Their more recent dark state article was published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters in April 2023, with co-authors Jim Skulte, Phatthamon Kongkhambut, Sahana Rao, Ludwig Mathey, Hans Keßler, and Andreas Hemmerich.

With almost the same set of authors, they published their prior article in August 2022, which led to their surprising discovery of a dark state. This previous groundbreaking study created another type of time crystal, called continuous time crystal, for the first time in physics history.

Similar to the Big Bang Theory‘s theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper, Cosme, along with his colleagues, created a theory or mathematical model and successfully verified it in their experimental design.

As a theorist, that’s something that excites you because we’re able to understand something at the fundamental level and that it works.

JAYSON COSME

Cosme clarified that what they found, the dark state, is different from dark matter, as the latter is mostly a theoretical form of matter and has not been detected yet. The dark state or dark quantum state, on the other hand, is the state of an atom or molecule that does not absorb or emit light (photons), hence “dark.” More importantly, the dark state is not just a theory as its existence has been proven and repeatedly created.

“It is closer to an invisibility cloak in Harry Potter,” he said, describing the dark state. “It’s practically invisible.”

Using the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) for their system, the study showed a unique way of creating a dark state using two key ingredients: the interaction between the atoms as facilitated by light via the laser beam, and the shaking of the laser itself.

He shared that different types of interactions create various states of matter, similar to how water molecules can become solid (ice), liquid (water), or gas (vapor), depending on how the molecules interact.

Their original setup was initially designed to create an incommensurate time crystal. By shaking the system harder, Cosme shared that they were surprised to see the transformation of the time crystal into something new and realized it was a dark state.

“We’re able to show that you can create a new state, which is a dark state, by combining periodic driving and interaction between the constituent particles that make up the Bose-Einstein condensate.”

While the study is fundamental research, the concept of the dark state can already be applied to quantum computing. Quantum computing is a multidisciplinary field that uses quantum mechanics to solve problems quicker than classical computers that exist nowadays.

While quantum computing has more possibilities for combinations of 1s and 0s, its state is not stable. For example, classical computers are more stable, which makes current devices like laptops and cameras function properly. Hence, its state of 1, for instance, will always remain 1, and so forth.

However, in a quantum bit, state 1, for instance, will at some point become 0.

With the dark state, a quantum bit will be more stable in creating a system that can solve more complex problems or perform faster functions than today’s supercomputers.

Cosme first started working with the team when he was working as a postdoctoral researcher and theorist in Hamburg, Germany, under Mathey, from 2017 to 2020. When he started working as an associate professor at UP Diliman in 2020, their collaboration continued.

As the principal investigator for the study, Cosme shared his idea with his close collaborator, Jim Skulte, to improve the mathematical model behind it and work on the experiment to prove their theory, along with their other colleagues from Hemmerich’s experimental group. 

“Apart from the joy of discovery and doing the physics itself, also seeing that your fellow scientists, colleagues, [and] your peers appreciate the work that you have done and make use of your ideas, to me, that’s one of the reasons that I’m still here doing physics, still doing science,” he said. – Rappler.com

Back in March, a cockroach species discovered in Singapore named Nocticola pheromosa, went viral as it was named after the Pokémon Pheromosa.

Among those who made the discovery was University of the Philippines Los Baños Museum of Natural History entomologist Cristian Lucañas, who was fascinated by the story of how Pokémon came about as the game’s creator, Satoshi Tajiri, was into collecting insects.

Know more about the entomologist who became a Pokémon professor through this short video report by Rappler digital communications specialist Russell Ku.

You can also read the full story below.

Must Read

Meet Cristian Lucañas, the UPLB entomologist who became a Pokémon professor

– Rappler.com

But the scarcity of Homo sapiens fossils from early in our evolutionary history and the geographical spread of those remains in Africa in places like Ethiopia and South Africa have made it difficult to piece together how our species emerged and dispersed across the continent before trekking worldwide. A new study tapping into genome data from modern-day African populations is offering insight into how this may have unfolded.

