Jas BD

Sulking as she reminisces on the steadily increasing amount of wax on her annual cake:


Any flaviviruses here?


A whitish looking black forest:



Refusing to pose for the cam:


Gottcha! Happy birthday!!!


Packing back some for mummy and daddy and her other half:

peer reviewed web

NaturePublished online: 1 February 2006; doi:10.1038/439516b
Experts plan to reclaim the web for pop scienceCan peer-reviewed portals strengthen Internet information?

Declan Butler

Is it feasible to peer-review the Internet? A coalition of science agencies and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is trying to do just that. They are launching what they claim will be an authoritative network of websites, where users can find trustworthy information on any subject. Top science organizations are signing up, but critics are sceptical about the project's rationale, and whether it can succeed.The Digital Universe project is billed as a "network of web portals", run by experts, on topics ranging from the Arctic and the oceans to the Solar System and the Universe. Users would navigate through the portals using a three-dimensional browser.You could "fly over an accurate virtual Earth to explore the contours of the Grand Canyon, swim with the fish of the Great Barrier Reef and travel through the human body", says an enthusiastic Robert Corell, chair of the steering committee for the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and senior scientific adviser for the Digital Universe's Earth Portal.The project also includes an encyclopaedia that will use similar technology to the popular online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, is helping to create it. But that's where the resemblance ends. All content in the Digital Universe will come from vetted experts, and articles will be reviewed by editors before going live. There will also be links to approved websites.
The driving force behind the project is ManyOne, a company headed by Joseph Firmage, who made a fortune in the 1990s from an Internet consulting company. He resigned in 1999 after the fallout from his book claiming that he had encountered extraterrestrials.Firmage says he vehemently opposes the "anyone can edit" vision of Wikipedia. "Wikipedia is a very uninviting place for most intellectuals," he adds. "I myself would not want to be writing articles that could be edited by somebody who does not necessarily have any expertise." He hopes that peer-reviewed content will raise the standard of content on the web, which he describes as having "an intellectual deficiency of serious proportions"."The Digital Universe is an attempt to massively mobilize the scientific community," adds Cutler Cleveland, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University and editor of the Digital Universe's Earth Portal and other portals on Earth's environment. "The information you see here you will know is trustworthy in a fundamental way."Many are enthusiastic. The US National Council for Science and the Environment, the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford and the World Resources Institute have all signed up to help. The Digital Universe's Earth Portal, which is to be released next month, has contributors that include Gene Likens, the discoverer of acid rain, Thomas Kunz, a top bat expert, and Robert Costanza, founder of the field of ecological economics. Its international advisory board includes Rita Colwell, former director of the US National Science Foundation.
Critics interviewed by Nature were unwilling to speak on the record. But some believe that the project is over-complicated, and that much of its underlying technology — which still requires significant development — runs against the trend to distribute information in lightweight formats that can be accessed by cell phones or PDAs such as the BlackBerry. "If you have to rely on a high-bandwidth always-on network environment, on devices with a lot of storage, you are pretty much going in the wrong direction," says one critic, an expert in Internet information systems. He is also unimpressed by the Digital Universe's concept of peer-reviewing material. "There's more than enough content on the web, even substantive content," he says. "I'm not sure that generating new content is really a breakthrough."
There are also questions over the business model, in which revenue would largely come from selling high-speed Internet access, with half the profits fed back into the work. "It's an odd choice; that's a dying business," comments one observer familiar with the project, pointing out that in the future consumers will be unlikely to notice where their Internet access comes from. But he says he can't help being inspired by the idea. "They're trying to package science in a way that has some of the glitz and entertainment appeal of television, but that is also complete and correct," he says. "They're not in it for the money; actually, they're trying to save the world."
http://www.digitaluniverse.net

New year!

Happy Chinese new year everybody. And now for a word from our sponsors:

The Falvilab chronicles has been brought to you today by the numbers 1 through 8 and the alphabets capital letter A and B. (Background Sesame Street music cue to start)...






Ed:- wanted to have numbers 1 through 9 but ran out of yellow tip boxes. Wanted to have alphabets A to Z but ran out of white tips. Once again, for contributions to the lab endowment fund, please call 1800-poor-lab, that is, 1800-7667-522. Each call is a donation of $100.00. Thank you.

Sounds familiar

(Tell me 'bout it man... happening all over the place...)

Science 27 January 2006:Vol. 311. no. 5760, p. 448DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5760.448b

News of the Week
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE:Scientists Keep Some Data to ThemselvesConstance Holden
Scientists frequently refuse to give colleagues details of their research, according to two new surveys, of life scientists and of scientists-in-training.

