He was also former director of the National Food Authority and consultant on food and agriculture of the Senate of the Philippines.
Other Father Burgos Awardees were Dr. Florencio Padernal, the incumbent administrator of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), for public service; Justice Mansueto Villon, for foreign service; Rowena Adalla, for education; Leonardo Aguinaldo, for arts; Danilo Bautista, for Iluko literature; Professor Ocarna Figuerres, for education and research; Dr. Samson Sol Flores, for dentistry and philanthropy; and Professor Mario Obrero, for education and research.

Special Father Jose Burgos awardees were given to Engineer Alberto Balbalan and family, model OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker of Burgos, Ilocos Sur; Amelita Daproza, for agriculture; Lovely Ann Joy Lazo and Samantha Gloria Singson, both for academics.

Singson said that this year’s awardees were some of the Ilocos Surians, who have excelled in their fields of expertise and whose achievements will continue to inspire the young generations in the province.

The conferment of the Father Jose Burgos Award, the most prestigious award for residents- achievers from Ilocos Sur, started in 2008 under the term of then Governor Deogracias Victor B. Savellano which was made as one of the main highlights in the first Kannawidan Ylocos Festival that commemorated the 190th foundation day of Ilocos Sur as separate province by virtue of a Spanish Royal Decree on February 2, 1818. (PNA) ~

Catch fleeting moments and rare subjects with the camera

Capture some "sparks of genius" with today's camera.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

Acacia being strangled by a balete tree
"Time moves on, save an acacia in the grip of death."

 Flower of Dragon fruit

"Immaculate white after the darkest hour to herald the dawn." 

Mingling with saints and angels. Manaoag, Pangasinan

"Heaven on earth is when children, saints and angels 
are but one."

 Author listening to the sea. 

"I hear the Pacific and the Atlantic, like seeing them both atop the isthmus of Panama."  

 A pair of  cotton stainers

"You don't live up to your majesty - you spoil the purity of your victim."    

Plant lice, Psylla 

"Monsters are not about their enormous size, but their minuteness and seeming innocence." 

Butterfly garden guest
"Friendly but not to all - there's more than being friend."

Parakeets asking for food. Bangkok 

"If I have nothing to offer, would you come to me

 just the same?" 

Ghostly shade of Talisay Tree. QC

"Lo! The tree is waking up."  

Twin bunches of banana, a freak
"One in a thousand mutants with twin fruits and hearts." 

Higad moth - adult of the spiny caterpillar 
"Sad and scary this potential prey in perfect mimicry." 

Double vision of hitchhikers 
"Accidents do happen in make-believe illusions."  

Limestone formation or fossil?

"I would rather believe in both, fossil in limestone."

Bath tub into helmet   

"Bath tub and helmet, baby and nanny, too" ~

Kugtong - Giant Lapulapu

 Kugtong - Giant Grouper (Lapulapu)
Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

I am a witness of a pair of giant lapulapu (kugtong) in Sablayan Occidental Mindoro caught by local fishermen sometime in 1982. I had been hearing kugtong since childhood, a threat to fishermen and picnickers because it could swallow a whole human being, and here with my own eyes the kugtong in Lola Basiang’s story is true after all. 

Groupers (lapu-lapu).  Giant lapulapu is locally called kugtong. (Photo credit Internet)

So huge are these overgrown lapulapu that two men could hardly carry one of them with a bamboo pole on their shoulders. A third man had to lift its tail from the ground as they inched their way to a waiting truck. I examined the fish; its body is coarse and shaggy, covered with seaweeds and tiny mollusks, and had lost all semblance of the favorite lapulapu on our dining table. But this makes a perfect camouflage that suits the predatory habit of this benthic fish.

There is a story about a kugtong that lived under the old pier of San Fernando, La Union. For a long time the strange fish was feared by the residents and many animals around had mysteriously disappeared. Then the local fishermen decided to catch it with a big hook luring the fish with a live piglet as bait. The fish took it and struggled until it was finally subdued. It was hauled by many men and if the story is accurate it took a six-by-six truck to transport it.

There is mystery in the biology of lapulapu or grouper as it is known worldwide.  Groupers are hermaphroditic, which means that sex switch from male to female and vice versa.  The young are predominantly female but transform into males as they grow to about a kilogram in a year, remaining adolescent until they reach three kilos.  From here they become females.  But wait. When they are about 10 to 12 kg they turn to males and grow very, very big. Lengths over a meter and weights up to 100 kg are not uncommon.