The research indicated that multiple ancestral groups from across Africa contributed to the emergence of Homo sapiens in a patchwork manner, migrating from one region to another and mixing with one another over hundreds of thousands of years. It also found that everyone alive today can trace their ancestry to at least two distinct populations that were present in Africa dating back about a million years.

The findings did not support a longstanding hypothesis that a single region in Africa gave rise to Homo sapiens or a scenario involving mixture with an unidentified closely related species in the human evolutionary lineage within Africa.

“All humans share relatively recent common ancestry, but the story in the deeper past is more complicated than our species evolving in just a single location or in isolation,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison population geneticist Aaron Ragsdale, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature.

The ancestral groups were likely spread across a geographic landscape in a population structure that, Ragsdale said, “was ‘weak,’ meaning that there was ongoing or at least recurrent migration between groups, and this maintained genetic similarity across ancestral populations.”

Because of the paucity of fossil remains and archaeological evidence, the researchers turned to genome data from living people to find clues about the past. They examined genome data from 290 people, mostly from four geographically and genetically diverse African peoples, to trace the similarities and differences between the populations and identify genetic interconnections over hundreds of thousands of years.

These included: 85 individuals from a West African group called the Mende from Sierra Leone; 44 individuals from the Nama Khoe-San group from southern Africa; 46 individuals from the Amhara and Oromo groups in Ethiopia; and 23 individuals from the Gumuz group, also from Ethiopia. Genome data also was examined from 91 Europeans to account for post-colonial era influence and from a Neanderthal, the extinct human species that was concentrated in Europe until about 40,000 years ago.

The fossil record is scanty in the time period that would be most informative about the emergence and spread of Homo sapiens, and there is no ancient DNA from skeletal or dental remains from these time periods, the researchers said.

“While we find evidence of anatomically modern human remains and artifacts in different parts of Africa, they are so sparse in space and time that it is difficult to understand their relationships with each other, and with us,” said study geneticist and study co-author Simon Gravel of McGill University in Montreal. “Were they related to each other? Are they related to our ancestors, or were they local populations who went extinct?”

“Genetic data was inherited from a continuous chain of transmissions dating back to well before the origins of modern humans. The relatedness among contemporary humans contains a lot of information about this chain of events,” Gravel added. “By building models of how these transmissions occurred, we can test detailed models that relate past populations to present-day populations.” – Rappler.com

Eventually, the researchers hope it could lead to a more natural feeling of loved ones when he is wearing his prosthetic.

With thermal electrodes placed on the skin of their residual arm, amputees such as Fidati reported feeling hot or cold sensations in their phantom hand and fingers, as well as directly on the arm, according to the trials by the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

The 59-year-old Italian is among 27 amputees who took part in the trials, with 17 of them reporting a successful test.

“The first time I took part in the experiment, I felt like I had rediscovered feeling in my phantom hand,” he said.

Those tested have also been able to differentiate between plastic, glass and copper, pointing to where they feel the sensations on images of a hand.

“By stimulating specific parts of the residual arm of the amputees, we could induce sensation in the missing phantom hands,” said Solaiman Shokur, a senior scientist neuroengineer at EPFL who co-led the study, published in the journal Science.

“What they feel in this phantom hand is similar to what they feel on their intact hand.”

A woman who also took part the study, Francesca Rossi, said she had previously been able to feel tingling in her missing hand when she touched the end of her arm, but said: “Feeling the temperature variation is a different thing, something important…something beautiful.”

The technology, which has been tested for more than two years, does not need to be implanted. It can be worn on the skin and combined with a regular prosthetic.

Silvestro Micera, who co-led the study with Shokur, said they now wanted to test the device on a larger scale before combining it with other technologies to improve tactile sensations in amputees.

“We think that we could give people a better sense of embodiment of their hands and maybe even give them the possibility to feel their loved ones in a much more natural way,” Shokur added.

Fidati said that beyond helping amputees with daily tasks such as cooking, the technology could open the door for him to feel the warmth of others.