In the February issue of Academic Medicine, David Blumenthal and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital's Institute for Health Policy (IHP) in Boston report from a survey of 1849 life scientists that 44% of geneticists and 32% of other life scientists have engaged in some form of "withholding behavior." The behavior includes failing to mention pertinent information in a paper or a presentation. Geneticists and males are more likely to withhold information.
A related study suggests that such behaviors may stifle the growth of young scientists. A group led by IHP physician Eric Campbell surveyed 1077 graduate students and postdocs in the life sciences, computer science, and chemical engineering. About one-quarter reported that they had been denied information at some point, particularly those in "high competition" research groups or with links to industry. About half the affected respondents said the rebuff delayed their research.
"We need to inform scientists, professional associations, and universities about the impact that data withholding can have on the next generation of scientists," says Campbell. "Sometimes it's necessary. The question is whether it's being done more [often] than it should be."
Drummond Rennie, a deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, notes that some data requests can be "extremely costly and very time-consuming" to fulfill. And scientists who present findings at meetings are sometimes rightfully paranoid, says sociologist Brian Martinson of Health Partners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Competitors from other labs have been known to come with cameras to shoot their posters, he says.

School of Money

The SoM got money to spend so call this big shot, small shot, medium shot fella go draw picture of new building nice-nice for display let us choose which one we like the most. But then hor, that time they get the real money to build the real building, not the castle in the air now-ah, that time i thinks i retire liau. So choose the nice one also bo yiong. Ownself will never get to see one. But for the good of the future generation of lab rats hor, they will very ho mia. See the artists impressions of the new proposed building. Just little impress can stright away propose liau, flower and ring also never see.













After see all the nice nice pictures, they make me fill up a form, rank from best to worst. Which one I like. So I choose the one with the big dome thing because I think it will cost the most to build. Hahahah. Don't send your kids to SoM next time coz school fees will jump high high because people like me choose the expensive looking one. But frankly, I think the "D" one is the dumbest.

dead cat

Teren spotted this cat and told me about it, so here it is:

one dead cat outside the med library. Probably the work of some mad, no erm...med student who was overstressed with his/her workload. Call SPCA!!! Got strangled by some skin cutting material, maybe a metal wire or a tight rope. Whatever it is, it's a beastly sight. Although I do use animals in my experiments, there are rules to follow, killing them humanely and disposing off what is left so that the public will not be alarmed.
This is definitely NOT the proper way to skin a cat. Do not try this at home, or in school or at work, or anywhere else for that matter.
You have been warned.

Tie me up!

The uni gave out ties and scarves to its employees today. Got mine and despite its...erm.... well meaning pictures of cute fish swimming, I found it, erm...well...

So me and Teren got hold of a tie and he made me (at gunpoint of course) put it on on the pretense that he didn't know how to tie a tie. So I was conned, no, persuaded, to tie my blue tie with cute fishies swimming upstream.
The ladies got a shawl of course, and with their piece of prestained fabric, there came along with it a guide, yes a GUIDE on how to wear the NUS SCARF!!!
Why don't the men get it?

The package:


Nice packaging, but totally not environmentally friendly, so much wastage. But at least I threw mine into the recycling bin.


Teren says: Calvin Kelin Model of flaviviLab!!!!! Fashion styleof 2006!!!!! look at those eyes!!!! so dam cool!!!!


The tie for the guys:


The scarf and the picture they got the inspiration from. What happened to the bears that go fishing like you see in National Geographic? Then you would need little spotches of red on the motif....shudder...


How to wear a scarf. Either its really really hard to wear a scarf or the girls are just, erm...

I'm so SAD

Nature 439, 254 (19 January 2006) doi:10.1038/439254a
Stress makes medics ever gloomier
Helen Pearson, New York

Abstract
US medical schools have high incidence of clinical depression.
Did you wake up this morning feeling blue? If you're a medical researcher, the answer may well be yes. A survey of faculty members in US medical schools has revealed that as many as one in five report signs of depression.

Grumbles about spiralling stress are rife among researchers, but there have been few studies to gauge its effects in any field. So psychiatrist Barbara Schindler at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia and her team sent questionnaires to more than 3,500 faculty members in four US medical schools. The questions were part of established scales for measuring mental and physical health, as well as life and job satisfaction.
The team received responses from more than half of the academics, and published its results this month (B. A. Schindler et al. Acad. Med. 81, 27–34; 2006). The most striking finding is that some 20% of researchers, both male and female, show symptoms consistent with clinical depression. This is roughly double the rate of such symptoms seen in the general population, and is a jump from the 14% found in a similar study in 1984.
Younger researchers show more depressive symptoms than older ones, and basic researchers feel less strain than those who also see patients. Although the survey is small, the authors say it exposes the toll that work is taking on academics' mental health. "When 20% of doctors are depressed you know something is wrong," Schindler says.
Researchers report various reasons for growing strain at work. Faculty members at US medical schools say they are under increasing pressure to see fee-paying patients. This leaves them less time to pursue the research and publications that win promotion. "I think these things mean there is less happiness and relaxation in medical schools," says George Mandel of George Washington University Medical Center in Washington DC.
The repercussions are harder to predict. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington DC reports no fall in the number of faculty members it can recruit, or in the numbers dropping out. But increasing stress could be dissuading faculty members from carrying out research, says Kenneth Getz, whose work at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in Boston suggests that the number of principal investigators leading clinical trials has declined in the past few years.
Diane Magrane, who is responsible for faculty development at the AAMC, says that many medical schools are already aware of poor staff morale and are introducing mentoring and support programmes to combat it. "When you measure it, it allows you to do something," she says.

new phone

lab gets second phone! one for prof, one for the rest. yay!!!

