Coca-Cola & WWF - Innovative Plant Billboard

Finally, a local ad from Coca-Cola that matters and worth the notice.  

Manila, Philippines - Coca-Cola Philippines and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines) unveiled the very first plant billboard in the country.  The billboard now crowns the Adriano Building, between Buendia and Kalayaan Avenues in Makati City.

The 60 x 60 ft. plant billboard utilizes a thriving species of Fukien tea plant, which absorbs air pollutants. Each plant can absorb up to 13 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year, on the average. “This billboard helps alleviate air pollution within its proximate areas as it can absorb a total of 46,800 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, on estimate.”

Recyclable materials were used for the overall make-up of the billboard. 3,600 pots were used, recycling old bottles of various Coca-Cola products. These bottles were filled with a potting mixture made up of a combination of industrial by-products and organic fertilizers—a formulation that is stable and light-weight . These bottles were also designed to hold the plants securely and to allow the plants to grow sideways. Additional holes were made for proper drainage and for holding the drip lines in place.

A drip irrigation system, also known as trickle irrigation or micro-irrigation, was especially installed for efficient water distribution. This irrigation method saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing and emitters. The system is operated on a schedule to distribute water with nutrients to the plants. It provides the plants with what they need when they need it.

Ricky Lamanilao - Honest cabbie

In Jesus’ teaching about money and dependence on God, He is speaking of abandonment, trust in God, and surrender to God.  It is the attitude of Job who, after losing everything, exclaims: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"  

It is to expect nothing, to be grateful for what is there, to live according to one’s means, to desire less, and to need only the basic.  It is to be free.

365 days with the Lord 2011

 

From abs-cbnnews:

MANILA, Philippines - A taxi driver has returned around P200,000 to a British tourist who forgot his bag inside the cab.

Ricky Lamanilao, who has been driving a taxi in Metro Manila for 25 years, returned the cash, which was in British pounds and Philippine pesos, as well as the passport, credit cards, and other documents of Paul Ross.

The tourist said he rode in Lamanilao's taxi from a mall and asked to be brought to his hotel in Makati. He realized that he left behind his bag containing his valuables after he alighted from the taxi.

Lamanilao said he already had another passenger when he realized that his previous passenger forgot his bag inside the taxi. He then returned to the hotel where Ross got off to return the bag. Ross breathed a sigh of relief after he got his valuables back. "I will go back to the Philippines because of Ricky," he said.

Lamanilao said it was the third time that he has returned valuables left behind by passengers. He said he returned them despite being sometimes hard-up on cash. "Napuputulan nga kami ng kuryente. Minsan 3 buwan di nakakabayad...naniniwala ako sa karma,"  he added.

As a reward, Ross took him as his personal taxi driver while the British tourist is in the Philippines. The hotel where Ross stays will also give Lamanilao a commission everytime he brings in a guest.

Canine Boot Camp

Cancer Sniffing Dogs

From Huffingtonpost:

Scientists have put the incredible smelling powers of a dog to good medical use.

Sniffing out cancer.

Japanese scientists trained a black Labrador Retriever, named Marine, that they say can sniff out colorectal cancer with up to 98 percent accuracy, according to CTV News. Better yet perhaps, her abilities are more accurate than some tests currently used to diagnose the cancer, namely the fecal occult blood test, which accurately predicts the cancer only 10 percent of the time.

This isn't the first time dogs have been used to diagnose malignancies like this either. The idea has also been used to test for skin, bladder, lung, breast and ovarian cancers as well, according to ABC News.

So how were they able to hone Marine's predicting abilities?

Previous studies have shown that dogs have the ability to sniff out cancer in patients' breath, according to National Geographic. Using this idea, the female Lab was trained to sit in front of samples that contained signs of cancer.

From CTV:

Marine was taught to sniff cups of exhaled breath samples and then to sit down in front of the cup that contained the sample from the patient with cancer. When Marine got it right, she was rewarded with a tennis ball.

A dog's sense of smell is up to 1 million times better than a human being's. However, not all dogs have the same abilities.


From Bloomberg Businessweek:

A dog trained to sniff out colorectal cancer was almost as accurate as a colonoscopy in a study that suggests less invasive tests for the disease may be developed.

The Labrador retriever was at least 95 percent as accurate as colonoscopy when smelling breath samples, and 98 percent correct with stool samples, according to the study, published today in the medical journal Gut. The dog’s sense of smell was especially effective in early-stage cancer, and could discern polyps from malignancies, which colonoscopy can’t.

“Most striking is the ability of the dogs to detect bowel cancer at its earliest stages,” Trevor Lockett, a bowel cancer researcher with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia.

Most current non-invasive tests for bowel cancer identify later-stage disease far more efficiently than early-stage, Lockett said.

“Detection of early-stage cancers is the real holy grail in bowel cancer diagnosis because surgery can cure up to 90 percent of patients who present with early-stage disease,” he said.

Sniffing Samples

In the study, the dog sniffed samples from 48 people with confirmed bowel cancer and 258 volunteers who were either healthy or had survived cancer. The dog was asked by his handler to find the one malignant sample in a set of five.

“This study shows that a specific cancer smell does indeed exist,” the researchers said in the study. “These odor materials may become effective tools in screening.”

While dogs have previously been shown to identify skin, bladder, lung, breast and ovarian malignancies, canines are too expensive and too fickle to rely on for routine cancer diagnoses, the researchers said.

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The $500 Million Golf Course Seafloor Walkway

Dutch Docklands, a player in the world of floating technologies, or making land where there was no land, has announced its plans to build a golf course on the ocean in the Maldives. There are lots of golf courses that claim to be “on” the ocean, but this one would quite literally be “on” the ocean.  It is scheduled to open in 2015.

The concept is a series of manmade islands with one or more holes on each, linked by transparent undersea tunnels through which golfers walk or ride, sort of a golf course meets Moonbase Alpha ambition.

Click here to read the rest of the article.  Picture courtesy of Forbes. Click here for the complete slideshow.


My initial thought is, will this place, its structures and designs, be safe enough in these times of frequent and increasingly intense earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions? 

Happy Father's Day - U-Zoo

TWO THUMBS UP - Pushcart Classroom

Excerpt from Wikipilipinas

Efren "Kuya Ef" Geronimo Peñaflorida Jr. is an educator and social worker in the Philippines. He has been named "CNN Hero of the Year" in 2009 for his outstanding advocacy to educate Filipino out-of-school youth through "pushcart classes." He founded the Dynamic Teen Company (DTC) at the age of 16 years old. He now works in a local private school during the week and continues his work with the DTC every Saturday. 

Dynamic Team Company started as a friendship club of around 20 members, with an aim of providing youth awareness projects, talent and self-development activities, and community services. They partnered with Club 8586, another community service organization operating in the area.

They eventually pioneered the idea of the "pushcart classroom", wherein pushcarts were stocked with school materials such as books, pens, tables, and chairs, and then used on Saturdays to recreate school settings in unconventional locations such as the cemetery or trash dump. 

Today, DTC's "pushcart classroom" also teaches basic reading and writing to street children.

Update #1: Pushcart classroom (Kariton Klasrum) to go nationwide. Click here to read more.

Update #2: KarBuil (Kariton Building) learning center opens where the daily tutorial for at least 150 children and mentoring program for their volunteers take place. Click here to read more.

The Swimming Song - A Canine Music Video