“There is also a social aspect that is important,” he said. “When I meet someone and shake his hand, I expect to feel heat.”

Micera, a professor at EPFL and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, said: “Temperature feedback is essential for relaying information that goes beyond touch, it leads to feelings of affection. We are social beings and warmth is an important part of that.” – Rappler.com

Scientists on Thursday, May 18, said they had unearthed a partial skeleton of a previously unknown dinosaur species in the town of Cinctorres in the Spanish province of Castellon that helps provide a deeper understanding of a highly successful group of meat-eaters that hunted on land and in the water.

Living about 126 to 127 million years ago, the bipedal dinosaur, named Protathlitis cinctorrensis, was about 33 to 36 feet (10 to 11 meters) long and weighed about 2 tons. It was part of a group called spinosaurs whose biggest member, Spinosaurus, was among the largest meat-eating dinosaurs on record.

Spinosaurs in turn were part of a larger assemblage called theropods that included all of the meat-eating dinosaurs, including the likes of the massive Tyrannosaurus from North America and Giganotosaurus from South America, as well as birds.

The newly discovered dinosaur, whose scientific name means “champion from Cinctorres” in reference to the UEFA Europa League soccer title won by nearby Villarreal in 2021, is known from a partial skeleton – the right upper jawbone, one tooth, and five vertebrae.

Other dinosaurs excavated at Cinctorres include a large, long-necked quadrupedal plant-eater, two smaller bipedal plant-eaters and another theropod that was not as big as Protathlitis. Fossils of various crocodiles, sharks and other fish also have been dug up.

Protathlitis was closely related to a spinosaur called Baryonyx unearthed in England in the 1980s that lived at roughly the same time. Both had skulls more elongated that many other meat-eating dinosaurs. Baryonyx also had a very large claw on the first finger, though no limb remains of Protathlitis were found.

Protathlitis roamed a coastal region along the Tethys Sea, an ocean whose remnants include the Mediterranean Sea.

Some spinosaurs – in particular Spinosaurus – are thought to have lived a semi-aquatic lifestyle, hunting primarily fish. Protathlitis did things differently.

“Protathlitis probably hunted on land near coastal zones and only occasionally hunted fish,” said paleontologist Andres Santos-Cubedo of Universitat Jaume I in Spain, lead author of the research in the journal Scientific Reports.

Spinosaurs lived in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America during the Cretaceous – the last of the three chapters of the age of dinosaurs. But because their fossils are relatively scarce, scientists are still trying to figure out their early history and how they spread around the world.

The new discovery bolsters the notion that during the early Cretaceous, two lineages of spinosaurs – those closely related to Baryonyx and those closely related to Spinosaurus – occupied the western part of Europe, then migrated to Africa and Asia, where they would diversify, said geologist and study co-author Sergio Meseguer of Universitat Jaume I.

In Europe, the Baryonyx relatives were dominant, while the Spinosaurus relatives were most abundant in Africa.

Spinosaurus, about 50 feet (15 meters) long and weighing seven tons, lived 95 million years ago in Africa. Its anatomy was unlike any other dinosaur, with a relatively small pelvis, short hind legs, paddle-like tail and feet for propulsion in the water and a curious sail-like structure of bony spines 7 feet (2 meters) tall on its back. – Rappler.com

The find in the Pueblo Blanco Nature Reserve, presented on Thursday, May 18, was first discovered by scientists in 2018. The dinosaur’s bones were so big they caused the van carrying them to a Buenos Aires laboratory to tip over, though no one was injured and the remains were left intact.

Paleontologist Nicolas Chimento said scientists decided to name the dinosaur “Chucarosaurus diripienda,” meaning hard-boiled and scrambled, because it had rolled around and survived the accident.

At 50 tonnes and 30 meters in length, the Chucarosaurus is the largest-ever dinosaur discovered in the mountainous Rio Negro province. It would have lived in the Late Cretaceous period alongside predators, fish and sea turtles.

The Chucarosaurus‘ femur bone, which spanned 1.90 meters, was split into three parts, each weighing over 100 kilograms and requiring at least three people to lift it up, scientists said.

