Science

The Day We Walked the Sea: Jindo Miracle Sea Road Festival

May 10, 2013

Culture, Exploring, Field Trips, Korea, Science, Wonder

Each year, thousands of locals and tourists alike gather in the island of Jindo, where Korea’s version of Moses’s parting of the Red Sea occurs. Here, the tide goes down and opens up a 2.9-kilometer “sea road” from Jindo to the island of Modo.

On cue, the crowds start to move forward.

Off to Modo

It’s not everyday one walks the sea!

All of us bought brightly colored boots for sale during the festival.

The sea level progressively decreased as I walked.

The tide goes down.

I only made it halfway to Modo when local officials on boats started ringing bells and ordered everyone to go back to the shore, as the tide started to return. It was a dash of panic as we stumbled on the uneven sea floor back to shore. I recorded my ~~walk~~ panicked run back to Jindo with the MyTracks app.

Turning back halfway

Although scientifically, the main reason for this phenomenon is tidal harmonics (a nice explanation of it appears in this National Geographic article), the local legend goes that a tiger used to terrorize the people on Jindo, who finally fled to Modo, leaving Grandma Mulberry behind. She missed her family and prayed to the Dragon King, who appeared in her dream, telling her that he will set a rainbow bridge over to Jindo. Indeed, a rainbow bridge appeared, and villagers from Modo came over the bridge to look for her. She passed away soon after.

This statue commemorates the legend.

Grandma Mulberry and the tiger

This is definitely the coolest thing I’ve experienced in Korea so far, especially since it was a beautiful and unusual mix of science and culture. I definitely want to go back next year.

Rorsketch Hacks

March 27, 2013

Art, Creative Learning, Experiments, Korea, Memory, Science, Sight, Workshops

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I finally had some time to gather together the images from the workshop I did several weeks back. It’s nice to see them properly categorized and truly see the different perceptions of one cloud. Here is an example:

original cloud

I saw a dragon!

Here are the other things these art students saw in this cloud:

Head over to the Rorsketch website to see more of them, or follow the project’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. This project just won’t die. Woo!

Art and Science at the Museum that Gave me a Toothache

March 11, 2013

Art, Exhibitions, Field Trips, Korea, Science, Sight, Technology, Toys

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At the Teddy Bear Museum in N Seoul Tower, one can discover the history of Korea in the most adorable and saccharine way possible. Hundreds of teddy bears, with most being mechanical, are dressed and arranged to form scenes from Korea’s old and modern history. Bears in royal court! Bears at war! Bears playing polo! Bears doing breakdance! Bears going on a date! Bears getting married! Bears! Bears! Bears!

Some of my favorite scenes involve the arts and the sciences. Here’s one during with scientists during the reign of King Sejong.

scientists during King Sejong’s reign

Here’s a scene that made me smile. Look on the lower right:

Someone’s not doing what he’s supposed to. Can you guess who?

I love this little errant artist bear that could.

This bear made me laugh.

I also love this scene where the first light bulb was installed in Gyeongbukgung, which I visited last month:

The first electric light in Korea!

Sweet, amusing, and way more entertaining than your usual history museum.

Peek-a-Boo Dinosaurs and Funny Bicycles

March 1, 2013

Creative Learning, Field Trips, Korea, Science, Technology

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Alas, science museums in Korea have proven disappointingly bland (in a word, meh), although perhaps I had such high expectations. Designing for interactivity in a conservative Confucian society poses some challenges, perhaps one that can be easily seen by someone from the outside. But there are pockets of joyful wonder in the sometimes poorly lit rooms that reeked of overuse of audio-visual media and text. My favorite parts of the Seoul National Science Museum are in the second floor. Specifically, rainbow-colored hands wave hello at the wax station where you can cast your own hands for 8,000 won:

Rainbow hands

It’s awesome to see Marie Curie flashed on a screen. After being here for just a few weeks, seeing visible recognition for any female with strong, intellectual, and independent roles in such a rigid Confucian system as Korea’s make me do cartwheels inside (and sometimes, outside).

Marie Curie!

In the middle of a set of dinosaur eggs, one in the middle turned out to be mechanical and opened up to reveal a yawning dinosaur:

Hello, world.

And in the enormous Gwacheon National Science Museum, my favorite parts were on the outside, such as the Funny Bicycling Center:

funny bikes

There are bikes with odd parts, bikes built for two, and bikes you can ride sideways:

riding a bike sideways

This would have been a perfect bike in graduate school.

