TL's Journey of Life (Chapter one)

Busy

2011-02-16T23:16:00.000-08:00

Guess I have abandoned this blog for few months now. The last time i updated is before October 2010. Anyway, sorry, but I do not have any time to update it until I finish writting up my PhD thesis and submit. I will continue adding more posts on this blog as soon as my work is completed!

Some Stories

2010-05-17T03:33:00.001-07:00

The conference in Reykjavik (Iceland) is over. I like the trip very much, although I do not enjoy the extremely cold plus drizzling weather. I took a lot of photos, massively, partly because I will never return to that country anymore, even for conference purpose or trips, never! I have some reasons - the weather is just too cold for me. I remember climbing up the ice mountain, i could not feel the presence of my foots. This explains how cold that place is.

Anyway, I will only upload few photos here. The remaining photos will go to my facebook.

Caption: myself at Blue Lagoon

Caption: me and a group of NordiChi participants

Caption: myself at Reykjavik (Iceland)

I will write more about my trip to Iceland as soon as I have some space.

Random Stories

2010-05-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

Few friends asked me why am I not updating at all lately. Firstly, appologies for such a late post. I do not have much time recently, busy with the conference preparation (crafting presentation slides, practicing, etc). By the way, I have a conference paper accepted by NordiCHI 2010 and the host is in Iceland. Fortunately, my University is sponsoring my flight, accomodation and etc. for this trip! I will post the link of the conference paper in the next few post for anyone who has interest to read it.

The combination of working and studies have created such a bizarre life for me, yet it could still be fun! It all depends on how I manage my time and stress. Usually, I will spend most of my free-time walking around different places, shopping complexes, etc. Food? Now that is interesting. I am not a big-eater, definitely, but I do love eating and testing different types of foods. Therefore, this is probably the most amazing year I have ever had in my life.

Caption: Ops, the restaurant (in Kepong Malaysia) name is not visible due to the lighting

Caption: Ashley felt tired waiting for the foods?

Caption: yummy! delicious

Caption: preparing to light-up the candles

We planned to celebrate early birthday for 3 people. Therefore, everyone decided to celebrate our birthdays with one dinner. I have forgotten the name of the restaurant, but it lies somewhere (a little further) in Kepong. Foods are tasty, particularly the sri-lanka crab. It tastes very fresh, too! However, over-priced I think. We also bought a chocolate cake from Secret Receipe and celebrate at night. Okay, this is totally random. Due to excitement, our vietnamese-mango tree that we planted 8 years ago, has finally produced some fruits - very sweet, I like the taste!

Caption: the mango tree and some mangoes

Sometime, I do understand marketting tricks so they could earn more money for their company. But, please look at the photo in the below, try comparing it with the photo posted on the advertisement board. When I ordered this so called 'Purrfect' burger from A&W, the staff asked me to wait for a while. I guess too many people ordered the same burger and so, out of bun? I waited at least 20 minutes when they delivered the foods to me. I was surprised (photo below) when I tried to compare the burger delivered to me, with the burger on the advertisement board! Worstly, I see no coleslaw as topping (mixed-chopped vegetables) for the first time. Until I complained to their staffs, and waited for the next 10 minutes, they added very 'LITTLE' coleslaw to fulfil my request. This is going to be the last time I will visit A&W *peace*

Caption: A&W advertisement board

Caption: dissapointed with this burger -_-

Caption: a different fish burger from a different A&W

Caption: this is the burger! eww, so small in size!

The next day, we went to the Fish & Co. restaurant. Everyone told me their fish and chip, and pasta tastes excellent. To be frank, their fish and chip is tasty. Partly because the fish-meat is tender, easier to chew. Their American fish and chip is cheap, plus tasty because I personally love cheese. I love melted-cheese in any fish and chip *slurp* However, their pasta and that spagetthi noodle sucks. I will not recommend any friends for pasta at Fish & Co. Perhaps, only visit them for their fish and chip, where you will never regret, I hope!