Patagonia was home to the world’s largest plant-eating dinosaurs such as the colossal Patagotitan mayorum, the biggest dinosaur ever discovered, though scientists still do not know why species there grew so fast and in some cases never stopped growing throughout their lives.

Paleontologist Matias Motta said that while the Chucarosaurus, a sauropod, rivaled other Patagonian giants in size and weight, characteristics in its hips, forelimbs and hindlimbs suggested it was more slender and graceful.

Some 140 dinosaur species have been discovered in Argentina, which ranks among the world’s top three countries for research and discoveries alongside China and the United States.

The studies were carried out by researchers from the Bernardino Rivadavia Museum of Natural Sciences, the Azara Foundation and national research council Conicet with support from the National Geographic Society. – Rappler.com

The findings in the ambitious Zoonomia Project identified parts of the genome functionally important in people and other mammals and showed how certain mutations can cause disease. The project revealed the genetics of uncommon mammalian traits like hibernation and showed how the sense of smell varies widely.

The researchers said the findings on hibernation genetics could inform human therapeutics, critical care and long-distance space flight. The Zoonomia findings also can help identify genetic mutations that lead to disease, with one study scrutinizing patients with a brain cancer called medulloblastoma.

“We’re taking advantage of the fact that there’s this massive biodiversity on this planet to actually understand ourselves and make new discoveries that are relevant to treating human diseases,” said Elinor Karlsson, director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-leader of the international consortium of researchers.

“The human genome was sequenced more than 20 years ago and, despite that, it’s still really hard to understand what the functional elements are,” added consortium co-leader Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, a comparative genomics professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The findings, detailed in 11 studies published in the journal Science, involved placentals, by far the world’s most common mammalian assemblage, known for giving birth to well-developed babies, and not egg-laying monotremes or pouched marsupials.

The project examined most existing mammalian lineages, though only 4% of species. They ranged in size from the North Pacific right whale, at 59 feet (18 meters) long, to the bumblebee bat, at 1.2 inches (3 cm) long. Our closest evolutionary relatives – chimpanzees and bonobos – were included, along with the western lowland gorilla and Sumatran orangutan.

Felines included the cheetah, Siberian tiger, jaguar, leopard and humble domestic cat. Canines included a celebrity – Alaskan sled dog Balto, famed for bringing lifesaving medicine in 1925 to the city of Nome. The most primitive species was the venomous burrowing insect-eater Hispaniola solenodon, closely related to mammals alive during the dinosaur age.

The researchers identified genomic elements – 4,552 in all – that were pretty much the same across all mammals and were identical in at least 235 of the 240 species, including people.

“Many of these elements are located close to genes involved in embryo development – a process that needs to be tightly controlled if it is to result in the development of a healthy and functioning animal,” said Uppsala University evolutionary geneticist Matthew Christmas, lead author of one of the papers.

In terms of human differences from other mammals, the study pointed to regions associated with developmental and neurological genes. This suggests that evolution of human-specific traits since our species Homo sapiens diverged from a common ancestor with chimpanzees perhaps 6-7 million years ago has involved changes to regulation of nervous system genes.

“This makes sense as some of the biggest differences between us and our ape cousins are in our ‘brain power’ and cognition. It seems that a lot of what makes us human comes down to tweaks in the way that neurological genes are regulated, rather than any big changes in the genes themselves,” Christmas said.

The research showed that placentals, dating to about 100 million years ago, began diversifying before the asteroid strike 66 million years ago that doomed the dinosaurs and enabled mammals to go from subordinate to dominant.

Zoonomia demonstrated how some mammals have a very keen sense of smell – Hoffman’s two-toed sloth, the nine-banded armadillo and the African savanna elephant – while others have almost none – whales and dolphins. Humans were somewhat average. – Rappler.com

Researchers said on Wednesday, April 19, they have discovered that parts of the brain region called the motor cortex that govern body movement are connected with a network involved in thinking, planning, mental arousal, pain, and control of internal organs, as well as functions such as blood pressure and heart rate.