 A newspaper reported a 396.8 pound grouper being caught off the waters near Pulau Sembilan in the Straits of Malacca in 2008. Shenzhen newspaper reported that a 1.8 meter grouper swallowed a 1.0 meter whitetip reef shark at the Fuzhou Sea World aquarium.

So I asked my friend Dr. Anselmo S Cabigan, a fellow biologist.  “What is really the sex of a full grown kugtong, such as those I found in Mindoro?”

In my research it is male. The male is larger and wilder than the female, and I use as analogy the bull to cow, rooster to hen, peacock to peahen, lion to lioness. Dr Cabigan thinks it otherwise.  The female is larger, in fact much larger, that the male is virtually a remora-size creature attached to the female. I imagine the huge size of the queen termite as compared to the tiny king termite. The enigma of the groupers, considering their varied genera and species, and worldwide distribution could yet reveal other amazing facts about the kugtong.  At least we are sure the kugtong does exists. 

How dangerous is the kugtong?  It has the strategy of lying in wait, rather than chase in open water. It swallows prey rather than bite pieces of it. According to a report, there is at least one record, from Mozambique, of a human being killed by one of these fish.

There are giants in the deep. After the tsunami in 2004 that hit the Indian Ocean, by coincidence I saw giant squids measuring 3 feet long being sold at the SM Fairview supermarket. I surmise that these were flushed out from their deep dwellings and landed in the fisherman’s net when the calamity struck. I remember the giant squid that almost sank Captain Nemo’s submarine in Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

NOTE: Groupers belong to a number of genera, the biggest being Epinephelus and Mycteroperca of then Family Serranidae, Order Perciformes. Not all serranids are called groupers; the family also includes the sea basses. 
Their mouth and gills form a powerful sucking system that sucks their prey in from a distance. They also use their mouth to dig into sand to form their shelters under big rocks, jetting it out through their gills. Their gill muscles are so powerful that it is nearly impossible to pull them out of their cave if they feel attacked and extend those muscles to lock themselves in. Many groupers are important food fish, and some of them are now farmed. Unlike most other fish species which are chilled or frozen, groupers are usually sold alive in markets. Many species are popular fish for sea angling. Some species are small enough to be kept in aquaria, though even the small species are inclined to grow rapidly. (Wikipedia)

Enigma of the Coral Reef

 Enigma of the Coral Reef

No ecosystem in the world is more vast, open and free than the coral reef.

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog

Paintings by Abe V Rotor

Don a snorkel and a new world unfolds - the coral reef.

It is a forest under the sea, the counterpart of the forest we know on land. There are also equivalent trees like the giant Sargassum that grows several feet long; shrubs like the branching Gracillaria; cacti like the broad Padina; annuals like spongy Codium. Together with sea grasses, these seaweeds form multi-storey greenery at varying depths the same way forests have the features of mountains, hills, caverns and cliffs.

The animals that live here are more varied and colorful than those on land, mimicking the prism of sunlight in water with all the splendor of the rainbow. There are fishes that are distinctly bright colored, and at night exude phosphorescence like neon lights. They borrow the shape of their surroundings, the corals and seaweeds, for both protection and aggression - all these are adaptations for survival.

On the coral reef food chains have more links, so to speak, and food webs more intricate, as both residents and transient organisms interact. No ecosystem in the world is more vast, open and free than the coral reef. It is also the most lavish. Even beauty itself. Living things and all their ornaments are irresistible to be awed and respected, holding an enigma that expands our imagination to fantasy that lures us to the sea and to love to fish and comb the reefs all day. To write poetry - and to paint. ~

Red Blood Fish

Red Blood Fish
Dr Abe V Rotor

Mayamaya - Red Fish, acrylic AVR 2009

If you wear red, it too, shall be spilled,

Proudest thou art, until you are stilled;

And yet the world gains from your adventure,

Be it at your lair or some marble floor. ~

Don't Cut the Trees. Don't. Ecology Poems with Paintings and Photographs, AVR 2010 University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila

Great Men and Women – Selected Models for Today’s Youth

Great Men and Women

 Selected Models for Today’s Youth

Dr Abe V Rotor

“Ordinary people pursue money, simple people pursue power, average people pursue fame, but extraordinary people pursue ideas.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo

Young Charles Darwin after his historic voyage on the Beagle as naturalist. He was to become the father of the theory of evolution named after him - Darwinism.