Caption: I am reluctant to say 'I do enjoy their noodles'

Caption: pasta carbonara (left), fish and chip (mid), seafood spagetthi (right)

My sister (and brother-in-law) planned to celebrate her birthday with us. Usually, we prefer having our dinner somewhere further than in PJ, if celebrating for someone for their birthday. I do not know who suggested this restaurant, located deep-inside the Subang Jaya Village (very near to the old Subang International Airport), namely Restaurant Kwai Lam. I do not know how many of you heard of this restaurant, because this restaraunt once offered really delicious Chinese foods. Probably too many Chinese restaurants out there, and psychologically, we will make comparison between foods that they offer in every restaurants. Personally, I really hate havings foods (although nowadays, everywhere should be about the same) cooked with pork lards. I think it makes the food stinks (high in cholesterol too)! Coincidently, the chef in this restaurant cooked the foods with 'excessive-amount' of lards. You could even scent it, obviously. Plus, I could not sense the presence of high-quality at all after tasting every portion of the dishes we have ordered. I (and my family/relatives) would personally rate 0.5/10 for their foods quality. So if you trust me, please stay away from this restaurant.

Caption: her birthday presents (encourages her to give birth to few babies)

Caption: I could easily guess what had she wished: 'I want to conceive twin-babies at one goal'.

The snack-bar (or restaurant) namely Shihlin Taiwanese Street Snacks offered real tasty fried chicken. Their traditional 'Mee Sua' is also tasty, plus cheap. Anyway, this is probably the first time I ordered their seafood tempura (looks very similar to chips in England). The taste is brilliant, I like it very much, and would rate it higher, at 7/10.

Caption: fried chicken and seafood tempura

Over the weekend, Daryl brought us to this Indian restaurant in this place called Bangsar (a very well-known place where you could see many rich peeps hanging out). According to Daryl, he usually visit this restaurant during his break-time. This explained why he invited us for lunch at this restaurant. However, their business is extremely fine. I could see people queing all over the restaurant, waiting for a seat for them. We are extremely lucky peoples; we do not have to wait for a seat because we were lucky enough to find few empty tables (pure luck) before we start ordering their so called 'famous-indian rice'. Daryl ordered massively. If you look at the photos below, you will understand what I meant by massively. Price is reasonable. Their food quality is good. I would rate it 7.5/10 in term of indian foods. By the way, the location of this restaurant is just opposite the Bangsar Village.

Caption: Indian foods

Caption: staring at that poppadums (crispy thin flat circular bread)

Peanut (one of my bestie; this is also her nickname) told me she went to Taiwan the other day, and have bought me a box of Taiwanese-burger. I have not tasted before because that packet was given to another friend, Xin Yee. According to her, that burger is crunchy, coated with thick chocolates. I haven't had any chance to taste it at all *hint: hoping to get another packet from 'someone' if travel to Taiwan again* Later in the afternoon, Xin Yee and I have decided to have our lunch in this restaurant namely Bao-Bao. They offer various types of pan mee (a type of flat flour noodle, a type of Malaysian Chinese cuisine, usually boiled in anchovies soup). We ordered some side dish too. It is tasty in term of food quality. I would rate it 7.5/10 myself.

Caption: Taiwanese-burger

Caption: Xin Yee has prepare to taste the pan mee

Caption: bao-bao pan mee

The next morning, we went to this small-typical Chinese restaurant in Kepong. Many people suggest that their Hakka Lei Cha tastes really good. Hakka lei Cha is a typical Hakka-style tea-based beverage consist of various kinds of vegetables and herbs grounded together, with nuts, seeds and grains, and to be served with a green-based tea. We consume Hakka Lei Cha because it is a very healthy food. We also ordered this dish called 'Shun Pun Zi' (also known as stir fried yam balls). This is not the first time I have Lei Cha, but Shun Pun Zhi is. It tastes very nice and like it very much! I will not rate the dishes we ordered in this restaurant, mainly because I do not know (forgotten to capture a photo that day) the name of the restaurant. Plus, first time consuming these foods - can not compare with other restaurants.

