Nerdy Science Blog

There are billions of sperms but only one sperm is allowed to fertilize egg.

Children often have perception about hospital and feel anxious when visiting doctor.  Irum Sunderji and Pri Vijayakumar, medicine students from Monash University, Gippsland, Australia, try to reduce children’s anxiety when visiting a doctor by establishing a Teddy Bear Hospital.

Establishment of the hospital is helped by students at Morwell Park Primary School.  The primary school students will act as parents of their Teddies to visit Teddy Bear Hospital.  They will learn about surgery, ambulance, nutrition, exercise and related medical practises in medical environment with their Teddies.  The aim of the program is to make children involve and understand the process of visiting doctors is a positive experience.

(news)

When I first saw this Vioguard UVKB50 Self-Sanitizing Keyboard, the first thing strike into my mind was that its market can be extended to microbiology laboratories.

Vioguard Self-Sanitizing Keyboard bathed the keyboard with germicidal ultraviolet light (UV-C) automatically when it is unused.  UV-C is a well-known disinfectant, and it was proven capable of killing more than 99.9% harmful microorganisms within seconds.

Technical specifications:

Keyboard: 88-key low profile UV-resistant keyboard
Pointing device: Advanced multitouch trackpad
Proximity sensor: Infrared, 1-3″ range
Computer connection: USB 1.1 or 2.0 compliant, single connection for keyboard and touchpad
UVC lamps: 2 x 25W custom T8 germicidal lamps
Input power: Universal input, 100-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz, power factor corrected
Power consumption: 80W during disinfection, 3W standby
Lamp cycle life: 40,000 disinfection cycles
Mechanism life: 300,000 disinfection cycles
Disinfection time: 65-95 seconds with factory setting

The self-sanitizing keyboard is also waterproof, which allows users to clean it with other sanitizing solutions without worrying it will damage.

The cost for this keyboard is not known yet, but you can contact Vioguard to know the details.  If you happen to know the price, please leave a comment to let me know.

All xkcd fans, please don’t miss out the following video.

I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.

The video is based on xkcd’s comic “xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel“.  Below is the lyrics of “I Love xkcd”.

“Never get old huh?”
“Nope.”
“Do you kind of want to break into song?”
“Yeap.”

I love momentum
I love to engineer
I love this bakery
I love the blogosphere
I love the whole world
And all its messed-up folks

Boom De Yada Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada Boom De Yada

I love your suffering
I love cryptography
I love entangled sheets
And kite photography

I love the whole world
And all it’s mysteries
Boom De Yada Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada Boom De Yada

I love elections
I love transistors
I love weird pillow talk
I love your sister
I love the whole world
The future’s pretty cool

Boom De Yada Boom De Yada
Boom De Yada Boom De Yada

(video [via])

Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak outlined the 2010 Budget Speech on 23th October 2009, Friday.  This is the first Budget of  Datuk Seri Najib since he became the Prime Minister of Malaysia.  I quoted few sections involving the development of science and technology in Malaysia National Budget 2010.

INTENSIFYING RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALISATION

34. Currently, expenditure on R&D activities is at 0.6% of GDP, well below the United States at 3%, South Korea 3.5% and Taiwan 2.4%. To Shift towards a high-income economy, we need a strong foundation in research, development and commercialisation (R&D&C) activities. Therefore, to strengthen R&D&C activities, the Government will undertake the following measures:

First: Rationalising all research funds and grants to be more effective to achieve set targets;

Second: Establishing a National Innovation Centre supported by a network of innovation excellence centres under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education;

Third: Integrating R&D activities with patents, copyrights and trademarks registration to ensure R&D&C processes are implemented more effectively. The cooperation between patent and research agencies will expedite the commercialisation of research findings; and

Fourth: Providing small and medium enterprises with tax deduction on expenses incurred in the registration of patents and trademarks in the country.

…

DEVELOPING GREEN TECHNOLOGY

54. Green technology has the potential to become an important sector in economic development. Towards this, the Government launched the National Green Technology Policy in August. The objective of the policy is to provide direction towards management of sustainable environment. To further promote the development of green technology activities, the Government will:

First: Restructure the Malaysia Energy Centre as the National Green Technology Centre tasked with formulating a green technology development action plan. This Centre will function as the focal point to set standards and promote green technology. To intensify green awareness activities and practise environment-friendly lifestyle, an allocation of RM20 million will be provided;

Second: Organise an international exhibition on green technology in April 2010. The exhibition is expected to attract internationally renowned companies and experts in green technology.