It is said, that indeed everyone is great in his or her own way, if greatness is measured by ones ultimate capacity to do good, and goodness means being of service to others and of contributing something, even only a drop in the bucket, so to speak, towards betterment of mankind, and of making this world a better place to live in. Nay, but how so few come to the knowledge of others for the good they have done. They are like the unknown soldier. They are like what Thomas said in his famous poem Elegy on the Country Churchyard.

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The deep unfathomed caves the ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And wastes their sweetness in the desert air.”

The poem makes us think though, that if we do not make use of that which can make us great, then we are like the obscure gem under the sea and the blooming flower in the desert.

Thomas Gray's Epitaph

Amongst us stand rare and distinct men and women who have excelled, more than most of us have ever done. Their contributions are of outstanding significance that has invariably affected us, our way of living, our thinking and even our perception of the future. And indeed if we have to look back without them we would doubt if ever we would be in the present state we are in. What would the world be without them?

Undoubtedly too, greatness is mirrored not only on the norms of how most of us live and would like to live, but on how these rare breed of men and women perceived ideas beyond their time in the way of the pioneer, in space and in time that few would dare to travel by, which in the words of Robert Frost goes like this –



“ I will be telling you this with a sigh,
Ages and ages hence
where two roads meet in a wood.
And I, I took the road less traveled by.
And that is what made the difference.”


How many people dare to take the road less traveled? How many of us found true freedom while treading on it? How many of us have dared to take the road of truth? The lonely road, the road barely a path? And to beat it in order to make one? Is it a choice? Is it fate? And fate we associate with gift – or luck we often refer to as serendipity?

Our world goes around and around, fortunate that there are people whose ideas were born ahead of their time? From these ideas bloomed into many ideas that found expression in a multitude of ways that feed of rationality as being and society. It is to these people to whom this lesson is dedicated. In so doing we may lay down an alternative path and present models of living particularly to the youth of today.

We have chosen for this purpose the following great men and women from various nations (We will be featuring separately great Filipinos in future lessons, though a number of them will be associated with the names of these international figures.)

1. Charles Darwin – Interpreter of the pattern of life, founder of theory of evolution
2. Louis Pasteur – Father of immunology, science in the service of man
3. Florence Nightingale – Founder of the nursing profession
4. Mother Teresa of Calcutta – The living saint.
5. Joan of Arc – The saint who freed France

6. Albert Schweitzer – Road of “the life of service.” Reverence for life philosophy
7. Abraham Lincoln – Champion in the emancipation of slavery
8. Jose Rizal – The pride of the Malay race
9. Francis of Assisi – Father of Ecology, the “upside down” Saint
10. Robert Baden-Powell – Chief scout of the world

11. Leonardo da Vinci – The man of many minds
12. Pablo Picasso – Painter of an epoch
13. Anna Pavlova – Prima Ballarina
14. Ludwig van Beethoven Stormy genius of music
15. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Prodigy whose genius is therapy

16. Galileo – Greatest of early scientist
17. Carolus Linnaeus – Introduced systematic classification of living things
18. Juan Luna – His Spolarium inspired a people to gain freedom
19. Fernando Amorsolo – Master of romantic-classical painting
20. Thomas Alva Edison – Man of practical knowledge

21. Wilbur and Orville Wright – Conquerors of the Air
22. Charles Dickens – Life of the imagination
23. Gregor Mendel – Founder of the laws of heredity
24. Ramon Magsaysay – Champion of the masses
25. Christopher Columbus – Discoverer of a new world

26. Alexander the Great – Conqueror of Kings
27. Socrates – Man of Character
28. John F Kennedy – Charismatic American leader.
29. William, Shakespeare – Greatest dramatist
30. Mao Tze Tung – Steered The Sleeping Giant China to become a modern nation PHOTO

Characters that accompany greatness

1. Genetic propensity, genius, talented
2. Meeting challenges in early life
3. Endurance of pain and various trials
4. Persistence, often stubbornness,
5. Resoluteness

6. Dedication
7. Inquisitiveness
8. Enthusiasm
9. Pioneering
10. Humility

11. Sacrifice
12. selflessness
13. Courageous,
14. Steel character
15. Competitiveness, often against oneself

16. Accuracy
17. Perfectionism
18. Strong character
19. Grateful
20. Admired, vice versa

The other “side of midnight” in the lives of many great men and women may be characterized by the following:

1. Short-lived
2. Unhappy
3. Loner
4. Turbulent
5. Sickly/with infirmity

6. Misunderstood
7. Outcast
8. Maligned
9. Non-conformist
10. Poor, and the like.

Challenge to the students.

