Food engineers

Was at the super mart yesterday with my mum, she wanted to buy tomatoes. Told her research show that people prefer red tomatoes, so food engineers started changing the genetic make-up of tomatoes to make them redder, except it left them almost tasteless now.

She kinda look at me "Food has engineers? Planes & machines have engineers & food has farmers & cooks." So funny mum ....

 By right, you should have an engine to have an engineer, not these days. But isn't this better, more job opportunities. And I've not even tell her about genes yet. Yes food has genes too !!!

Do animals recognize themselves in the mirror?

Do you ever wonder do animals recognize themselves in the mirror? I always wonder about that. I often carry my little dog & let her gaze at her own reflection on the mirror. But I notice, very fast she'll turn away. So does she or doesn't she?  See what I found,

The Study: The Elephant Self-Recognition Study

Conducted By: New York’s Wildlife Conservation Society

Three Asian elephants named Happy, Maxine, and Patty were observed by researchers after a large mirror was placed in the elephant’s yard. Happy was marked with a white X painted above her eye and a similar mark was made on the opposite side of her head in invisible paint of an identical smell and texture. When Happy saw her image in the mirror she repeatedly brought her trunk to her own head to touch the white mark. This is the ultimate test of self-recognition. The Elephants also made repetitive movements in front of the mirror and apparently used it to inspect their body parts. Maxine even put her trunk tip into her mouth and looked as though she was trying to study her mouth’s interior.

Interesting Fact: Elephants have now joined apes and dolphins in being part of a small group of animals that are able to recognize themselves in the mirror. Cute isn't it? Maybe time for me to device my own study on my pup!

Souvenirs from Myanmar

The last day of my visit to Myanmar, we went to a large market, like a flea market of sorts. I was determined to take a real piece of Myanmar back with me. For a long time , if people asked if they could bring me anything from their travels, I used to request a rock or a pebble. you shouldn't spend your time obligation shopping when you're on vacation. Plus picking up a pebble from the street was more legitimate than bringing back a key chain not even manufactured in the corresponding country. I stopped making this request when a friend came back from Africa & handed me a plastic bag with a rock- & a stowaway in the form of a dead insect serious enough to have an inch-thick exoskeleton !

I ended up buying some of these trays & containers shown below, very pretty :))

The frustration of working abroad

I was sent for a sort of exchange program to Myanmar. Now I understand the frustration of working
abroad, and dealing with people who just nod and say yes to appease you, without any intention of following through with your original request to begin with. Not that this isn't likely to happen domestically, but I definitely think there is an element of: "just say 'yes' to the foreigner - I don't understand what she's saying and it seems to make her happy."

I am not a patient enough person to cope with all that.

Am I depressed?

How was your Chinese New Year? Something weird happen for mine. Yesterday my colleagues came to my place for lunch. It's quite fun & festive to have a large group of people around, eating chatting & playing some cards.

They brought some new year festive goodies for me. Some pineapple tarts & love letters- everyone's favorite, bak kwa (my favorite) & one of them brought me a box of Camomile tea !

 Ok, for those of you who are not familiar with chamomile, some explanation is needed. Camomile has amazing health benefits. But lately we found an article that reported that it can also help people manage depression. We were just talking about that a couple of weeks back. Hmmm..... so what does that mean? They thought I'm depressed, or I'm reading too much into it? I just couldn't help thinking about that the whole time, that I couldn't concentrate on the gin rummy. I ended up losing about  $20!!! 

Scientific Approach for keeping New year Resolution.

You always hear people complaining about not being able to keep new year's resolution right?
 
Well, According to science  'play' is the strongest motivator for sustained behavioral changes. It makes sense that we stick with enjoyable activities.
In other words, turning your resolution into a fun and enjoyable task may help you to keep it up!
Now the task is to find how to do it!

Animal Male Pregnancies???

Ok this may not be your everyday lunch topic but this happens to be ours today....lol..... Hmmm..... we all know the male sea horse  does that right? Or do we not... well we do... it's in the books somewhere I'm sure, might not be in your school text.... hmmm.... I cant remember...lol.... Anyway the thing was to name male animals that reproduce!

Dragon face Pipe Fish

Male pregnancy is a rare but real phenomenon in the animal kingdom. In some instances, male pregnancy is the result of man-made chemicals having strange effects on male frogs and bass, prompting weird intersex developments. In other situations, male pregnancy is a natural part of how seahorses, pipe-fish and leafy sea dragons reproduce. Whatever the case, males taking the reproductive roles of females provide bizarre and surprisingly fascinating studies.

Did you know that one of the most common weed killers can cause drastic changes in male frogs, transforming them into females that lay eggs? In a recent study, 40 male African clawed frogs  were raised from infancy to adulthood in a solution containing the chemical Atrazine, which is found in many weed killers. According to the study’s findings, 10 percent of the 40 frogs apparently developed into females. Upon dissection, 2 of the 4 transformed frogs maintained their male DNA despite also displaying ovaries. As for the other two transformed frogs, they mated with male frogs and laid eggs that produced male offspring. Previously, Atrazine had been shown to decrease sperm and testosterone and cause some male frogs to mate with other males rather than female frogs. Now it appears that the chemical can apparently cause some males to become near female frogs, a strange development to say the least.