Diagnosing HPV via the DNA test
Reading Time: 3 minutesBY MAHALETCHUMY ARUJANAN & SAARANI VENGADESEN IF THERE is one cancer that can be eliminated completely from the face of the earth, it is cervical cancer. Imagine if 604,237 women globally could have been spared the painful experience of contracting this cancer and 341,843 lives saved. What is probably more painful than the cancer is […]
Sitting is Dangerous
Reading Time: 3 minutesBY JOYCE WONG JIN YI ACCORDING to a survey that evaluated sedentary lifestyles, nine out of ten Malaysian spend more than half of their waking hours sitting (at least six hours a day) at their desk. Long, uninterrupted periods of sitting, whether you are sitting at a desk, behind the wheel, or in front of […]
Local researchers proposed superpowered microalgae for wastewater treatment
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY AISHWURIYA KUNASHANKAR & SAARANI VENGADESEN WHAT do you get when you put a bioplastic expert, a microalgae specialist, and a cancer researcher together? A Marimo. Read further to know how a multidisciplinary team is moving from the concept stage to a proposed sustainable plan that can play a role in reducing environmental footprint. The Petri […]
Energy management comes before time management
Reading Time: 3 minutesBY JOYCE WONG JIN YI ONE of the most frequently asked questions to me is, ” How can you complete so many tasks successfully in a short time?” “Is there any secret in your time management?” I smiled and answered: “Yes, the secret in time management is energy management”. Yes, energy is everything. When it comes […]
Movie review: ‘Food Evolution’
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY KEVIN FOLTA LAST year a Pew Research poll gauged public sentiment toward genetic engineering of food crops (familiarly, ‘GMO’). The results showed that while the public is consumed with fear and suspicion, scientists view the technology as safe and effective. This divide may be due to the deep presence of non-scientific websites, books and […]
Why is blood red?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA small paper cut in the finger and we can see red blood oozing out. A common assumption is that the presence of haemoglobin causes the red colour of blood. However, the real reason is the shape of porphyrin that determines the redness of blood. Porphyrin is a ring of atoms in haemoglobin that binds […]
How GM crops can help us to feed a fast-growing world
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY STUART THOMPSON The United Nations forecasts global population to rise to more than nine billion people by 2050. Climate change may mean that the crops we depend on now may no longer be suited to the areas where they are currently cultivated and may increasingly be threatened by droughts, floods and the spread of plant […]
Abuse of antibiotics takes us one big circle to square one
Reading Time: 4 minutesBY SADEQUR RAHMAN The story of the discovery of penicillin is enchanting. An overworked microbiologist goes on holiday, opens plates with bacteria growing on them, a spore (or seed) landing on the plates and then the observation on return from the holiday that the mould growing from the spore could kill bacteria. The purification and […]
Who discovered the existence of galaxies other than our Milky Way?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteIN the early 1900s, astronomers were debating the makeup of spiral nebulae — cloudy, spiral-shaped objects found throughout the night sky. Were they gas clouds located within our Milky Way galaxy, or were they vast groups of stars located far beyond our galaxy? In 1919, American astronomer Edwin Hubble tackled the question. His keen astronomical […]
Why are clownfishes not stung by sea anemones?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe partnership between clownfish and sea anemones is one of the most iconic in the animal world. Unlike in Pixar’s film Finding Nemo, clownfish seldom stray far from their anemone. The clownfish live within the sea anemone’s poisonous tentacles. Those tentacles keep would-be predators at bay, including morays, scorpionfishes and snappers. In return, the […]