The Narae-Seobuk (“the bell of hope”) is a traditional Korean bell made out of 3,080 speakers—quite a beautiful symbol of art, science, and tradition:

Narae-Seobuk. The Bell of Hope.

Thomas Edison and the King of Korea

February 21, 2013

Exploring, Field Trips, Korea, Science

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My favorite part of Gyeongbukgung, the main palace of the Joseon dynasty of Korea, is a lovely pavilion named Hyangwonjeong and its surrounding pond.

Hyangwonjeong pavilion. Isn’t she lovely?

It is usually more known for the ghastly assassination of Queen Myeongseong by the Japanese government. But in Choi Joon-sik’s book, Soul in Seoul (2005), I came across another interesting (and less gruesome) fact: This pond is the place where an electric light was turned on for the first time in Korea in March 1887. Mr. Choi writes:

“The Joseon government sent off an official letter to the American bulb inventor Thomas Edison in 1883, asking him to set up the lighting system within the palace. Four years later in 1887, the first light bulb was switched on at this pond, which was two years before the Forbidden City in China was brightened with electricity. One of the reasons why light bulbs were installed here so early is because King Gojong, with his kingdom on the verge of collapse, was very afraid of potential threats from his rivals. He was particularly scared of nights, so he seemed to have wanted his residence to be brightened up with lights at night. The reason why the power generator was set up around the pond was because it needed water to produce electricity. There are many other interesting stories involving the nation’s first power generation: for example, it is said that people couldn’t sleep because of loud noise coming from the generator or that the fish living in the pond went belly up due to hot water flowing from the generator.”

Des de Fora: From the Outside

November 20, 2012

Art, Journal, Memory, Science, Sight, Wonder

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Barcelona Kawaii (December 2009), Digital illustration

Blessed are hard drives, for they shall reveal files gathering digital dust.

I did this digital illustration years back, for an exhibit called “Des de Fora” (From the Outside) in Sants, Barcelona. It was a time when I was getting over the hump of learning Adobe Illustrator. I completely forgot about this drawing! But I suppose this influenced my doodling habit later on.

The theme reflects on being a foreigner in Barcelona; I wanted to portray the increasingly multicultural nature of one of my favorite cities in the world. Futbol, Feast of St. George, Bicing, Gaudi architecture, etc. are all things I will remember Barcelona for.

It was also the year that it snowed in Catalunya for the first time in years:

Snow in Barcelona (March 2010)

It was also a time when I saw double AND triple rainbows on the day my friends and I were eating calçots and writing poetry:

Double rainbows over Barcelona (April 2010)

Look closely: Triple rainbows!

I t was also the time I was first part of the Poetry Brothel in Barcelona, which was probably one of the most influential times of my life from a creative standpoint and made me look at science from the point of view of poetry:

getting made up by Violet (Photo by Joe Wray)

I accidentally unearthed that cheongsam / qi pao the other day and was quite amazed by the wear and tear it had to withstand amidst all those poetry readings and performances.

I’ve been in Manila for five months now, and it’s been a time of looking at the city I grew up in from the outside. Despite living in multiple countries for so long, cities never fail to surprise me.

Perhaps, like cities, poetry whores, and the weather, humans, too, can pause and look at ourselves from the outside.

It’s just one of those days.

Extraordinary Smells of Ordinary Objects: The Scents of Rain, Space, and Tumors

July 21, 2012

Science, Smell, Uncategorized

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One afternoon, I accidentally got off the wrong floor of my East Village apartment. Each floor in the building looked exactly the same, and yet, for some reason, I felt that something was amiss. Wait, it smells different, I thought.

Smell, the most underestimated and underappreciated of our senses, is everywhere. In Chandler Burr’s The Emperor of Scent, he tells the story of a woman to whom everything smelled vile. The condition, cacosmia, kept her indoors for years, until a doctor diagnosed her to have a form of epilepsy that was interfering with her olfactory bulb. Once given the proper medication, the woman could recall the specific moment when her sense of smell started to become normal. The room she was in started to change in perspective, as though it were moving. It seems that smell affects our sense of space.

Curiously, things that we may not immediately attribute smells actually give off odors. Here are some examples:

1. Rain

Can you smell when a storm is coming?

