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It looks like the deadline for the competition registration has been extended; originally February 29th, now, registration closes on March 31st. Perhaps they couldn’t find enough good teams to make this an exciting show? But never mind that. More details of the search tasks are now available in a recently released white ...
Remember, happy supervisors generally also mean good grades.The evening before a presentation is not the time to start working on it.Neither can you write a coherent thesis in one night.If you absolutely have to use Excel, at least learn how to scale and reformat your axes, and how to get rid of that grey background ...
Now that we’re right in the middle of CNY, here’s some food for thought:(Fishingkaki.com) Lo hei!
Which looks more like a place where serious and meaningful research gets done?
Let’s look at some of the successful startups out there:Hewlett-Packard.Google.Apple.What do they all have in common? They all started out in garages!Imagine if any budding innovator wanted to build something cool in his home, an HDB flat, say.The overzealous maid tosses out half-finished prototypes by mistake.The neighbours complain because the hammering sounds and …
If you thought “Whose ping is it anyway” was a timesuck, wait till you try this: Google image labeler
There’s a tool for everything.Mechanical Coital Model“Male condoms that break in use do so mostly by a “blunt puncture” mechanism“, White et al, Contraception 77, 360 ( 2 …
This article on CNA today has the AAS providing tips for motorists on how to save fuel costs; eg regular servicing, load lightening, etc.And yet, they don’t mention the biggest no-brainer of them all - Don’t let your engine idle for too long.Idling cars are a common sight on the roads here: trucks doing deliveries, ...
Until context-sensitive spellcheckers become a mainstay of word processing programs, it often pays to read through any written article before submission:Plank’s Constant: Probably the most misspelled term in physics, leading to generations of confused undergrads wondering about the link between carpentry and quantum mechanics.Hardon: Already a Bad Science classic!Atomic …
Someone needs some basic mathematics lessons:From this article in Today - ‘Fuel subsidy not the way, still…”:“As a result, prices at the pump will almost double fro …
Plagiarism - the one word that’s guaranteed to strike up heated debates among scientists and educators, regardless of which field they’re in. Nearly everyone’s got some horror story or anecdote to tell - scientists churning out reruns of old papers to boost their publication count, non-English researchers lifting passages from textbooks ‘cos …
Last week at the 2008 AAAS meeting, A*STAR announced an upcoming programme to host two science journalists in Singapore as writers-in-residence. Round-trip travel and living expenses for up to four weeks will be sponsored jointly by A*STAR and NTU’s School of Communication and Information.More information about the program can be found here at the A*STAR ...
It’s amazing what you can do with synthetic chemistry.Synthesis of Anthropomorphic Molecules: The NanoPutiansStephanie H. Chanteau and James M. TourDescribed here are the synthetic details en route to an array of 2-nm-tall anthropomorphic molecules in monomeric, dimeric, and polymeric form. These anthropomorphic figures are called, as a class, NanoPutians. Using tools …
Here’s one of those “why didn’t I think of that!” innovations:Donelan et al, Science, 319, 807 - 810 (2008)DOI: 10.1126/science.1149860Human power generation is an area of research that’s gotten quite hot, mainly because of the sheer number of power-hungry mobile devices each one of us lugs around every day. Many older energy harvesting systems ...
Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles currently has a nice post up on vacuum pumps - equipment that’s pretty much essential for anyone doing any kind of nanofabrication or materials characterisation work. Coincidentally, someone in the lab hauled out a turbopump today so we had an opportunity to take some photos.Though, of course, you really, ...
Well, the Fusionopolis publicity blitz has started, with a contest to pick names for each of the ten buildings in the upcoming mega-scientific-lifestyle-business-artsy-hub!Contest details …
Yesterday, the result of yet another branding exercise was revealed…It’s no longer the Singapore Science Centre:Now, it’s the Science Centre, Singapore:Really, I’m speechless.And left wondering why it looked so familiar, until I saw a bus disgorge a load of tourists:In any case, a happy 30th anniversary to the Science Centre!Ah, the fond memories …
Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day.Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.Sign him up for a credit card, and he’ll be able to buy fish without appreciating its true value.
We got lost looking for a school once. It was somewhere up in the north, far from my usual stomping grounds down west, and we’d been driving in circles around the industrial estates. Eventually we came to this fenced-up place which we’d have thought was a prison, if not for the many banners proclaiming things ...



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