It's mid-January and Annie Ang is back from her impromptu trip to the Tasikoki Wildlife Centre! With the aim of stopping the illegal wildlife trade, the centre was strategically set up in North Sulawesi, the centre and crucial trading point for animals such as the orangutans, tasiers, sunbears, pangolins and even gibbons through the region.

Tasikoki has become part of the Masarang Foundation since 2010 - and you may have heard of MF if you have followed Willie Smits' websites before. Say who?

Why, Willie Smits is the guy who showed us his efforts in restoring a rainforest! Video here (somehow video couldn't be embedded).

In October last year I brought Annie and a few other friends to a talk Willie Smits was giving at the National Geographic store in Vivocity - a "Think and Drink" organised by the Singapore International Foundation and Syinc. And what I heard from him astounded me.

His efforts for the past 30 years have been extraordinary - and this man just keeps going, and going. An avid protector of organutans and the forests they live in, he brings to life all kinds of action plans dedicated to resolving the root causes of deforestation, supports local governors and initiatives, and resynthesizes the way people deal with these problems.

Annie met with the man himself - and she'll have a guest post or two to share her experience on this trip, at the centre and actually seeing all these 'problems' we learn in class face to face. Keep close!

WOW. Nearly a year since my last post - probably an indicator on how busy things have gotten! However, I've also gotten messages via this blog from people, and more than a hundred people read this blog every month - I'm pleasantly surprised and very grateful! Thank you very much, readers - and have a brilliant rest of 2011!

So quickly, some updates: I got back in May last year, and have been doing my final year project ever since. Am also working on another publication with some colleages, hopefully that works out. Grad school awaits when the articles have been published! (:

Pulled together like-minded people yesterday for a 'green' meeting yesterday - would have to say it was not only fruitful but also an eye-opener! Will be going for Green Drinks meeting this month for it's biodiversity double-bill, where one of the speakers is the ever-charming Sivasothi aka otterman!

Green Drinks in a nutshell: + non-profit, environmental group + connecting and informing + targetting community, business, activitists, academia, government + informal talks every last Thursday of the month Started in London, Green Drinks has now spread to more than 710 cities. Great stuff eh!

Check out some past green drinks sessions and their speakers here. They're treating January as the month of Biodiversity - know anyone who is curious about the green scene in Singapore? How about those who have environmental-business inclinations but don't have the connections? Need to network but don't have the platform? Come to Green Drinks and start from there. Support the local Green Drinks! More soon.

Anyone involved in conservation will know that poaching is a severe issue that has yet to be addressed in many countries. Animals made into commodities, perpetuated through their use as medicine, artefacts for display, or hunting enjoyment, is something that goes on still.

The first innovative approach to catch poachers I have heard of is taken by the company, Custom Robotic Wildlife.

Photo source: Wired.com

Creating remote-controlled animal decoys, they use a tag team of four-person sting operations to catch poachers in the act. One controls the robot animal, one videotapes the poaching, and the last two tackle the hunters, who then find themselves with fines, or jail time.

Are these decoys actually convincing?

Taxidermy is used to good effect here - corpses of the desired animal robot are taken and stuffed, with the wired devices hidden in parts of the animal least likely to be shot at by poachers.

Not that I could find any statistics on how successful these operations have been, but noting that they make coyotes, deer, elk, antelope and bears, it sure seems like more people are giving them a try. Of course, they also make these robots for people who just simply want to chase off annoying geese on their lawn, or to law-abiding hunters as decoys.

Interesting approach. I'm skeptical, but well, we could use all the creative approaches we can think of.

I just received news of this - do spread news of the program to people you know fit the bill! Bayer Young Environmental Envoy program - welcoming youths between 17 - 24 years of age to apply with proposals of environmental projects they would like to see put into action - if they are selected for this program, together with 11 other Singaporeans they will join an environmental leadership camp in Singapore, and possibly an all expenses paid trip to Germany awaits them! 4 students from Singapore will be selected for the trip to Germany, which is there for the youths to gain exposure to wide number of environmental measures currently used by all levels of government and industry in Germany. Find out more HERE. Should you know any persons interested please do pass it on! The brochure can be attained through the website, and so is the application form available there. (: This seems like a really good opportunity for people passionately involved in environmental issues to channel their energies proactively.