1. Tell something about the legendary character - The Boy who Save Holland (PHOTO of the legendary hero in the Netherlands)

2. “Serve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.” Is this parameter a good measure of how great a deed we have done?

3. Greatness can be demonstrated by certain leaders in our local community. What are the qualities of these leaders in your place? ~

Are you living a simple life? Evaluate yourself.

Dr Abe v Rotor

“Simplicity is the peak of civilization.” – Jessie Sampter

Typical rural living, Floridablanca, Pampanga  

Check if you are practicing each of the following: There can be no step-by-step guide to simplifying your life. However, these are important reminders. Do these apply to you?

1. Make a list of your top 4-5 important things.

2. Evaluate your commitments.

3. Evaluate your time.

4. Simplify work tasks.

5. Learn to say no.

6. Make a Most Important Tasks (MITs) list each day.

7. Spend time alone.

8. Go for quality, not quantity.

10. Create an easy-to-maintain home.

11. Carry less stuff.

12. Simplify your budget.

13. Leave space around things in your day.

14. Live closer to work/school.

15. Always ask: Will this simplify my life?

16. Limit your communications.

17. Get rid of what you don’t need.

18. Get rid of the big items.

19. Clean /Edit your rooms.

20. Limit your buying habits.

21. Spend time with people you love.

22. Eat slowly.

23. Streamline your life.

24. Learn to live frugally.

25. Learn what “enough” is.

26. Eat healthy.

27. Exercise.

28. Declutter before organizing.

29. Find inner simplicity.

30. Find a creative outlet for self-expression.

RATING:

26 – 30 You are a model of Simple Life, an apostle.
21 – 25 You are appreciated by people around you. You are happy and they are happy, too.
16 – 20 You live moderately – know how to adjust, if there’s too much or too little.
15 and below You are not living a simple life. Listen more to Paaralang Bayan

 Ideal countryside living: clean and fresh air, water, and food.   

 Acknowledgment: Thanks to Zen Habits Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life. Every Wednesday is Simplicity Day on Zen Habits; Internet

Return of Ipil-Ipil Shows Nature’s Healing Process

Dr Abe V Rotor

Sample of ipilipil branch infested with plant hopper, Psylla, shown in nymphal stage under the microscope. (50X magnified)

Ipil-ipil (Leucaena glauca), the miracle tree in the sixties and seventies has provided Filipinos much hope for cheap wood, fuel, paper, board, feeds, compost, and in reclaiming our denuded forests and wastelands.

The Department of Agriculture came up with a “litany” on the miracles about this tree. Ipil-ipil as a new source of dendrothermal power; ipil-pil for high-protein component feed for poultry, piggery and livestock; ipil-ipil as construction material, scaffolding, pole, furniture, toothpick, matchstick – to name a few.

 Ipil-ipil can be used in the manufacture of organic fertilizer to reduce our dependence on imported chemical fertilizer.  It is also used for rip-rapping, terracing and strip cropping to save our lands from erosion and desertification.  It is an excellent source of firewood and charcoal for many homes. 

Ipil-Ipil “Gold Rush”

The ipil-ipil fever spread throughout the country that no home lot or farm was virtually without this leguminous tree. Plantations sprouted. As a biologist I know that there are nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Rhizobia) which reside in its roots, adding to the fertility of the soil.  With the tree continuously shedding off its leaves, there is free mulch with which to conserve water and control weeds choking the plants intercropped with the tree. Along levees four to six rows of ipil-ipil could effectively serve as windbreak, buffering strong winds and filtering the sand and dust that affect sensitive field and garden crops.