Lunch at KRGH

Lunch at Kent Ridge Guild House paid by prof for Dr.Li
Continental set lunch. Simple and quick 3 course.
The desserts were supposedly buffet style (read: eat all you can)
But after the group went and took their share, the plates were already empty. We hanged around to see if the waiters would refill the plates but nope. So we guessed that they were waiting for this bunch of people with bottomless pits to get out of the place before they put out a new set for fear of going bankrupt.
Pictures, as usual.

Choose, but why choose the lesser evil?


Spoilt for choice


The waiting was quite boring


Appetizer. Mine were (not very fresh) oysters...


Everybody else had orange coloured soup.


My lamb. Alot of fat by the sides. errr.....


The other half of the lab population went for the sea bass.


No smoking in the dining area!!!


Smile for the cam!


Dessert. Eclairs not nice. Rock melon sweet. Green bean soup not bad. Rice pudding abit too sweet. Gui ling kou bit bitter, the thing in the box no idea what.

Frekin' smart

Jan 15, 2006'Card Goddess' Straits Times

Taiwanese woman makes money by running up hefty credit card bills to earn bonus points

TAIPEI - MS YANG Hui-ju, 27, shops and spends lavishly with her credit card, but has proved she is not one of the masses of heavily indebted 'card slaves' in Taiwan.
In fact, the unemployed MBA graduate has made a handsome profit by taking advantage of bonus point schemes and discounts offered to credit card holders.
Now her bank has suspended her card in a case which has generated much media interest.
Her money-making scheme began in October, reports said. She racked up credit card bills of up to NT$10 million (S$509,000) a month and chalked up more than 8 million points.
She used the points to redeem 20 first-class air tickets to the United States, which she then sold online for NT$45,000 apiece. She also sold her card points at NT$300 per 1,000 points, said local media.
In just three months, she was said to have made a tidy profit of more than NT$1 million. But the amount of bonus points she amassed aroused the suspicions of the card issuer, Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CCB). It has suspended her card, saying her transactions were 'fraudulent'.
A defiant Ms Yang has threatened to sue the bank. She told local broadcaster TVBS: 'CCB called me up and told me I couldn't spend so much on my cards as it would make them lose money. I said, 'That's your problem'.'
For turning the tables on banks, Taiwanese netizens gave Ms Yang the title 'card goddess'.
Most of her spending was on shopping vouchers issued by a TV shopping channel. Reports said she worked with her relatives to take up a card offer to buy vouchers at a discounted price of NT$19,000.
Under a money-back guarantee, these vouchers can be refunded - at the original price of NT$20,000 - upon expiry in a year's time.
Hers is an unusual story in a society with some three million 'credit card slaves' or overspenders struggling to repay debts. Rollover credit debt hit NT$492.9 billion in October.
Ms Yang, who has been giving interviews daily, has received a job offer from an investment consultancy and invitations to write a book on her experience, PCHome magazine said.

Sign reading

During CNY, you see the upside down "fatt" and think its good fortune pouring into the house. People look at the stars to tell them their status. I decided that enough is enough and came up with my own prediction. Believe at your own peril.

A bad sign is a sign that has dropped off. Flavi-sign-reader predicts this year to be a hard one. The sign shows that we are not even off the floor. This happens every 23 years when the hyperbolic expression of the Capsid protein aligns itself with the tangent of the NS1. During that induction phase, it is best to stay on the safe side of the biohazard II hood and not play with dead chicken heads. However, once the 1st log phase has passed, Flavi-sign-reader predicts a sudden surge in energy comming from the host mitochondria that will bring you from the '1st to the 5th' floor err... dimension and if you tell your storey errrr... story well enough, you may even find yourself diffusing from the '1st thru roof'. Those who are not of the flavi constellation can remove your gaze from this prediction and instead go stair errr... stare at ‘stair 1’, which could or could not align your viruses in a double helix motif to give you either a good or bad year. Well... it all depends...

toothpick update

Couple of days ago, posted some pics of some idiot who put a bottle of toothpicks in a plastic container in the 150C oven. Well, the guy didnt take it out even though it stank and so now check out what happened to the whole thing. No one admits doing it as usual.

new toy

New year must have new toy. BioRad's iCycler. Whoo Hoo!!! But then, not that I am going to use it much anyway. We got the 'split top' add on that splits the tray into two parts and both parts can run different settings, so its like two machines in one! How cool is that?

The old machine now no more lonely.

water bath

Jas was cleaning the water bath and she went "EEEEE!!!" so I knew must be somethign intersting and grabbed my cam. Water bath in super dirty condition. Only reason? Probably not washed for the past 2-3 weeks. But OF COURSE those on duty the past week did their duties, how could you suggest otherwise? isk isk isk....

smelly slimy gooey stuff. Drink oledi garentii you become toilet bowl best friend one week.


As usual I make my mark. Hey, look at it this way; the person on duty has lesser surface area to scrub now.


Another angle, just in case the first one didnt turn out right.