I may be late in finding out about this organisation, but they are interesting. 350.org is co-founded by Bill McKibben, one of the first authors on global warming to the public, back when no one really knew much about it. Find out about them in 90 seconds, all images and 0 words.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5kg1oOq9tY&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

As a platform to mobilise people to action all over the world creatively, 350.org has reached out to over 180 countries all over the world.

Ask them why 350 - and you'll soon find out that 350 is the safe level of carbon dioxide to have in the atmosphere, as deduced by scientists (Hansen et. al., 2008) through environmental modelling. Don't just take anyone's word for it, read the actual paper through the reference.

One thing that resonates loudly with me, is that they are using 350 as a way to reach out to people of all countries and languages, because numbers, images and changes can be universally understood.

In the same vein that Win-Win Ecology by Michael Rosenzweig illustrates, sometimes movements have to be radically different (read: NOT revolutionary, because revolutions are dangerous) for people to sit up and take notice.

Focussing on positive action, Rosenzweig's main opening in the book brings up an interesting idea. I am recalling this offhand, because I don't have the book with me. His book opens by saying that there are, basically, two 'R's in ecology now. Reservation ecology, and restoration ecology. These terms are pretty self-explanatory. We reserve land for wildlife and biodiversity, in nature reserves and parks, botanical gardens and marine protected areas. Restoration biology talks about protecting new areas that were previously occupied, through active human intervention.

He then proceeds to call for the third 'R' in ecology: reconciliation ecology. If there is land to be used, man trumps wildlife - and the number of reserves and their sizes are likewise limited. Habitat loss is one of the leading causes of extinction. It has happened, and still is happening. So what happens to the wildlife then? According to Rosenzweig, this is where reconciliation ecology comes to the rescue. By designing and integrating reconciliation ecology in every aspect of building society, we can share our land with wildlife - so that land is not necessarily a mutually exclusive part of the earth anymore. Anthropocentric outlook, I know.

Still, it's an interesting book to read, with many astonishing examples of reconciliation ecology, and a good concept to keep in mind - that said, it cannot be, as he proclaims, the way forward - simply because there are many animals that cannot share the same living space as us, as we in theirs. They require particular habitats, environmental conditions, etc. We cannot hope to occupy every bit of the earth and keep our biodiversity and ecosystems intact. A much more extended response to Rosenzweig's rose-tinted ecology is written here, by Thomas Brooks in 2003.

Lastly, in this short update of mine, is on James Hansen's desire for Copenhagen talks to fail - if they were fixated solely establishing a 'cap and trade' system, that is, in his view, fundamentally wrong as an approach.

What he says then, is intensely thought provoking:

"This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

Read the complete interview with The Guardian here.

Norway now holds the world's first power plant to create technology that uses osmosis to generate electricity. Sited in a bay in south-east Norway, the plant opened on the 25th of November.

Statkraft is the company behind this, and is the third largest energy producer in the Nordic Region. FYI, they are a state owned electricity company. Their first plant prototype has been unveiled, and it can is still undergoing testing.

What is all the fuss about? Well, no one has actually used osmosis to produce electricity before, so this technology is new. There are of course many obstacles, but with the first prototype now made, they can test the system and see if it works before scaling it up! That makes sense, but wait, what's osmosis again?

Osmosis is a process of movement of water. It defines the spontaneous, or passive, water movement from a solution with a lower concentration of solutes (substances dissolved in water) to a solution with higher concentration of solutes, through a semi-permeable membrane. See the figure below for an example. The beaker holds two solutions, and the dashed line is the membrane. The solution on the left is more concentrated, and so water moves from the right into the left. See here for an animation on osmosis.