Caption: Hakka Lei Cha and Shun Pun Zi, and some chinese noodles

Caption: mixing all vegetable dishes prepared, all-in-one

Caption: this is how we eat Hakka Lei Cha (pour the green chinese tea into the bowl)

By the way, this is also random. I took a photo when we went out to Secret Receipe the other day, Satay with a glass of Chocolate Latte, and a glass of plain water for myself. Everyone said their satay tastes really good. Well, I might be traditional-minded, as usual, but isn't Kajang Satay tastes best? I might be wrong. Anyway, the satay is very meaty by mean the lack of grilled-fats *LOL* So this Satay should be healthier than other Satay's I have eaten elsewhere. I would rate the Satay 6/10.

Caption: Secret Receipe: Satay and Latte

Somehow, I thought I felt like having Hakka Lei Cha again, in a different restaurant, in Kota Damansara this time. So, I have invited Angel to joined me. I didnt know Hakka Lei Cha could taste so well, way much better than the one I had in the previous restaurant in Kepong. Probably this one has more MSG-added, and so it tastes much better?

Caption: Hakka Lei Cha at Kota Damansara

I do not know why, throughout the month, I have had visited many Hakka restaurants. Oh, by the way, Hakka refers to one of the main subdivision of the Chinese (and language) in China. They are recognised as Chinese, but a different type of chinese people (other types of Chinese subdivisions include, i.e. Gwong-Fu / or Cantonese Chinese, Hokkien Chinese, Teo Chew Chinese, etc.). The Hakka restaurant, namely the Restaurant Hakka is located at the center of Kuala Lumpur, opposite to the Luxurious-Shopping-Mall, "The Pavillion". If we are having Hakka-style Steamboat (click HERE to read more about steamboat) somewhere near to the Pavillion, then you could have guess that the price is usually, over-priced. The portion is too little, below average, for normal human I think. Even a small-eater like Liz said the portion is just too little. So, that explains the portion. Anyway, their Pork Ball, namely the Pork-Vein-Ball (direct translate from Cantonese) is extremely tasty. I like it. Nice view this restaurant offered, too bad my camera quality is just too low to capture really-nice photos, especially night time.

Caption: Restaurant Hakka

Caption: their menu

Caption: don't you think the portion is just too little for four/five person?

Caption: Liz enjoyed the food, very much, so do we!

Caption: The Pavillion is just next to the restaurant

Caption: the restaurant has many tables, so do not worry of not getting a seat!

Caption: random photo taken inside Pavillion

It is always irresistable for me when it comes to food. It means I am a person who will sometimes never bother looking at the price before ordering the foods. As long as the food is tasty, then, I will just order as much as I could eat. But that is just occasionally. It means, I will not act that way everytime seeing foods - just occasionally! I remember having the 'bun-soup' in Express Soup, inside the MPH bookstore. Why? Because I found the appearance of the bun very appealing, interesting too. I have never tried drinking soup served in buns. I even ordered an additional pumpkin-soup. They serve the pumpkin-soup with some salad. The taste is great, though it tastes a little 'burnt', I think they overcooked the food, making it tastes alike charcoal! The price is reasonable too, Rm 7.99 (if i did not recall wrongly), this place is definitely great for teatime!

Caption: express-soup

Caption: I called it as the 'bun-chicken-soup'

Caption: pumpkin-soup with some salad

Caption: yummy!

We went to TGIF (thank god is friday) in PJ. We did not order much, guess we were full - the portion of the food is huge, probably very cheesy-style food, and very glad we did not order too much else we can never finish the portions ordered.