They identified a previously unknown system within the motor cortex manifested in multiple nodes that are located in between areas of the brain already known to be responsible for movement of specific body parts – hands, feet and face – and are engaged when many different body movements are performed together.

The researchers called this system the somato-cognitive action network, or SCAN, and documented its connections to brain regions known to help set goals and plan actions.

This network also was found to correspond with brain regions that, as shown in studies involving monkeys, are connected to internal organs including the stomach and adrenal glands, allowing these organs to change activity levels in anticipation of performing a certain action. That may explain physical responses like sweating or increased heart rate caused by merely pondering a difficult future task, they said.

The motor cortex is a part of the brain’s outermost layer, the cerebral cortex.

“Basically, we now have shown that the human motor system is not unitary. Instead, we believe there are two separate systems that control movement,” said radiology professor Evan Gordon of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

“One is for isolated movement of your hands, feet and face. This system is important, for example, for writing or speaking -movements that need to involve only the one body part. A second system, the SCAN, is more important for integrated, whole body movements, and is more connected to high-level planning regions of your brain,” Gordon said.

The findings detail the brain’s mind-body nexus.

“Modern neuroscience does not include any kind of mind-body dualism. It’s not compatible with being a serious neuroscientist nowadays. I’m not a philosopher, but one succinct statement I like is saying, ‘The mind is what the brain does.’ The sum of the bio-computational functions of the brain makes up ‘the mind,'” said study senior author Nico Dosenbach, a neurology professor at Washington University School of Medicine.

“Since this system, the SCAN, seems to integrate abstract plans-thoughts-motivations with actual movements and physiology, it provides additional neuroanatomical explanation for why ‘the body’ and ‘the mind’ aren’t separate or separable,” Dosenbach added.

The researchers set out to use modern brain-imaging techniques to test an influential map established nine decades ago by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield of the brain areas controlling movement. Their findings showed that Penfield’s map, constrained by the technologies of his time, needed revisions.

The SCAN was identified using precision imaging in seven adults to examine the brain’s organizational features, then verified in larger datasets that when combined spanned thousands of adults. Further imaging identified the SCAN circuit in an 11-month-old and a 9-year-old, while finding it had not yet formed in a newborn. Those observations were validated in larger datasets of hundreds of newborns and thousands of 9-year-olds.

The research underscored how there is more to learn about the human brain.

“Actually, the purpose of the brain is highly debated,” Gordon said. “Some neuroscientists think of the brain as an organ intended primarily to perceive and interpret the world around us. Others think of it as an organ designed to produce the best ‘outputs’ – usually a physical action – to optimize survivability and evolutionary fitness for any given situation.”

“Probably both are correct,” Gordon added. “The SCAN fits most cleanly with the latter interpretation: it integrates goals and planning with whole-body actions.” – Rappler.com

Not to University of the Philippines Los Baños Museum of Natural History (UPLB-MNH) insect taxonomist and entomologist Cristian Lucañas, who led the team that discovered the now-viral Nocticola pheromosa species – named after the Pokémon Pheromosa – found in Singapore. 

“I actually am thrilled and I hope that this could help change people’s perspectives on cockroaches,” he told Rappler when asked for his initial reaction to the popularity of the new species.

Lucañas later said in an interview that growing up, he was “cursed” with this fascination and his work with cockroaches. 

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First discovery

Lucañas grew up in Pagsanjan, Laguna, a municipality near Laguna de Bay. His upbringing led him to want to study fishes too when he was taking up biology at UPLB. 

Cockroaches, by coincidence, however, would always be a part of his life, starting from his high school years.

“Naalala ko nung high school ako, may napanood…ako na Japanese sa National Geographic parang ‘yung bahay niya puro aquarium ng mga ipis kasi ipis ‘yung inaaral. Ta’s sabi ko sa sarili ko noon, hindi ako mag-aaral ng ipis,” he said.

