Nerdy Science Blog

When I was travelling around Melaka, I saw this salt & pepper shaker set at Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall.

I’m not sure if that’s the chemical formula for pepper, but I’m sure that the chemical formula for salt is NaCl (sodium chloride). They cost RM 45.90 (~USD 13), and I think they are really expensive.

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Sometimes when looking into the microscope trying to count cell colonies are really painstaking. If you are wearing spectacles, you might be having the trouble knocking them with the eyepieces. Now Celestron is releasing this microscope in February 2008 attached with liquid crystal display (LCD), which makes it looks pretty cool.

Celestron said that the microscope can be used to examine stamps, coins, molds, yeasts, bacteria and animal parts.

Compound (Biological) Microscope
USB Cable for Transferring Images to a PC
40 to 400 Power - up to 1600 Power with Digital Zoom
AC Adaptor to Power the Microscope
3.5″ (88mm) LCD Screen with 4x Digital Zoom
Carrying Case Included
Built-in Digital Camera - 2 Mega Pixels
Weight - 51oz (1446g)
Top and Bottom LED Illumination
Two Year Limited Warranty
Mechanical Stage - 3.5″ x 3.5″ (88mm x 88mm)
128MB Internal Storage Memory
SD Card Slot
Five Prepared Slides
Objective Lens - 4x, 10x, and 40x
Six Position Color Filter Wheel

How much is it? Around $110.00 to $130.00. If I have more than enough money to spend, I might buy one to snap the microscopy pictures, and then posting up in this blog.

(link [via])

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This watch was created by German student Nicole Schmiedel. It looks cool and trendy. The main purpose of this watch is not used to telling the time. The wristwatch is used as insulin pump, which is more convenient for type-1 diabetic patients for insulin injection. No battery is used as the wristwatch produce its own electric via piezo-electric technology (originally developed for European satellites).

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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.

(link [via])

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Would you get a thermometer to decocrate your room? I would suggest you get this Galileo Thermometer.

Based on Galileo Galilei’s* discovery that a liquid’s buoyancy decreases as its temperature increases. This unique device consists of a sealed glass cylinder containing multi colored floating spheres. The spheres have different weights which rise and fall at different temperatures. Current temperature is indicated by the tag attached to the lowest of the floating spheres. Use in science classes to demonstrate Galileo’s principle or as an interesting and attractive way to accurately measure indoor ambient temperature anywhere

This thermometer obviously not suitable for clinical uses, and you must let it stand vertically for it to function.

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I stumbleuponed this piece of gadget which is really cool, it’s a Usb Microscope which can be serve as webcam as well. You can observe the specimens and save to your computer. There is also built-in microphone. Personally i think this is a cool gadget which come in handy in science teaching. However, the magnification of this usb microscope is only 600x, and the resolution is 640*480 VGA.

The cost for this usb microscope + webcam is US$ 199.00.

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