 As Forest Wood Substitute

Because the wood is white, soft, and uniform grained, many entrepreneurs tried making toys and decorations such as fans, spin tops, picture frames, knife handles out of it. Since it is easy and fast to grow, it helps in conserving forest trees. This means we can spare harvesting our forests’ reserve.  We can keep our narra, almaciga, apitong, and mahogany that are considered rare.  Ipil-ipil is also a good substitute of acacia, a favorite of woodcarvers.   

Because of its success as a plantation crop in Hawaii and Peru, we did not only import its technology, we introduced its varieties into the country, in favor of our own native variety which is small.  In fact one would consider it a mere shrub which happens to be growing in places where no other plants grow, usually on scrubby and inclined slopes, wasteland where only the sturdy talahib and bamboo grow.  The early uses for native ipil-ipil are firewood and bean poles.

On closer look the secret of success of the native variety is its tap root system. Few trees can grow on rock with their penetrating deep through cracks in order to reach deep-seated water. In the process, they pry off the rock itself helping in weathering it. And if it is adobe rock, the locked up nutrients are released as soil formation progresses. One drawback of the native variety however, is its high mimosin content.
“Don’t allow the goats to browse too much on ipil-ipil,” my father used to remind me on the farm. I would then secure the rope that restrains the animals feeding in the open. Years later I found out that the warning is based on the fact that mimosin causes poor growth (bansot) and falling of hairs in animals. Early balding is believed to be one of the effects of drinking coffee clandestinely mixed with ipil-ipil seeds.
Initial experiments show that mimosin can be made into pesticide against weeds, insects and pathogenic fungi. It has been also observed that it repels insects such as flies and mosquitoes.

Re-vegetation of Corrigidor Island by Ipil-ipil 

Our native ipil-ipil is perhaps the first plant used for rehabilitating wastelands in the countryside. Immediately after the war, sacks of native ipil-ipil seeds were air dropped on Corrigidor island at the onset of the rainy season. The project facilitated the re-vegetation of the war-torn island, and prevented it from further destruction, this time from the ravages of erosion.

What Wiped Out Ipil-ipil? 

 With the introduction of Hawaiian and Peruvian ipil-ipil varieties, the expected performance level in terms of fast growth, adaptation and yield were achieved. This stimulus caused universal acceptance of the new crop, creating a new field in agriculture: dendrothermal (or firewood) farming.

But the boom was short lived. Nobody knew that the foreign varieties also carried with them a deadly pest – the leafhopper of the genus Psylla of the Family Psyllidae, Order Homoptera, the same group of insects that are the scourge of many agricultural crops, such as the tungro leafhopper, aphids, scale insects and mealybug.

Cause of Widespread 

Infestation In biology, natural enemies control a pest. If the enemies are not around, the pest multiplies rapidly. Despite quarantine procedures, the Peruvian and Hawaiian varieties carried the Psylla insect from their port of origin. Unlike in their native countries abroad, this pest while here, lost its natural predators. Thus the insect began to multiply to epidemic proportions. Thousands of trees, and plantations, succumbed to the pest.

This is how the pest attacks. 

 

Psylla infested ipilipil trees cut into firewood. 

First, it establishes a foothold on the young leaves and shoots, where it builds a colony. Being highly prolific the colony can explode into thousands of insects inside of a few weeks, nurtured in all stages of development by the virtually endless supply of nutrients from the growing tree.

The final blow comes when the insect drains the tree sap dry, stopping the growth of healthy shoots to replace the dying ones. Interestingly the bigger the tree is, the more it is prone to attack and eventual starvation.

Homopterans are among the most adaptable of all insects. They are very small, reproduce rapidly and can adopt through seasons through alternate tree hosts. Having studied their unusual reproductive development, I have found that when stressed for food or due to a harsh environment, they can shorten their life cycle to accelerate reproduction. Under extreme conditions they either lay eggs prematurely or directly bear young. Sometimes nymphs can reproduce. Biologists call this phenomenon, paedogenesis.

Abandonment of Ipil-ipil Projects In the late 1970s many farms of ipil-ipil were laid waste by the insect. Owners cut down the trees prematurely. Tree, after tree, was felled not by the ax but by the ravages of the pest. But our own native ipil-ipil stood healthy, a proof of genetic resistance of the indigenous variety.
_____________________________________________________________
Whatever happened to the ipil-ipil manifests a syndrome in agriculture where the concept of economic benefit and comparative advantage, can bring about neglect in plants and animals – and even to projects and programs, primarily for failing to meet desired standards and parameters. But the worst kind of neglect is that which follows the failure of science and technology to promised results.
_______________________________________________________

Breathing Time for Nature to Heal Three decades had passed since those devastating infestations. Alone, the ipil-ipil had only one resort of recovery - through the healing power of nature. Nature knows best when left alone.

