“In order for PH face up to competition in AEC, the country needs to sharply ramp up investment spending in science, technology and R&D (aka knowledge capability building [KCB]). If this is achieved along with other ongoing policy and institutional reforms, the economy could in time be on a stronger platform to face up to AEC challenges. Otherwise, an uncompetitive Philippines may have to bear with a double whammy of (a) dumping of products from other countries, and (b) accelerating drain of its already scarce high-level human resources to greener pastures, thereby further hurting manufacturing besides agriculture. “The objective should […]
UP Diliman hosts second OVPAA research symposium
The Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs (OVPAA) successfully convened the 2014 OVPAA Research Symposium. This was held last December 1 and 2, 2014 at the Intel Center for Science Innovation Auditorium, National Institute of Physics, UP Diliman. The symposium featured the results of projects under the Emerging Inter-Disciplinary Research (EIDR), the Balik PhD and the Emerging Science and Technology Research (ESTR) programs. A total of 17 oral presentations and 20 poster presentations were given. On the second day, a roundtable discussion was held among project proponents and administrators from UP Diliman and UP Los Banos to discuss concerns pertaining […]
Finding plants that eat metals: The story behind this important new discovery.
By Augustine Doronila PhD, UP Visting Professor 2013/2014 22 May 2014 Scientists from the University of the Philippines, Los Baños have discovered a new plant species with an unusual lifestyle — it eats nickel for a living — accumulating up to 18,000 ppm of nickel in its leaves without itself being poisoned, says Professor Edwino Fernando, botanist and lead author of the report. Such an amount is approximately a thousand times higher than in most other plants. According to Dr Marilyn Quimado, one of the lead scientists of the research team, the new species was discovered in the western part […]
