Nerdy Science Blog

The chocolate company Mars will be in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture and IT firm IBM to decode the genetic structure of the cocoa tree.  The aim of this project is to improve cocoa production.  This can be done by understanding the tree’s DNA that could be manipulated to create pest- and disease resistant crop, and also withstand water shortages.  Higher quality cocoa could also be produced via the Genome project. Dr Howard-Yana Shapiro, Mars’ global director of plant science, believed that African farmers would benefit the most from this project.  The project will take five years to complete and it will be available through Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA) when the information is gathered.

(news)

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You diet habit might reveal what you are thinking — Death!

Researchers, who published their study in the August issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, wrote that people tend to consume more variety of foods when they think that they will die some day.  People with low self-esteem also eat more food after death-thoughts participants.  Study leaders Naomi Mandel of Arizona State University and Dirk Smeesters from Erasmus University Rotterdam reckon the over-consumption behaviour is a form of ‘heightened self-awareness’ (escape from self-awareness).

I wonder why can’t it be another way round?  People who think of death felt that their life is limited, therefore they want to try everything they could before they die.

(news)

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This mug is too cool! Double stranded DNA with one of its strand is golden. It’s more like too much caffeine dyed your DNA strand into golden colour.

I am tea lover.

Get your Golden Strand Large Mug for only $16.99 USD.

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Australian gold rush started in 1851 when Edward Hargraves and his colleagues found gold near Bathurst, New South Wales.  It had a big impact on Australian economy and development.

Scientists had performed the dream which ancient Alchemists had dreamt — creating gold.  The gold was not visible to anyone as it was in nano size.  However nanoparticles of gold are only created in laboratories but not in nature.  Nanosized were discovered in Western Australia by scientists.  Scientists were searching for nano gold in nature to understand how geological processes transported and deposited gold.  This understanding can help gold explorers to find the new gold field.  Leader author, CSIRO’s Dr Rob Hough, explained that nanosized gold was common in environments where saline water interacts with gold deposits.  The gold nanoparticles were not detected earlier as they are transparent to electron beams.

(news)

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Just realize that Jobstreet has a feature call salary report, data are generated through their jobseekers’ database.

Interestingly, the report also included Research Assistant (RA) position. I am personally do not consider RAs involve in institutional research centers a real job; in Malaysia, it’s rather a transitional positions for graduate students under a supervisor and funded by a research grant before official registration as a MSc/PhD candidates. The bond duration can be months to year(s), depending on agreement between the graduate and his/her supervisor. Due to research’s budget constrains, payments are always expected low, average of RM1500/mth. Perhaps lower.

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If you’re microbiologist or bacteriologist, the following comic strips is a must-read.

(link)

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The anatomical drawings above were from Leonardo’s anatomical notebooks.

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Meredith F. Small wrote that sarcasm is skill for social survival.  Dr. Katherine Rankin, neurophysiologist at the University of California discovered that sarcasm is important (both positive and negative) in human social interaction.  If  you don’t get sarcastic jokes, it is probably your part of your right brain (parahippocampal gyrus) is damaged.  It is said that people decide how important a friend is based on how well one get their jokes.  So don’t blame me being sarcastic (which I always do, and that proves I’m more evolved than those who don’t get my sarcastic jokes).

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Australia has been titled world’s most obese nation on Thursday.  A study titled “Australia’s Future Fat Bomb” from Baker Heart Institute reported that Australians are more obese than Americans.  14,000 adult Australians’ height and weight checks are collected in 2005 for this study.  It is also predicted 700,000 extra heart-related hospital admissions will be mushroomed in the next 20 years due to the obesity and around 125,000 people would die because of the heart disease.  It is advised that government can subsidize gym memberships.

(news [pic])

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Just saw this joke from Economics Jokes via Pure Pedantry.

Why God Never Received Tenure at the University

1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no cited references.
4. And it wasn’t published in a refereed journal or even submitted for peer review.
5. And some even doubt he wrote it himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world but what has he done since?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate his results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry, he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects didn’t behave as predicted, he often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
13. He had his son teach the class.
14. He expelled his first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

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