Using this concept, Statkraft intends to use salt and fresh water from the bay as the two solutions, creating a pressure gradient that pushes up the water level differences and eventually drives a turbine to generate electricity.

Still under testing, the prototype is able to produce enough energy to boil 2-3 kettle pots, and the company is still resolving problems of river bacteria and silt gathering on the membranes - their first obstacle before they scale up to produce energy for countries around the region.

It reminds me of when they first came up with the technology for reverse osmosis, the process that Singapore now uses to produce Newater as well as for desalination of salt water, that was an exciting time! Interesting stuff!

Having just learnt about the Grants in community ecology class, who famously continued Darwin's work in studying the finches of Galapagos Islands for some 36 years, I was bemused and surprised when WIRED reported a new species discovered by them yesterday. Topics brought up in community ecology class keep popping up in the news! Read about it here.

Source: Wired.com

So what is it with all this species talk? Here's some quick background.

The systems of classification we have today in biological science for living organisms have many levels. They start from Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and finally Species. Of all of these levels, note that the only "natural" classification is species - why? Because we recognise the individual for itself, and the species is a fundamental unit that is not grouped together with other individuals based on a set of characteristics that people think is important, because this can be flawed. Note that classifications are a human construct after all, just as the theoretical science we make our rules in the world by are simply hypotheses that have yet to be proven wrong.

Source: Wikipedia
Scientists in the past first started classifying animals much like how a 5 year old kid naturally learns to put things together. If they look like the same thing, it makes sense that they are the same kind of thing. Fishes look like fishes, and insects look like insects. We call this morphology (structure, or external form). Are things really that simple though?

Source: Corbets.

As the earth aged and thousands and millions of years passed, species on different continents adapted to the different conditions present there. In certain parts of the world however, this set of abiotic conditions (things like amount of moisture, air, temperature, nutrients, etc) were similar - and living organisms living by this same set of conditions may have adapted to this set of conditions, growing to have the same kind of external form, and thus looking the same. We call this convergent evolution. Click here for more examples of convergent evolution.

Source: Ivana Stehlik's lecture notes for Environmental Biology, University of Toronto.

Lineage-wise though, they may come from extremely different ancestors. Cacti are one example. Desert conditions are so harsh that only a certain set of characteristics have prevailed, and plants from different families (DNA-wise) in different deserts have the same characteristics: needle-like leaves, succulence, deep roots, etc. On the other hand, two individuals that look completely different can be the same species: a few cases in point are ants and termites. Ever see how different soldier ants are from worker ants? And look at the queen!

 

Soldier termite with big bulbous red head; alate reproductive is whitish in colour, worker termites are the rest in dull grey and cream colour. Picture by Nuwan, from my collection (for more termites, see my page here)

Okay, so we know morphology isn't enough. So what exactly is a species? This kinda seems pretty clear cut, doesn't
it? Well it actually is kind of fuzzy - though most scientists agree on
using the Ernst Mayr biological species concept:

"Groups of populations that can actually or potentially exchange genes with one another and that are reproductively isolated from other such groups"

Why is that unclear? It sounds like its pretty clear-cut. Theoretically, that is. Realistically, its difficult to actually determine if individuals from two populations are capable of reproducing together and producing viable offspring. Take for example some common birds of Singapore. To test with certainty if the mynahs, crows, sparrows and pigeons are different species (setting aside structural differences), one would have to place them together in a setting and allow for enough time to see if they would breed together. If they breed and produce infertile offspring, it's ruled out. But if they do produce viable offspring, one would then have to follow the case back to the wild, to see if their territories overlap enough that copulation is possible, and then observe if breeding between the two occurs. Extrapolate that to birds of a country. To test this with all the birds of a country, would be a nightmare. Read more about other species concepts here.

