Nerdy Science Blog

In Malaysia, visit doctor and get prescription drugs are one stop centre. After coming to Australia, I only realize healthcare service is so expensive (international students better get a healthcare card, just in case). Besides, you can’t get your prescription drugs immediately after seeing the charming doctor, you must travel all the way to the pharmacist to get them. Both doctor and drugs cost you dearly. The worst thing is no pharmacy is operating twenty-four-seven, if you just happen to get sick after office hour, no doctors for you, no pharmacy for you, just R.I.P.

InstyMeds introduces this vending machine for getting prescription drugs. Electronic prescriptions are sent to the machine by doctor through secure networks. Patient then can choose either print out the prescription from the machine bring to a pharmacy or directly order the medication from the InstyMedsTM dispenser at the medical centre. This machine is currently only available in US.

What I was thinking is “can we get this vending machine into our lab?” Then we can just have ready made substance by just keying in and programming into the machine web-based system, without doing all the painstaking pipette jobs. I mean making a cup of coffee in the lab.

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I am doing yeast (S. cerevisiae) transformation, one of the magic ingredients is salmon sperm DNA, which work as DNA carrier. We had good laugh over this name.

“Sperm? Haha! What is the sperm doing in the experiment?”

“Human one can arr? Ask him (our cute lab technician) to donate to you lah~!”

“Yewww~~~”

No doubt, my lab mates also get excited by the name of the ingredient.
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Was chatting to one of our lab attachments.

I told her, among all the microbes, i.e., bacteria, viruses and fungus, I scared the fungal infection the most.

“Why?” She asked.

We have antibiotics and antiviral agents to cure us, at least. Although we have antifungal agent as well, but together with fungus, we are too eukaryotic cells.

“Once you get it, it’s hard to eradicate.” That’s why I really scared of having fungal infection; it can be relatively stubborn and persistent.

It is just like fall in love with someone who doesn’t love you. Missing the person doesn’t kill you, but it can be one of the best tortures you ever have, you tried, but sometime you just don’t know how to get rid of it. It can be pretty annoying.

Ridiculous examples huh? Haha~

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I’m always interested in nanotechnology, but I didn’t have a chance to involve in it. Japanese Takahashi Kaito won the Most Bizarre award at The 49th International Conference on Electron, Ion and Photo Beam Technology and Nanofabrication Bizarre/Beautiful Micrograph Contest.

This photo was titled Chisai Benjo (”Small Toilet”) in magnication of ~15,000X, and I absolutely have no idea where it was located. According to the picture description, this small toilet might be a collective site for ions, electrons or even small molecules. Perhaps it’s a receptor or ligand. This photo is just so exciting.

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I participated in the LOLCreashun contest. These were some LolCat photos I created with LolCat Builder (don’t get angry, just for fun).

You can still participate in the contest before November 18, at 11:59:59 Eastern Time, all you need to do is editting the photos John Scalzi took in creation museum. Personally I like this LOLCreashun:

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When youzi and I decided to start this blog, our aim was making everyone love science as we do (other way of speaking it, we’re creating our own future competitors) and also sharing knowledge among ourselves as we’re from different fields (and most of the time we write things not related to our fields). We try not to use jargon in writing articles, and also write things in a humorous and interesting style (according to us). We also have some very intellectually stimulating posts here, but just once in a while when we’re really in a nerdy mode.

I’m not sure how this tool determines the readability of a blog, maybe it’s judging from the words and grammars (we do have poor language background and we’re trying our best to fix it). There are two other authors for this blog beside us, which are lalafish and matthuan, but they never post a single post before. I bet they forget their password.

It’s not an easy job to convert a journal article to something which is readable by everyone. I truly salute science journalists, but please don’t write things about dinosaurs only.

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Facebook has been crawling into our lab for some times, everybody seem to like it.

10 reasons why we play facebook in lab:

• Playful version of friendster, more fun.
• Game like pirates simply by applying brainless click. it’s the BEST thing to kill time when 5-10 minutes centrifugation seem century long…
• Very easy and simple, need no brain, not as distracting compare to other online game
• Not much of time need on any of the game, good alternative to have 5 minutes break from brick-thick journals.
• Play slayers when feel like slaying somebody who accidentally throw your tube.
• Lab environment was a little bit uneasy when four interns first came in. Conversation becoming natural when we invite each other join facebook.
• Lab-mate A’s warbook was attacked by a moron out of no where, and was warned not to attack back. We were pissed off, and decided to sabotage the moron. Lab was united at that moment.

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Just read this news:

By tweaking genes to disable certain functions of the olfactory bulb — the area of the brain that receives information about smells directly from olfactory receptors in the nose — the researchers were able to create a “fearless” mouse that does not try to flee when it smells cats, foxes and other predators.

Maybe cats can also be modified not to ‘hate’ mouse too. I always think that if science and technology is not used for the right purpose, it can bring disastrous results to earthlings. Maybe this finding of ‘fearless’ gene will be used to create fearless spies and armies.

Note: the gene is just making the mouse not to fear of the scent of cats, we don’t fear things by the scent TV programmes give out.

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Jatropha is not palm tree, which is largely planted in Malaysia for palm oil extraction. Jatropha is a poisonous Central American shrub. Its seeds are used to extract biodiesel fuel in Philippines, India, and China.

On Tuesday, crude oil broke the record surpassing $97 a barrel. Malaysia has been subsidizing the fuel costs. The increase of fuel price had been a big burden for Malaysia. In September, Malaysian Agriculture Research and Development Institute (Mardi) announced it is studying the possibilities to cultivate Jatropha at large-scale to produce bio-diesel. Jatropha is chosen because of its characteristic of pest resistance, long lifespan (40 years), can be grown on poor, arid soil, and also able to produce bio-diesel that can be used by vehicles. As a solution for alternative fuel, Malaysia government had fund this research for RM300mil (~USD100mil).

Last month, Sarawak Land Development Minister Datuk Dr James Masing announced that Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) was carrying out joint research on Jatropha with Mardi. Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Sclcra) had been asked by the state to test which species of the plant is suitable to grow in Sarawak. On the other hand, another state in the country, Sabah, also announced that Sabah Land Development Board (SLDB) was testing the potential of Jatropha cultivation.

Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui announced yesterday that Government is giving out 300-acre site to Sabah to plant Jatropha Carcus.

Other uses of Jatropha Curcas are soap production and traditional medicine. The effect of large-scale planting of Jatropha Curcas to the soil and environment is unknown.

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Our food preferences are likely to be programmed from the moment we’re fertilized.

For the first time, scientists have linked the all-too-human preference for a food — chocolate — to a specific, chemical signature that may be programmed into the metabolic system and is detectable by laboratory tests. The signature reads ‘chocolate lover’ in some people and indifference to the popular sweet in others, the researchers say.

—— ScienceDaily: People Are Programmed To Love Chocolate, Study Finds

Some people might envy those who can eat a lot (such as me) and will never get fat. Researchers suggested that this might be because of the link between metabolic system and food we like, such as chocolate, carbs, steaks, etc.

So stop using “fattening” restraining yourself from eating chocolate, you’re just not talented. So do durianphobic losers.

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