(I remembered, when I was in high school, I saw this Japanese in a National Geographic [program] who had an aquarium of cockroaches in his home because he was studying cockroaches. That was when I swore to myself that I would never study cockroaches.) 

As he geared up for his undergraduate thesis, things took a turn as he got assigned to an advisor, Ireneo Lit Jr., an entomologist. 

“He told me that he cannot advise me if I would want to study fish, but he could work with me if I wanted to study caves. I started working in caves around 2014,” he added. 

That work led to his first discovery, Nocticola gonzalezi, in the caves in Polillo Island, Quezon. The species was named after former UPLB-MNH director Juan Carlos T. Gonzalez. 

Lucañas said that the species was first discovered by Lit, but he did not notice it was an undescribed and unknown species as he thought it was “juvenile.”

Details about the species were published in the journal Subterranean Biology in September 2016. It was described as a new species due to its “accessory hook-like phallomere.” The place where it was found was similar to where the Nocticola species in the Philippines were found: in the caves of Rizal province. 

It was Spanish entomologist Ignacio Bolivar who discovered the first Nocticola species in Rizal.

The first discovery “sparked” Lucañas’ interest in becoming an entomologist and led to his specialization on cockroaches. Since his discovery, Lucañas has discovered five genera and eight species of cockroaches in the Philippines, also co-discovering six new species from India, Indonesia, and Singapore. 

Journey behind ‘N. pheromosa’

The journey that eventually led to the discovery of the N. pheromosa started with Lucañas looking for photos at The Biodiversity of Singapore website in 2017 as he was working on different genera of cockroaches for his master’s degree in forest biological science at UPLB. 

“Nakita ko siya (I saw the image), I emailed the moderators of the website, and I provided initial identification for the species, then they introduced me to [Foo] Maosheng, my co-author,” he said.

This led to an exchange of emails and specimens between Lucañas and Maosheng. The work behind the discovery of Nocticola pheromosa also experienced delays as the Filipino entomologist became busy with other tasks. His work was supposed to continue in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

“I was supposed to go to Singapore to check other specimens and look around the area where they collected it, but unfortunately (the) pandemic happened. I was supposed to leave on March 22 and lockdown started on March 15,” he said. 

While doing illustrations and working on the paper that would be published in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology on February 27, Lucañas borrowed specimens of Nocticola adebratti from the Lund University Historical Museum in Sweden to compare with pheromosa and confirm that it was indeed a new species.

According to the journal article, N. pheromosa differs from N. adebratti based on the “structure of the male genitalia.”

Lucañas added that unlike the Pokémon Pheromosa, which is said to be 5 feet and 11 inches tall, N. pheromosa is around five millimeters in length. 

He later finalized the paper with Maosheng in June 2022 after his long-delayed trip to Singapore pushed through in May 2022. 

“We had several names before we came to naming it [N.] pheromosa. While scrolling through Facebook while exchanging our information, I noticed that Maosheng is also a Pokémon fan so that’s when I thought that maybe we can name it after Pheromosa, which…was first released in 2017,” Lucañas said. 

He also admitted that he only played Pokemon Ultra Sun and Moon, the game where Pheromosa was first introduced, in 2019.

“We got in touch with this paper in 2017 so it’s a bit coincidental…. We decided that we named it after Pheromosa because Pheromosa is also based on a cockroach. As the social media comments said, we came full circle,” he added in a mix of English and Filipino.

How Pokémon inspires his work

Lucañas first encountered Pokémon during his childhood in 2000 as he watched the original Pokémon series on GMA. The anime first aired on the network, dubbed in English, in October 1999. 

Play Video

He then started playing the games through Pokémon Crystal in 2008 as he could only afford to borrow a Gameboy from his cousin at that time. The entomologist was fascinated by the story of how Pokémon came about as the game’s creator, Satoshi Tajiri, was into collecting insects. 

Lucañas shared that his favorite games tend to have a great story or lore behind them such as Pokémon Leaf Green, Heart Gold, Platinum, and Legends: Arceus, among others. 