You know when you (or animals) can “smell” that rain might come? Well, it turns out that you’re not imagining it. Rain does give off a smell; three of them, in fact. These are ozone, petrichor, and damp earth, according to Daisy Yuhas of Scientific American.

(HT @sciam)

2. Space

Space can remind astronauts of steak, metal and welding fumes, among other things.

Perhaps “ordinary” isn’t the word I would use for space, but it’s quite fascinating that something that primarily awes us visually can also smell otherworldly. Megan Garber of The Atlantic reports that astronauts describe the smell of space in various ways, such as “seared steak,” “hot metal,” and “welding fumes.”

3. Tumors

Dogs as cancer detectors

Dogs, whose sense of smell is 100,000 times more sensitive than that of humans. Last year, German researchers reported that dogs can detect the smell of cancer, specifically lung cancer. When cells start to mutate because of the disease, they give off volatile odors that dogs can detect.

Hacking into olfaction

Scientists are increasingly finding ways to elucidate the complex process of olfaction. In 2010, Harvard scientists engineered mice that were capable of “smelling light.“ The same year, German scientists also engineered flies that were capable of perceiving light for unpleasant smells.

Frozen Water: Icebergs, Glaciers, and The Beauty of the Ponderous

July 13, 2012

Art, Science

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There is nothing like a heatwave that will make you wonder about things that are cold. Seriously, with some of the warmest temperatures hitting North America, it’s time to think about natural structures that will likely disappear in time. Here are two of my favorite artists and their pieces on ice:

1. Camille Seaman

In her project, “The Last Iceberg,” photographer Camille Seaman captures breathtaking portraits of these colossal structures. “They are like humans in that each one reacts to its environment and its circumstances in its own way,” says the 42-year-old artist in an interview with the New York Times. “There’s a sadness to them.”

I think they’re hauntingly beautiful; it feels like they’ve been around forever and have the history of the earth etched on their faces.

(via NYTimes)

2. Katie Paterson

One of my favorite artists, Katie Paterson, has a lovely piece called “Langjökull, Snæfellsjökull, Solheimajökull.” These are the names of three Icelandic glaciers from which she obtained sound recordings, pressed them into three records, cast, frozen with meltwater from each of the glaciers, and played until melted.

Langjökull, Snæfellsjökull, Solheimajökull. Image copyright by Katie Paterson via the artist’s website.

I’m so happy artists are able to create these beautiful pieces that sadly may outlast their subjects. While you’re at it, check out Project Pressure, an organization that aims to document the world’s changing glaciers. (via The Guardian)

Genetic Revelations: The Day I Got My DNA Done

June 29, 2012

Experiments, Science

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Opening up your online DNA results is, ironically, almost like cracking open a fortune cookie.

Genetics is something I’ve lived with all my life. My mom was a genetics professor, and my undergraduate degree is in molecular biology. And so I knew that even though I was presented with the “science of myself,” I had to take it with a grain of salt. In addition to our genes, the environment plays a role, too. For example, not being at risk for heart disease is great, but eating foods chockful of saturated fat can kill you eventually.

So over a year ago, I had my DNA done. (You know, it’s like getting your nails done. Kidding.) I used two services, 23andMe and National Geographic’s Genographic Project. The former required you to spit in a tube, while the latter asked for a cheek swab. 23andMe yields a more personalized profile of health and ancestry, while the Genographic Project is a research project that aims to map the migratory history of the human race. Both are very affordable; I wouldn’t have done them if they cost several hundred dollars. I was able to get a 23andMe kit for $99 during a Black Friday sale, and a Genographic kit costs $99.95.

The results are fascinating and intriguing. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure what they could mean. Will I have a different (or perhaps deeper) sense of identity, now that I have a better idea of ancestry? Will I turn into a hypochondriac if I see that I’m at risk for certain diseases?

Some things about me that I already know: I was born and raised in Manila, the Philippines, to a Filipina mother and a Chinese father. I suppose both are mixed at some point, especially considering the Philippines’ long colonial history. I’m pescetarian, a non-smoker, and rarely drink. Because of all the years living in different countries, my immunization requirements (a must for getting your student or exchange visas) are complete. On average, I do 5 to 9 hours of taekwondo a week. (Yes, I realize this makes for a very boring dating profile.)

Here are some highlights of my results:

23andMe

The homepage of your 23andMe profile shows updates to research results. On the left is the menu where you can check out your health and ancestry profiles.

