tomorrow is our permanent address

I had bacon for lunch that day, and I was looking forward to eating it. I wanted to eat lunch during English, but two things made me change my mind. One was that I left my lunch box in the caf, and the other was the thought that if I brought bacon to a Muonster class I would never see it again. Such was the state of my mind- and my stomach- right after writing a new version of "I Sit and Look Out" and rescuing a paper plane from Kate's evil clutches. (She has power- that's the only way to explain it. She threw a plane down the corridor and it flew out the window. She threw a plane in the third floor back landing and it landed, very neatly, on top of a block of lockers. That was an awful sentence.) So. I was hungry, and was about to eat when Gee and Pjoy ran up to me, both clearly from the STR lab. After a while you can tell at once, without any effort, if someone has just come from the STR lab.

Gee: "Jill, punta ka sa STR, dali, sumingaw extract nyo."

I think I looked clueless, or said something like "Anong nangyari?", because she told me that their throats had burned and that I had to go there, quick. I ran, and barged into the lab even though the sight of lots of people running out of the lab with their faces covered and coughing like hell should have warned me.

It was our extract, all right. Nothing quite resembles the scent of 100% pure capsaicin- or, to be more accurate, nothing quite resembles the pain your nose feels when evaporated capsaicin enters it. Yup, it's not sting. It's pain.

And after everyone else had evacuated, Sir Jun and I had to check up on our Soxhlet extractor. I forgot to lower the heat, and after two and a half rounds of extraction our solvent was all used up. So, no, our Soxhlet apparatus did not explode, which is just as well, because that meant we would have to buy the school two new extractors. Our capsaicin evaporated, that was all.

You had to feel sorry for the mice that were stuck in the lab, though.

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Dahil kina Sir Jun at Ma'am Chupungco nabuksan ang huling tube ng burn ointment ng clinic. Dapat kasama na yun sa STR kit namin. Gloves, detergent, hand soap, burn ointment. The smell disappeared after a while. Ate Koko wanted a picture of the blackened flask that had contained out extract before it was evaporated. Sir Kent accused us of trying to kill the whole unit. There was a board- an STR poster board, the one the field bio poster was attached to- blocking the corridor, and taped to the back of it was a small warning: "Do not pass here. Capsaicin fumes present." Pity it couldn't have stayed around longer. Kate said she heard someone say that the STR lab had to be evacuated because of some fumes, and she knew at once it was us.

Ah, the brilliance of STR. Nothing in the world comes close.

C-34

Induction of Apoptosis in Neoplastic Cells in Corals using Dihydrocapsaicin

                Dihydrocapsaicin extracted from labuyo peppers will be injected into corals in order to induce apoptosis in corals afflicted with neoplasia. Neoplasia is a coral disease characterized by the uncontrolled division of undifferentiated epithelial cells, impeding coral reef growth and often causing coral death.

The Soxhlet extraction method was used to obtain capsaicinoids from chopped labuyo peppers (siling labuyo). The resulting extract will be subjected to high pressure liquid chromatorgraphy (HPLC) at the Ateneo de Manila Analytical Instrumentation Laboratory in order to isolate the dihydrocapsaicin. Corals infected with neoplasia will be obtained through the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus. The samples will be grouped into four, each group having equally varied degrees of infection. Different concentrations of dihydrocapsaicin will be administered to three of the groups, while the fourth group will serve as negative control. The t-test for two independent groups will be used to compare the rate of decline of coral health in treated and untreated coral groups to determine the effectivity of the dihydrocapsaicin treatments..

                The project is still ongoing. Completion and success of the project will aid in the conservation of coral reefs, which serve as a habitat to many marine organisms and are considered to be the most biologically diverse of all marine ecosystems.

And today, it was how to make paper airplanes.