He added that there is a “parallelism” between being a Pokémon professor and a wildlife biologist, saying that you can actually apply things from your childhood to real life. 

“The idea of cataloging, since there is a Pokédex, is actually very comparable with the way we work. In a way, it’s like you’re a Pokémon professor or adventurer that goes around nationwide to document species that you’d observe,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Aside from Pokémon, Lucañas is also a fan of The Lord of the Ring franchise that he named two newly-discovered genera of cockroaches, Hobbitoblatta and Nazgultaure, after the characters of hobbits and Nazgul. 

Filling the knowledge gap

Even before his discovery of N. pheromosa went viral, Lucañas got into studying cockroaches to fill a “knowledge gap” on the insect group in the Philippines.

“I saw a knowledge gap as there are so many potential new species that have yet to be discovered as there is no one studying them. So I decided to continue working with insects because if you work with fish, unless if you are able to collect [specimens] from the deep, there are relatively few undescribed species compared to insects,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Lucañas is also saddened by him being only among the few Filipino scientists who have studied cockroaches in the country, a field dominated by foreigners.

Meron tayo 130 [known] species ng ipis sa Pilipinas. Siguro mga twice or thrice doon ay unknown species pa na kailangan i-describe at i-discover.

Cristian LUCAñAS

(We have 130 known species of cockroaches in the Philippines. I estimate that there are around twice or thrice as many unknown species that we have to describe and discover.)

It’s something that Lucañas also noted in the journal entry of his first discovery: “Unfortunately, very few studies have been conducted regarding the diversity of Philippine cockroaches, maybe because the group includes species that are considered household pests.”

“Unfortunately, due to the limited knowledge on Philippine cockroach diversity, many species have often been misidentified,” he added.

Despite this, Lucañas finds the challenge of documenting new species of cockroaches fun as he gets to meet different people from the places he visits and even share his knowledge and expertise with them. 

“You can inspire in some sense nationalism by understanding how our nation is actually also home to organisms other than us. If you like traveling, if you like going to places, why not go study our own wildlife?” – Rappler.com

A new cockroach species, named Nocticola pheromosa, was discovered at the Bukit Timah nature reserve in Singapore, as described on an article in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology on February 27. It was named after a Pokémon known as Pheromosa whose “design and color may have been inspired by the American cockroach that has molted,” the journal article said.

The discovery was made by a team led by Cristian C. Lucañas, an entomologist at the University of the Philippines Los Baños Museum of Natural History, and Singaporean entomologist Foo Maosheng.

Singaporean publication The Straits Times, in its report, said the specimens were collected in 2016 and 2017. Lucañas, who became the lead for the study, saw the specimens on The Biodiversity of Singapore website, contacted eventual co-author Foo, and dissected and studied the specimens.

Foo told the publication that he and Lucañas are both Pokémon fans, “so we thought, why not name it after a Pokemon inspired by a cockroach.” He compared himself to one of those bug-type trainers in the game, “that go to different places to find out more about what insects we have.”

Foo said they found similarities between the new species and the Pokémon such as “having a long antenna, wings that mimic a hood and long slender legs.”

Pheromosa is a bug and fighting type Pokémon that was introduced in 2017’s Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Its Pokédex entry describes it as “a life-form that lives in another world. Its body is thin and supple, but it also possesses great power.” 

Foo in a Facebook post also credited two other individuals: Sebastian Ow for support with molecular information, and Siti Maimon for specimen photography.

The discovery marks the first time that the cockroach genus Nocticola was discovered in Singapore, with it being the ninth known fully-winged species of the genus. The first known Nocticola species was discovered in the Philippines, with other species found in tropical Africa, India, Mainland and Southeast Asia, and Australia. 

Lucañas told Rappler that he is thrilled about the popularity of the new discovery, hoping that people would see cockroaches in a new light. 

“The discovery, like with the other species I described, is quite enjoying and fulfilling. Honestly though, I have been working with cockroaches since 2015, so the excitement has dwindled a bit, but again it is still fun,” he said. – Rappler.com