It's not so clear after all, and there are many other things to take into account. What about organisms that breed asexually, such as fungi and aphids? Or living things that hybridise? The picture gets more fuzzy as we consider more things. Remember though, that this is a human construct, and we can keep coming up definitions that fit best as they can; sometimes they don't fit for all cases, and we may need separate definitions for others. It's not made in stone! For a quick, easily absorbed lesson in speciation, go here (recommended!).

Have you ever heard of Shai Agassi? What about the Better Place?

If you've never heard of those two, you'll probably never have heard of the revolutionary idea of electric cars taking over the oil powered ones we have on the roads today. Cars with zero emissions that break the dependence on oil, creating a sustainable mode of transport that is not detrimentally fateful to our environment as it is to the stability of our economy, and lifestyles.

Say what? Electric cars? Isn't that a fad already proven inefficient and unpopular? Zero emissions - are you nuts?!

Don't take it just on my word, check it out yourself. Visit the Better Place. Find out more about the guy who's creating all these new possibilities, read Shai's blog. Even better, keep up to date with the latest information and videos by fantastic speakers spreading revolutionary ideas from ted.com. Wired.com was the one that spread the message of electric cars to me (Thanks Ella for the link!), and I say, keep up-to-date with all this information.

Still can't believe this is happening right as we speak?

Israel was the first to jump on the bandwagon in January 2008, and in the same year, Denmark came into the picture in March, and in October and December, Australia and Japan joined in respectively. California, Hawaii and Canada have also committed to this vision. Thanks to sites like greenprophet.com and wecansolveit.org, we can all keep up with this rapid tidal wave of change.

So where is Singapore on this chart?

For the record, Better Place Asia actually came to an Energy Carta meeting held here in Singapore in 2008, but whether there are updates or even any plans to take up this radical scheme is unknown. Anyone with info is welcome to contribute here!

Meanwhile, all we can do now is, I suppose, keep catching up.

Where and what in the world is Mandai Mangroves and Mudflats?

Located in between Woodlands Road and the Straits of Johor, it sits adjacent to the Malaysian owned railway that transverses through Singapore, and has two rivers (and streamlets and tributaries) cutting through it.

According to the Asean Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation (ARCBC), the area is approximately 10 hectares in total. Sungei Mandai Besar and Sungei Mandai Kechil are two rivers that run through the mangrove area, leading out to the mudflats and finally ending in the straits.

Here in this zoomed in photograph, you can see the two rivers and major streamlets, the mudflat area, the straight-as-a-needle railway track and the built-up areas around Mandai Mangroves and Mudflats (MMM).

We'll be heading there on Monday!

So just an update, Backyard Biology has sent a few people, and some other non-biology concentration students are coming too - but take note, these people are so into biology you wouldn't be able to tell!

Anne, Holly, Evelyn, Yea Tian, Grace, Wincent, Kim, Daniel and I are heading there with Siva, and we're going to get thrown into the deep end - and navigate our way out ourselves too! (: Good stuff.

Do take note though, don't head there yourself or bring an entire battalion of friends, always bear in mind the impact an outing might have on a particular nature site, and please be good to the environment. Don't even be friendly - be GOOD.

Here's a quote we got from Siva's video clip today:

A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children. - John James Audubon

More updates after our trip on Monday. (:

It's Charles Darwin's birthday today! Check this out:

Cool stuff, no?

Seems like many events related to science (especially conferences and symposiums) are going on overseas today - on the day of Darwin's 200th birthday, which, in fancy terms, is called his bicentennial. Learn more at Darwin Day Website. Places like Australia are even having an event called Ozzie Darwin Pow-Wow :D Thanks to Siva, there's also a video of Darwin's Legacy. (:

Even though there are separate camps supporting the theories he came up with wayyy back in 1800s, I think we all have to acknowledge the fact that he was one of the pioneers of the schools of thought in today's evolutionary biology. (:

Today, his birthday marks a day where science and our discoveries are celebrated in all magnified glory. Good chance to raise awareness!

Happy Birthday Darwin!