the coke guide

Behold! the 20cents coke machine. Bow in awe everybody!
I kid you not, it is 20 cents for one cup of drink.


Located in NUH, funny thing is, why do they sell cheap coke to the doctors when the doctors are earning tons of money, it should be like $1 for a cup there.
Below is my steaming hot cup of Milo. Its supposed to be full, but I obviously drank some up so that it wouldnt spill when i carry it around. Almost burnt my tongue, though...


After the 20 cents experience, I wanted to know how much everybody else were charging. Frist stop, the coke machine outside med library level 2.


80cents for a can of coke. 90cents for green tea.



Second stop, vending machines outside med library level 1.


Cup drinks! But 50 cents each, and its the same size as the one I just got for 20 cents. What a rip off. Do the companies really think that students are richer than doctors?

Still, the one here offers far more choices; milo with ice, horlics hot and cold, orange juice, etc.
So you gotta pay for choice.


Last stop, the new machine outside lab. Qoo is $1 per can. The most expensive drink around. Coke is still 80 cents- kinda like a standard price everywhere.

My conclusion? You can't find your cup of tea anywhere, the freedom to choose will cost you, and Coke is always the frist drink on the machine - scroll back up to spot the 'coke' all over the place, especially at the first spot. Pah, monopoly.

machine

What's this? A new tantalizing temptation outside the lab? Productivity will decrease!

Modeling

Department gimmic to entice the young naive ones to commit their entire life to the cause of science. Here's the set up. Flaviboy got enslaved, no, recruited for the glory of this goal. Had to pretend I was joyfully using the centrifuge. The rotor weighed a ton. The other lablings were smart enough to siam when the cameraman came in. Don't have any shots of the real picture, supposedly it will come late next week.

lab

Looks familiar?

Honors poster

Some time ago, these people had a poster presentation for their honours thingy. Here are the pics. Teren doesn't want to give up his pic so you have to do with one of him in the lab. Please note the never seen before long sleeve shirt and pants!!

Jas:


Mich:


Ben:


Teren in a SHIRT!!!!

Shower for the eyes

More new stuff in the lab.
New taps and new eye washes and new showers. New taps on old sinks in the labs. New taps on new sinks at the common areas. New eye washes on every sink. New shower at the corridor.

Dirty eyes? Wash them, soap sold seperately:


New tap with new eye wash. This time, the flaps are open. Just press the handle:


Hold it up like this, pull up the heavy thing and press the handle, flaps will open downwards and water will come out....oOoOOo...


The common lab shower facility. Pull handle and water comes out. Once again, soap sold seperately. Shower curtain not provided.



This is how the thing looks like operationally.

nanonanonano

new nanopure filter at level 1!!!
No need to go all the way up to level 3 anymore.

Before:

During:

After:

Check out the complete specs --> here

Poster Colloquia

The second and third day of the conference had this poster session after lunch where the poster owners had to explain to a gathered crowd what his/her work was about. The second day was great, the crowd was pretty big and people were engaging. The third day was abit sad. Some posters only had the session-in-charge person and 1 or 2 more people listening. Here are pictures from the second day:

R. Kuhn: don't you ever ever scoup my work, or you will pay for it. You heard that?!


P. Young's nose and C.C. King's hunched back:


My poster is the best! My poster is the best!


IMHO, the most interesting poster. A group is using small pigs as animal models for dengue!! Isn't that so cool? After every round of experiments, you get a mini feast! Pork chop, roast, spare ribs, bak kut teh, kuey chap, chee kiok chow, char siew.

More even-more photos from the conference

So, after lunch, we had dinner.
Oh yeah, between that two major events, we had some talks.
Check out this super good AFM of some purified protein. So clear!


Before dinner, the group gathers for a photo (some of the girls were at the ladies so are not in this pic):


Ok, highlight of the day, DINNER!!!
Ham, salmon, some weird but tasty soup, and some other meats. Got more dishes but forgot to take a pic of them. Oh well...



This one is good - soursop coctail, excellent stuff, but Dr. Li didn't like it.

