Here's a TED Talk that should be of interest to all curious Maldivians. Charles Anderson, a British marine biologist working and living in the Maldives for 26 years, reports on how him noticing the sudden emergence of dragonflies in the Maldives at certain times of the year led him to discover the world's longest migratory journey taken by any insect. It is a truly riveting story of curiosity and scientific discovery.

I now have an answer to a question I used to wonder about when I was a kid: Where do the dragonflies came from?

I've been away from the Maldives for a little over two years and now I'm back in the country, for a little visit. I don't have a plan or a schedule for the next two weeks and that qualifies this as a proper holiday! All I've got to do now is find odd bits of stuff to do to have a little fun...

Lately, I have really been wanting to finish up the science book in Dhivehi for kids that I started to work on about 3 years ago but I need some practice in writing Dhivehi, especially on scientific topics, to do that. So as a start, I have written a little news article in Dhivehi on the Leonid meteor shower and published it at Muraasil.com. It is my intention to regularly publish Dhivehi articles on science and technology over at Muraasil in future. I hope someone finds it useful and worth the read...


Anyway, the Leonid meteor shower this year is said to be strong over much of Asia and has been estimated to clock in as many as 500 meteors an hour. So keep an eye on the skies on Nov 17th for lots of shooting stars and keep those wishes handy!

It has been sometime since I've seen a public MSN Messenger bot based on Blobsy, a PHP-based Messenger bot framework I developed a couple of years ago. So I was quite surprised to see the Thailand-based Lady Yang bot when its developer informed me about it recently.

The bot, billed as "Lady Yang - The Gay Cupid that help you find friend or lover" on its site, makes interesting use of the Blobsy framework by adapting it to build a dating chat bot. The main function of the bot seems to be its "matchmaker" mode, which requires users to enter some details about themselves in order to assign an "animal" to match the user's personality. Users can then search for matching users that have the same "animal" as themselves.

This is certainly a departure from the usual applications that I've seen Blobsy put to use! Good luck to the developer.

The BBC regularly broadcasts quality, extremely interesting science programmes that, at least in my opinion, exceeds that which you may find on the popular science and nature channels like National Geographic or Discovery. I just watched the first episode of the new nature series called Life which began airing on BBC One last week. The first episode opens with breath-taking shots of a pod of very smart dolphins that have developed the strategy of kicking up a cloud of mud in a tight circle to entrap the fast moving, hard to catch fish that they call their food. The awe-inspiring footage continued throughout the episode with various other animals and plants.

If this first episode is indicative of what's to expect, then this is definitely a series I would definitely reserve some telly time for. Life is available for viewing and download at http://www.bbc.co.uk/life. If you do watch it, make sure you watch it in HD - it's worth it. There is also some interesting supplementary material on the dedicated series mini-site by the co-producer The Open University.

I would also recommend catching the BBC's Bang Goes the Theory science series which takes a very hands-on approach and is especially great for kids. I love the little projects that Jem undertakes in each episode!

I've changed home 6 times in the past 6 years and it's time again to indulge myself in the fun and hassle of packing up and moving to a new address to call home...

Time flies! My blog has remained utterly stagnant, without any new posts or updates, for over two months now and is probably the longest hiatus this site has ever seen. It is not without reason though as the intervening period has claimed some very hectic and interesting changes in my life...

June was the final month of my studies and, together with the month that preceded it, various academic and work-related commitments kept me plenty busy and stressed, juggling lots of things to do on deadlines. Early July was a bittersweet time as I graduated with my Master of Engineering degree in Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics from the University of Reading and bid farewell to a way of life that has kept me occupied for the past four years. I also got to spend some quality time with my father and brother who came to visit me, neither of whom had I had the chance to spend much time with in the last few years.

Anyway, I have mostly been in a holiday mood since then and have generally tried to do as little as I can afford to. But a new chapter in life is about to begin and, to be honest, I have no idea what the new chapter is going to be all about. I am hoping that it continues to have something to do with the sort of things that I love, that gets me über excited and gets my brain whirring. For now, I am hoping that PlayRobots - a little business venture that I co-founded late last year with some colleagues from university - will give me all that and be a successful vessel that will carry me forward...

All I need now, I guess, is a large pot of luck!