pigs

Don't know whats with me this week but I keep on seeing pigs this week.

Pig on the fridge


Pig on the monitor



And even a purple pig attempting to fly (off the bench)!


Gosh...I must be hungry...

not so hot

Follow-up after the air-cond commited suicide: the undertakers took the carcases out and placed them on the floor. Apparently they tried to bury them but the shovels could not penetrate the tiled floor (they should have asked me first, right?). So there they sit rotting to this day. One can only imagine the stench! (because there is none-hahahh):


And how could they bury them all together? Mass grave. Shudder... Human rights! Human rights! erm, hmmm.... Air-cond rights! Air-cond rights!

In its place, they brought in two portable units:




Notice the haphazard work done to seal up the old vents. The people that brought the units placed them there and finding there were no 13Amp sockets (the squarish type) around, as the old air-conds used 15Amp plugs (the round types), they left the units there and WALKED OFF. Can't plug them in, so, leave it there loh...
Then the level supervisor came around and found the air-cond plugs not in, got furious and called them back. What good will two air-conds do just sitting there not pluged in? air-cond sit-power? (versus the human 'eye-power')
The guys came back with two 15Amp plugs and converted the 13Amp plugs to 15Amp ones. Got it running and placed an empty bucket next to the air cond. You see, the air-cond condenses water from the environment around it and so the bucket collects this condensed water. You need to empty it every 6 hours or so.
So they placed the bucket next to the now working air cond and LEFT (now I am beginning to wonder why they were in such a hurry).
The level supervisor came round to inspect and got angry again. How do you expect us to accept this kind of shoddy work? The workers should connect the condensation pipe to a drain so that everyone can go home and enjoy the weekend (its a Friday), not worry if the lab would become flooded come Monday morning.
So they came back (I meant the workers, not the old air-cond's spirit) and fixed a pipe from the unit to the nearest drain.
Peace was restored: the temperature went back to normal as the level supervisor cooled down alowing the new air conds to take effect.

WNV at NUS?

Monitoring and surveillance of WNV prevalence increasingly depends on the early detection of WNV in birds on the basis of reports of dead birds. The virus in these birds usually precedes appearance of WNV in humans and can be an early warning of potential human infection.
Ohajuruka, O.A., et al. EID 11(9):1437-1439.

Dead bird outside Biochem.
ARGHHHH!!!!!
Panic! PAnic!



I'm telling you, better go grab some N95 masks quick! Then hide in a hole till next year. Oh, and cover the hole, lest some birds drop in.

cutting edge

Whenever I tell others that I work in a lab, they always oOoOOOh and ask me:
Say, do you work at the cutting edge of science?
And my reply?

Of course!






You want cutting edge? I'll give you the cutting edge!

tea

This is what tea time a la Flavilab would look like:


A cup of 20 cents milo, a heong peng, a seaweed flavoured biscuit and a half eaten bun. Yum!