Down the Rabbit Hole

Google Scholar has always had this quote on its website. It resonates with me because my scientific work builds upon the products developed by scientists before me. This is why I still marvel at the impact of Miracle Rice (IR8)  in preventing widespread hunger in Asia, and wonder if the work I previously did in improving rice quality made a dent in rice breeding pipelines . My contributions in developing the gastronomic systems research framework, such as the Robinsons Mall auctions  (Quezon City, Philippines) and the expert elicitation workshops (Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, India), helped shape the consumer research angle currently being pursued by IRRI, particularly for gauging the market acceptability of rice varieties that can potentially curb the risk of developing diabetes . My work in applying machine learning tools  to classify rice into quality types  is five years ahead of its time; I now see more people using   big data approaches  to answer incre...

Mycology has always been an interesting subject for me. I am fascinated by the different morphologies of moulds that grow on bread and fruit. During class, I loved to draw the morphologies (see my Mycology notes from my PHM training ). My notes about Zygomycetes I learned that Mucormycetes (or Zygomycetes in the old taxonomy) have coenocytic, aseptate hyphae. The organisms within the Mycormycete group (e.g., Mucor  sp. and Rhizopus sp., and the organisms I had sketched, in the picture above) can be differentiated based on their microscopic morphologies. For example, both  Mucor  sp. and  Rhizopus  sp. have circular to oval sporangia without apophyses. Mucor  sp. is distinguished from Rhizopus sp. by its lack of rhizoids (i.e., roots). Fungi can take on either multicelled forms (e.g., moulds) or single-celled forms (e.g., yeast-like). Some fungi can take on both! Dimorphic fungi, such as Coccidioides sp. and Blastomyces  sp., have been observed in both ...

I have always been interested in learning about personal finance and how to make my money work for me. In fact, I have been listening to various podcasts on investing and financial management, such as:  The Money Guy Show We Study Billionaires Value Investing with Legends The interest stems from dinner discussions with my parents since childhood. Daddy would read an article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer or Manila Bulletin and discuss market trends with us as we ate dinner. Also, both Mommy and Daddy brought me, Anna, and Biboy to Divisoria every weekend for shopping and scouting suppliers for the family business. This was where I learned the fundamentals of economics from a business perspective: the law of supply and demand . Since moving to California, we have resumed these business discussions during dinner. Donan has been a passive participant in these discussions because he doesn't understand the concepts of interest rates and investment instruments just yet. However, ...