Arroyo, looking embarrassed, covered her face and said: "Oh my God."
After regaining her composure, Arroyo told cameramen and photographers: "That prayer was off the record, so why don't we get everybody seated. Please, tama na, tama na [that's enough]."
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said to the media, "Naguluhan lang ako, nagka-vision kasi ako habang nagdadasal."
He likewise prayed for newly-installed Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile, whom he described as a "man for all seasons."
She said yesterday: “I’ve just never been interested in or fancied having sex.
“I imagine there’s a lot of hassle involved.”
Retired secretary Clara, who turns 105 tomorrow, says she knew she would live a celibate life from the age of 12.
Sex in her youth meant getting married — and she made up her mind as a schoolgirl that she would always remain single.
She said: “I’ve never had a boyfriend and never been bothered about relationships.
“When I was a girl you only had sex with your husband — and I never wed.
“I’ve always had lots of platonic friendships with men, but never felt the need to go further.
“I made my mind up at 12 never to marry and I’ve not gone back on that.”
Clara added on sex: “I’ve always been too busy doing other things. People have asked if I’m a homosexual — the answer is no.”
The sprightly OAP, a keen walker who mowed her own lawn until she was 97, was born in Glasgow in 1903 — just two years after the death of Queen Victoria.
She can remember the Titanic sinking in 1912 when she was eight, and the outbreak of World War One.
Her family emigrated to Egypt, Canada, then New Zealand when she was seven, but independent Clara returned to Britain alone in her twenties.
She served in Egypt with the Women’s Royal Army Corps during World War Two then lived between London and New Zealand before retiring to Cornwall.
She worked as a secretary and a housekeeper, but despite “several” offers of marriage she turned them all down.
Clara added: “I grew up in an era where little girls were seen and not heard so I had to learn to stand up for myself and earn my own living.
“Some men don’t like that in a woman and before long I was too old to marry anyway.”
Clara now lives in a nursing home in Perranporth, Cornwall.
She has never owned a TV, loves cats, the radio and reading — and plans to celebrate her birthday with a drop of wine.
Her closest friend Josie Harvey, 72, said: “Maybe never having a man to get under her feet has kept Clara young.
“She has her hobbies and her friends and those are all she needs.”
"This is a truly unique effort," said Edward Thompson, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Science and Engineering, OHSU School of Medicine. "Looking at microbes in the ocean has enormous potential. It could contribute to the development of alternative fuels while at the same time opening a path for biomedical research in largely uncharted territory." Thompson's department is where environmental science and biomedical research come together at OHSU.
ICBG grants are designed to guide the discovery and development of pharmaceutical and other useful agents from the earth's plants, animals and microorganisms in such a way that the communities and the countries where those biological resources are found can benefit and, at the same time, promote development of the scientific capacity and economic incentives for conservation and sustainable harvesting of those resources. An estimated 40 percent to 50 percent of currently used drugs originate in natural products.
Haygood, a scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for 18 years before coming to OHSU, has worked on the microbiology of symbioses – the interaction between different biological species – for three decades and played a major role proving that bryostatin, an anti-cancer agent, is made by bacterial symbionts living in a marine animal. She will manage a collaborative effort with some of the world's leading authorities on mollusks and marine drug discovery.
The PMS-ICBG project has three research aims. The first is the methodical collection, identification and cataloging of mollusk species from the Philippines, and making this information freely available on the Internet. This effort will be led by Gary Rosenberg, Ph.D., curator and chairman of malacology (the study of mollusks) and an evolutionary biologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, who already has developed a biotic database documenting more than 25,000 species of Indo-Pacific marine mollusks.
The second aim is discovery of biologically active molecules from bacteria associated with marine mollusks. One target is bacteria isolated from gastropod mollusks, or snails, particularly the highly venomous cone snails found in Philippine waters. Leading this part of the project will be Eric Schmidt, Ph.D., a biochemist at the University of Utah. Noted neuroscientist Baldomero M. Olivera, Ph.D., also of the University of Utah and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor known for his groundbreaking research on neurotoxins produced by cone snails, will participate as well. Although based in the United States, Olivera maintains a laboratory in the Philippines. He contends that at least 700 compounds with potential medical efficacy can be found in each cone snail species. Named the Harvard Foundation's 2007 Scientist of the Year, his work led to development of Ziconotide, a commercial drug considered more effective than morphine in blocking out extreme pain.
Shipworms, the marine equivalent of termites and the scourge of wooden structures in estuarine and marine habitats worldwide, are the focus of the third aim. A relative of the clam, these animals host bacteria inside their gills that produce enzymes to help them digest wood and may prove useful for converting cellulosic biomass into biofuels. Cellulosic ethanol can be produced from cheap and abundant sources such as agricultural residue, fast-growing prairie grasses, lumber mill waste, and even municipal garbage. Food grains, mainly corn, are currently the primary source of ethanol, and its production requires almost as much fossil fuel as it saves while squeezing the food supply. But researchers have yet to find an enzyme that can rapidly and efficiently break down cellulose that can be relied on for industrial production of cellulosic ethanol. Haygood will lead the shipworm component of the project with the support of Daniel Distel, Ph.D., a marine microbiologist and executive director of the Ocean Genome Legacy Foundation, who has been studying shipworms for more than two decades.
The specimen collection, cultivation of microorganisms isolated from wild mollusks, screening and assay development, and chemical identification of compounds are activities that are interwoven throughout the project and will be performed at the Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines, under the direction of Gisela P. Concepcion, Ph.D., a marine natural products chemist who was a key figure in establishing the Philippine PharmaSeas program, which facilitates collaborations focusing on natural products research.
Image Courtesy NOAA