Even more pictures from the conference

Day 2 pictures!
We started out at Biopolis Matrix hall for half a day with some pretty good talks and Prof got a surprise bouquet of flowers. Here's Mr. Gubler giving the flowers to her.




Eva Harris! Amazing talk, erm... but abit too fast. Kinda forgot what she said...


Nevermind, here's a slide to remind me what she was talking about.


So, after a few more talks yadda yadda yadda, we got on charted buses and headed to Orchard Hotel for the remainder of the day. Oh, we were at Biopolis because one of the main sponsors is located there. Yes, we all know which one. At the hotel, first thing to do was EAT!
Minestrone soup, fresh greens, smoked salmon, cod, salads. yum.


From this, you know who was hungry and who was not so hungry, hhahhahha:



More food; chicken, veges, some curry, pineapple and I think that's potato salad; sorry, was not thinking, just eating:



Justin the fantastic post doc:



to be continued...

2nd PDVI conference

Orchard hotel from Tuesday to Friday. Photos from Tuesday opening night.

As usual, good (and pretty) food:



Have you tried my cheesecake before? I bake you one cake, you give me one virus strain, good deal, yes?


When grandfather talks, everyone listens.



Chicken out:


Oh yes, the glossy poster:



"...and I left it overnight and the next day, a giant mutant virus as yellow as my beer and this big was crawling around inside the incubator..."

blood

Cho Bo day. Got my finger pricked and stained the smear. View under microscope and find weird things.
Cell with two eyes:


Cell with rod shaped nucleus:



what the...



Lady with hat and sunglasses:

Malaysia can’t thrive while it excludes minority talent

SIR — As a Chinese Malaysian, I sympathize with the sentiments described in your News story “The Valley of Ghosts” (Nature 436, 620–621;2005) about the Malaysian government’s often-denied ‘Malays first’ policy. In particular, university admissions are suspicious. Malay admissions are based on results from exams called Matrikulasi, taken at Malay-only pre-university colleges, whereas other students have to take the national Malaysian Higher School Certificate (STPM) exam. Reports of ethnic-minority students with near-perfect STPM results not getting a place at the local university have become the norm, and yet objections are often ignored — the government claims that it’s a fair game for all. Personally, I had no choice but to go overseas to study, and my parents had to spend their entire pension savings on financing my undergraduate degree in Australia. After graduation, most of my Malaysian classmates chose to either stay in Australia or work in Singapore, where fair competition and equal opportunities give them better job prospects. Before coming to the Netherlands I did my master’s degree in Singapore, where I met many Chinese Malaysians in this situation. Most of us would like to return to Malaysia, but we know that research prospects for minorities are limited. No matter how talented we are, it seems we still have to travel outside our country to seek opportunities.
In Yee Phang

Nature letters Septmember 2005

New

Hello virus lovers
My friend just took back his camera and so I have nothing to shoot with, and thus nothing to upload. Words are just boring eh?
Anyway, since I detest blogs that are un-updated, I shall tell you that all the labs at level one just got new eye washes. green in colour and detachable with hand holders, it comes with a handy lever that when pressed, gives a bubbly gush of pure tapwater. But come to think of it, its not tapwater unless it passed through the tap huh? Fine. Pipewater; with a tinge of NeWater, and very soon - some processed seawater!
The sink below the Barnstead ddH2O filter has also been changed to stainless steel ones (which looks to me more like cheap die-cast aluminium) and the ddH2O filter is spoilt. So we have to go to level 4 to get it.
Precioussssssss water.
Anyway, Josephine got the dept to get a new one and the new Barnstead ddH2O filter has already came but is sitting in a box on the floor. Can't use it yet because only 'authorized personnel' are alowed to install it.

No more virus

MOH sent a letter to inform the lab that it has decided to allow the lab to continue using WN in experiments at BSL2 for the next 6 months, after which the lab will stop all experiments dealing with WN at BSL2 and should it want to continue such research, source for a BSL3 lab to work in. As such, the lab will be doing a lot of WN work in the next 6 months to complete crucial studies linked to ongoing work. After March when all live WN stocks must be destroyed, the lab will switch its focus to dengue.

"It's not the end of the world, it's just going to be inconvenient for us"