Health

1. I could die from a heart attack. Bummer. Of all the increased disease risks, “atrial fibrillation” topped the chart. This wasn’t much of a surprise. Once or twice a year I end up with an irregular heartbeat; my heart beats harder than normal for several minutes. I would stop and breathe slowly, and my heart beat would eventually normalize. My ECG has always been ok.

2. I have decreased risks of Type 2 diabetes, breast cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Oh happy day.

3. I am lactose intolerant. At this point I started to doubt whether they processed the right sample, because I’ve been drinking milk all my life and I love it. The fine print did say that I “may still be lactose tolerant for environmental reasons.”

Ancestry

1. Based on my maternal haplogroup, I am closely related to East Asians, particularly Japanese, followed by Siberians and South Americans. It wasn’t particularly revelatory; I’ve always had very pale skin. It used to be a joke that I was “whiter than white people.”

2. I am labeled Eurasian, though the Asian-ness greatly surpasses the Euro-ness. My friends surmise the latter is responsible for my height. I’m 5’9″, which is quite gigantic by Asian women’s standards. I do think that I’ve met so many Asian women just as tall, if not taller, so perhaps it’s due to a shift in nutrition as well. (All that milk, I suppose.)

3. Clicking on “Relative Finder,” I see that I have potential distant cousins who also used the service and whom I can contact. The likelihood of me sending them a message is close to null. I think I would rather reach out to another human being because of similar interests instead of genes. It’s fun to know that I have distant relatives from all over the world, though.

The Genographic Project

Among the results you get from The Genographic Project is a map showing the migratory pattern of your ancestors’ DNA.

There are similarities between my results from The Genographic Project and my ancestry results for 23andMe, which made me more confident in their results. Highlights of my ancestral journey include (starting from Africa, where we all came from) countries in the Middle East, and then Asia. I would love to do a project where I can travel through all these countries with this in mind. Note that for both services, I would get more information if I compared my results with those of a male relative, as I, being female, do not have a Y chromosome.

Now What?

Do I recommend getting your DNA tested? Of course! I think human beings will always be interested in different facets of their identities. Unlike other, dubious diagnostics such as personality tests, horoscopes, etc., this gives you insight into your actual biological past (and present) and can allow you to make important decisions, especially health-wise, about your future.

Will it affect me significantly? Not really. It was interesting to see where my ancestors came from, but in the end, I’m more interested in where I have been myself. My “cultural DNA”—the languages I speak, the places I live in, the habits I acquire, the people I call my friends—will likely make more of an impact on me. As for health, I think I already lead a pretty healthy lifestyle, but it’s good to know what I’m at risk for and what I’m not. At the end of the day, everyone dies.

The Scent of Desire: Birth Control and Mate Selection

June 22, 2012

Books, Science, Smell

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In a conversation with Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, we exchanged ideas about the senses, particularly about smell. She mentioned a book she was reading called The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz. A part of it discussed olfaction as a way for human beings to choose mates and how the birth control pill may be a culprit for divorce.

The Scent of Desire by Rachel Herz

Research suggests that birth control affects women’s taste in men. It’s all in the MHCs, or major histocompatibility complexes, hidden in the scent of men. Studies show that females prefer men whose MHCs differ from their own, perhaps to increase chances of survival—the resulting offspring will then bear more diverse MHC profiles.

But being on the pill creates a preferential shift towards men with similar MHCs. Relationship troubles can then start when the woman gets off the pill; she begins to be attracted to MHC-dissimilar men and is less attracted to the MHC-similar guy she’s with.

In simpler terms, being on the pill can make you attracted to Mr. Wrong, and you realize it when you get off the pill.

(Read more at Psychogical Science.)

—The Perceptionalist

Art. Science. Design. Play.

Archive

Science

The Day We Walked the Sea: Jindo Miracle Sea Road Festival

Art and Science at the Museum that Gave me a Toothache

Peek-a-Boo Dinosaurs and Funny Bicycles

Thomas Edison and the King of Korea

Des de Fora: From the Outside

Extraordinary Smells of Ordinary Objects: The Scents of Rain, Space, and Tumors

Frozen Water: Icebergs, Glaciers, and The Beauty of the Ponderous

Genetic Revelations: The Day I Got My DNA Done

The Scent of Desire: Birth Control and Mate Selection

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