Third: Develop Putrajaya and Cyberjaya as pioneer townships in Green Technology, as s showcase for the development of other townships; and

Fourth: Give priority to environment-friendly products and services that comply with green technology standards in Government procurement.

55. To promote green technology, the Government will establish a fund amounting to RM 1.5 billion. This fund will provide soft loans to companies that supply and utilise green technology. For suppliers, the maximum financing is RM50 million and for consumer companies RM10 million. The Government will bear 2% of the total interest rate. In addition, the Government will provide a guarantee of 60% on the financing amount, with the remaining 40% by banking institutions. Loan applications can be made through National Green Technology Centre. This scheme will commence on 1 January 2010 and is expected to benefit 140 companies.

…

ENHANCING HIGHLY SKILLED HUMAN CAPITAL

59. High quality human capital is a prerequisite to support the national development agenda. Therefore, the Government will ensure human capital development is implemented comprehensively, encompassing efforts to increase skills and knowledge. Apart from this, measures will be taken to develop intellectuals in science and technology, groom entrepreneurial capabilities as well as nurture positive and progressive values.

You can download the full speech of Malaysia Budget 2010 Speech here.

There are many researches about coffee. Some said it is very unhealthy, while others say it has health benefits.

Another findings support the health benefits of coffee consumption is published in the November issue of Hepatology. Researchers found that drinking three or more cups of coffee per day can reduce risk of liver disease progression in patients with hepatitis C and advanced liver disease compared to non-coffee drinkers. The study included 766 patients who did not respond to Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment (HALT-C). The same effect is not observed in patients who drank black or green tea.

Note: There are side effects for over-consuming coffee, such as hypertension, headaches, dehydration, etc.  Please drink coffee moderately

(news [journal][pic])

“Caveman Science Fiction” comic is illustrated by Dresden Codak.

Neuroscientists from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Glasgow and University of Toronto found that lack of sleep cause people to be forgetful. The neuroscientists study mice and humans and found that sleep deprivation disrupts a specific molecule in the brain’s memory circuitry (hippocampus), which cause the interruption of the storage of episodic memories. Episodic memories are information about who, what, when, and where.

The neuroscientists believes the long-term potentiation (LTP) is the strengthening of connection between neurons that underlies memory. The stimulation of LTP in the brain requires the molecule cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), which is a molecular messenger involving in regulating activity of memory formation genes by passing signals between proteins. Sleep-deprived mice had 50% less cAMP in their brain cells compared to well-rested mice. The scientists also noticed increased amount of PDE4A5, a type of phosphodiesterase (PDE) enzyme that degrades cAMP, in sleep-deprived mice.

The findings provide a possibility to develop drug that knock out PDE4A5 to enhance the memories of sleepyheads. The results were published in Nature on 22th October 2009. The authors are Christopher G. Vecsey, George S. Baillie, Devan Jaganath, Robbert Havekes, Andrew Daniels, Mathieu Wimmer, Ted Huang, Kim M. Brown, Xiang-Yao Li, Giannina Descalzi, Susan S. Kim, Tao Chen, Yu-Ze Shang, Min Zhuo, Miles D. Houslay, and Ted Abel.

(news [journal][pic])

Scientists from University of South Florida and Tampa VA Hospital found that Atkins diet helps in weight control and stress management better than American diet on rats. Atkins-type diet is a diet high in animal and vegetable fat with low level of sugar. American-type diet is high in both fat and sugar. The scientists found that rats fed with low carb diet (Atkins diet) exhibited lower fear memories in response to a scary experience.

Professor David Diamond, in the Departments of Psychology, Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, University of South Florida, presented the findings at the Annual Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago on Oct 17.

(news [pic])

Crestor, a cholesterol drug designed, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday for children and teenagers with high cholesterol caused by genetic disease. Crestor was developed by the company AstraZeneca PLC. The drug is suitable for heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia patients age 10 to 17. Currently there are 10 million people worldwide affected by the genetic disease. Crestor generated $3.6 billion sales for AstraZeneca in 2008. The patents of the drug will expire in July 2016.

(news)