Away For A Bit

Check back here again in about two weeks, I'm going university hunting!

If you're lucky, I might just have some photos and rants about what I've seen and heard.

Will be back 10th April, hang on in there.

Decisions, Decisions!

I had a chat with a colleague on the bus yesterday, and she was telling me some stories about bad PhD supervisors. Those of the sort who are irresponsible enough to just leave on a sabbatical and not even pre-informing his student. Hmmz... Now, that's scary.

It's one thing I've been thinking about quite a lot, because, after all, if all goes well, I'll be headed off sometime later this year to do my PhD. I'm a bit concerned about the people I'll work with, because while you probably can find a range of projects you are decently interested in, if you can't get along with your supervisor, you're quite done in. Or for that matter, if your supervisor has very different work ethics, values, interests, it can be difficult to work under him too.

A PhD is a long term investment, probably five years on my part, so it's kind of like a short-term marriage. Ok, maybe that's a bad analogy! But well, you get my drift. The last thing I want is to work under someone I can't get along with, who doesn't share the same interest (work-wise, that is) as me. It can be more frustrating than effective. So what if he's some big shot or a Nobel Laureate?! I don't want to torture myself like that.

It's going to be a tough journey to decide on that, I better put in lots of effort to figure this bit out.

At least I've a better inkling of what I don't like to do.

Process of elimination, I say!
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Check this out at New Scientist's Technology blog. Quite cool stuff. You must watch the video on it! It freaked me out a bit!

GM Char Siew

Just read an article off the Scientific American website about genetically modified pigs, so that the pork will be a good source of omega 3 fatty acids...

Can you imagine that? GM char siew (roasted pork)? A kind of char siew that is good for your heart? Hmmz...

I think I'll still stick to salmon for now.

No Water!!

I was reading the 25th February issue (yeah, I know, way out of date! But can I help it if I get issues late, because I'm an international subscriber? At least I still get them!) of New Scientist, and encountered the cover article which talked about how much water was being used in agriculture and how farmers are gradually excessively tapping into ground water because of the lack of rainfall. The amount of ground water being tapped is more than the water being replaced by rain, so much so that farmers have to tap deeper and deeper into the ground just to get water.

Then the statistics were quite appalling:
To produce 1kg of coffee, we need 20, 000 litres of water
To produce 1 quarter-pounder hamburger, we need 11, 000 litres
To produce 1 cotton t-shirt, we need 7000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of cheese, we need 5000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of rice, we need 5000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of sugar, we need 3000 litres of water
To produce 1 litre of milk, we need 2000 litres of water
To produce 1kg of wheat, we need 1000 litres of water

To think we in Singapore fret so much about not wasting water. Perhaps we should be a lot more careful about not wasting food either. Don't get me started on the deprived and starving people in Africa. It seems now that famine and mal-nutrition aren't the only things to be concerned about when we throw away a plate of rice we can't finish. There's all that water in there too. Ah, and all the politics involved just to make sure the poor farmers get a sustainable supply of water some way or another.

Hopefully what was suggested in the article - efficient tapping of rainwater by modifying drainage system - will be a feasible alternative. Otherwise it seems we have more in our hands to be concerned about than whether or not we can get that mocha ice-blended.

Little Bits of the Job I Like

This afternoon a bunch of girls from a local secondary school popped by my research institute for a visit to find out more about the research work being done here. I was invited (ah, a very politically correct word to use!) to give a short introductory talk about who and what we are before they broke up into three groups and headed around for the lab tour.

I like doing these sort of things, for the simple reason of seeing eyes light up when the children suddenly understand a mysterious bit of physics. You know, that sense of curiosity that seems to have been lost as we grow older? These kids still have it in them. It was amazing how when I spoke about using water as lenses and how they could try it out themselves, they just sat up and got so intrigued. It made the day that bit more pleasant although usually Mondays don't quite cut as "pleasant days".

I spoke to a teacher after the session and asked if there were ways to better improve the outreach that was being done. She mentioned that some of the students, especially those in the lower secondary, couldn't grasp some details in the lab tour. And yet she also brought up the fact that there were many interested students around who wanted to find out much more than that which were posted out to them.

Ah, there is hope yet.

Some of the students even lingered around the scientists to ask questions. I'm not sure if this necessarily is intrinsic of this particular school's students, or innate in the younger generation these days. Teachers used to chide us for being too quiet in class back during the days when I was still a student. We just ate off whatever spoon they fed us with, and never quite questioned what was being taught. It was only when I grew older that I realised that, inevitably, there were many loopholes in the education that was disseminated to us. This in part because it was necessary to simplify abstract concepts into more palatable portions, so that although the education given was not complete, it gave one sufficient material to understand at a very basic level, without killing any interest in the subject.

Which brings to mind the Lab in a Lorry which I read about a few weeks ago. It's a mobile science lab (hence the name) with many hands-on experiments that students can try out and get their hands dirty. The scientists involved in the programme were themselves passionate about science outreach, and keen in simplifying arcane concepts so the younger students can learn and be intrigued to find out more. Somehow I never felt I had that sort of excitement in science labs in Singapore, back when I was a student.

Experiments were usually, in my opinion, mundane and predictable. Easy to do, yet tedious to get sorted. But we're such visual beings, and I think pictures stick better than just pure ranting of theories and formula. Sure, we're all different by nature, but I still think to catch the attention of youths into science it demands more than just enticing them into the job because the country's moving on to a "knowledge-based economy".

Someone on Sunday told me that Ability + Passion = Genius

I wonder if, in our haste and rigour to produce the brains, we have erroneously left out the cultivation of passion. Have we killed the joy in studying, venturing and finding things out?

It'll be sad if we're only left with half-geniuses. Or as I told a friend: there can never be half geniuses. They either are or aren't, and for those of us who are in the capacity to make a difference, do it.

Blog Marketing

I saw a book off the shelf at TIMES bookstore called "Blog Marketing" and it caught my interest because I had done a project which related to blogging a while back. We were proposing using blogs to promote science in Singapore but I never quite knew how big a trend it was, or what an impact it was going to have.

I texted someone about the book - he was my mentor for this particular project I had to get done, and he provided plenty of insight regarding the matter then. He replied to me about another book he was reading called "Naked Conversations", another book on blog marketing. In fact he sent me lots more information over email which I have yet to digest.

In fact, so prevalent are blogs that many companies use them now. I've seen them all over the place in the scientific arena. I had a look at those posted by New Scientist magazine (www.newscientist.co.uk), very interesting short articles in a unique blog-journalist format. And also very frequently updated.

I remember once having a conversation with a friend where we were trying to decipher exactly why blogs were so popular, and how different they were from frequently updated websites. We never quite finalised on the answers, but I'm still looking! So comment if you have any!

Another one of the marketing tools that has taken off is podcasting. Nature does it (www.nature.com), and so does New Scientist. NASA does it too (http://science.nasa.gov), although I've yet to listen to them. I think Straits Times has got some podcasts as well, I've heard one on teenage suicide recently.

There's a wealth of information out there, which is great, but also that means less filtering and less quality control.

Oh well, can't have your cake and eat it too.