Happily the pollinators had been transferring the resistant gene of the native species to the more susceptible varieties, while certain desirable traits of the latter were transferred to the native variety. In both cases, natural cross breeding slowly took place without us noticing. Only nature knows the future of open and random pollination.

Natural Ipil-ipil Hybrid It may not be important to give the hybrid a name, for there must be a number of genetic types. We do not know how many genes there are and whose genes they carry. Amazingly as we examine the shoots and young leaves of these new trees, even while finding the culprit around, the trees keep fighting back apparently due to a developed resistance mechanism.

Schools of thoughts will be brought out as this article is read and shared. Among them are the following:

1. It is possible that the insect is undergoing a long-term, high-level virulence. Are we currently experiencing its low level?

2. Could it be that due to massive cutting of ipil-ipil trees, the principal host is no longer of sufficient quantities to maintain the pest in its epidemic rampage?

3. Could the insect have shifted to some other alternate host more suitable to them?

4. Since only areas favorable to ipil-ipil remain, the pest is not noticeable where ipil-ipil is sporadically growing.

5. Predators of Psyllids must have developed through the years, which now limit the pest population within the threshold level.

These hypotheses may serve as a basis for discussion, research and experimentation, but what is more important to know is that the return of ipil-ipil is evidence of Nature’s triumph. ~

Serendipity - "guided" discovery

Scientists are not passive recipients of the unexpected; rather, they actively create the conditions for discovering the unexpected. — Kevin Dunbar and Jonathan Fugelsang

Dr Abe V Rotor

Stories about "accidental" discoveries are not few; they are found mainly in science such as the classical discovery of Penicillin by Alexander Fleming PHOTO. He also serendipitously discovered the antibacterial enzyme lysozyme. This enzyme is present in our mucus, saliva, and tears. Fleming found the enzyme after he sneezed—or dropped nasal mucus—on a petri dish full of bacteria. He noticed that some of the bacteria died where the mucus had contaminated the dish. Fleming discovered that the mucus contained a protein that was responsible for the destruction of the bacterial cells. He named this protein lysozyme. Fleming's discovery changed medicine forever. 

20 "Accidental" Discoveries 

1. The Microwave - Percy L. Spencer
2. Saccharin - Ira Remsen, Constantin Fahlberg
3. Slinky - Richard James
4. Play-Doh - Kutol Products
5. Super Glue - Harry Coover
6. Teflon - Roy Plunket
7. Bakelite - Leo Baekeland
8. Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch
9. Velcro - George de Mestral
10. 10. X-Rays - Wilhelm Roentgen
11. Vulcanized rubber - Charles Goodyear 
12. Vaseline - Robert Chesebrough 
13. Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch
14. Prototype strikeable match - John Walker
15. Gunpowder - Ninth-century Chinese alchemists
16. Nuclear fission - Enrico Fermi
17. First synthetic dye called Mauve - William Perkins
18. Safety Glass - Edouard Benedictus
19. Anesthesia - Horace Wells and Charles Jackson 
20. Aspartame - James Schlatter

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

Serendipity is a happy and unexpected event that apparently occurs due to chance and often appears when we are searching for something else. Serendipity is a delight when it happens in our daily lives and has been responsible for many innovations and important advances in science and technology. - Linda Crampton

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

Providential Discovery 

Pierre Curie (PHOTO), husband of Marie Curie, was stooping over a microscope in the laboratory.  A student entered, and not noticing the microscope, he thought that the scientist as praying and began tip-toeing out of the room.  Curie turned and called him back.

"I thought you were praying, sir," he student tried to explain his retreat. 

"I was, son," said Curie with the usual simplicity and again turned to the microscope.

He then added: "All science, research and study is prayer, prayer that God will reveal His eternal secrets to us.  For God does have secrets which He reveals only when man searches reverently for them.  God did not make all of His revelations in the past.  He is continually revealing Himself, His plans, and His truths to those who will search for them."  (Reference: Anecdotes of the Great that help build a better life, a compilation by J Maurus) ~