Caption: spagetti and something with cheese (forgotten) in TGIF

The next dinner we went to is this restaurant in Kepong, namely Lai Heong. Many people suggest for dinner in this restaurant because their foods are tasty, cheaper compared to other restaurants, yet the portion of the foods/dishes are extremely bulk. Sometimes, I do not think that way because their foods are just ordinary for me. I could even scent massive amount of 'Pork Lard' from that green vegetable dish we ordered. It does not mean the portion is bulk, then the foods are tasty - sometimes it don't work that way! We pay for what we have; cheaper price sometimes refer to cheaper-quality foods! Overall, the foods are okay, a very normal-dinner, for the price we paid. The overall rating I would rate is 6.5/10.

Caption: the dishes

Ops, I have forgotten entirely about having dessert in this so called 'honeymoon' dessert-bar, a place we had our desserts (picture below). Anyway, not quite important because the dessert don't taste awesome; the dessert-bar has also closed down their business a while ago in the One-Utama shopping complex. I found this photo in my phone's photo album, and I think the appearance of the desserts looked appealing, very special looking, so I have decided to share it here, but nothing else!

Caption: desserts in 'Honeymoon' dessert-bar

Okay, I must really give an applause to this BKT restaurant. BKT refers to Bah Kut Teh, a very popular Chinese meat-based soup in Asian countries, i.e. Malaysia, China, etc. Everyone told me that the best BKT could only be found in places like Klang in Malaysia. I doubt that really. My typical mind told me something else; "Maybe those BKT shops in this place called Klang have shifted to bigger cities so they could sell their tasty foods more expensive, so could earn more money?", I might be wrong though. But this BKT restaurant in this place called Kepong, is very special. The foods are tasty, price is reasonable too. I have never tasted such a tasty BKT, in a very pleasant way, in my life. Though they only start their business at night (after evening, let says 6:30 PM?). Try it and you will understand what I mean.

Caption: tofu (left), traditional BKT (top), vinegar pork-leg (bottom), steam pork (right)

We were walking across the bridge in the new-wing of One-Utama shopping complex the other day. Guess what, probably a lucky day, we met one of the most famous Hong Kong female celebrity, Linda Chung. She is hyper tall, though we could not approach her due to massive paparazzi's, surrounded her all around, but I am lucky enough to stand somewhere near her. She is not only tall, but very slim, should could turn herself *choke* to a skeleton if she still go on diet! So, if she ever drop by on this blog, a piece of advice for her, females will not look good if they have a skeleton-figure! Then, we dropped by this restaurant called 'Delicious'. I was curious of how cammomile tea tastes like. Some commented: 'It sucks', but some said it tastes brilliant. However, my opinion is, cammomile tea should be healthy, especially it has the ability to help reducing stress whilst helping us to catch a better sleep at night. The best slogan to promote the cammomile tea is "Drink it for a better sleep". It's true, I could sleep better that night (probably psychological effect?) but, guess what, the taste is awesome if adding honey in the cammomile tea - vice versa, it tastes extremely awful without honey! Please do try it yourself someday.

Caption: delicious restaurant (is that a restaurant actually, or a bar, or?)

Caption: cammomile tea with honey and a glass of orange juice

Caption: everyone surrounded Linda Chung

Caption: Linda Chung promoting Bio-Essence products

The food in Dragon-i is also tasty. Lately, I planned to go on diet. I realized my weight increases, rapidly. I do not know how I gained my weight, so, I planned to skip for lunch. The other day, I shared a dish of chinese seafood noodle with Angel, I could not finish the portion myself. It tastes good, though the portion is just too little, plus over-priced. I would rate the noodle dish at 7.5/10 because the taste is really good!

Caption: Chinese-noodle at Dragon-i restaurant

Last, but not least, we visited this dessert-shop located in Kota Damansara. Why? They have dessert promotions for few days, at half-price. It means buying one dessert and getting another for free! I even met Mervin and his girlfriend in that shop, too bad I did not snap a photo of them at that time, else they might think I am an insane person who love taking photos of everyone, randomly *cough* Okay, the taste is not really that special, very normal. However, I will still visit this place (upon request), incase anyone demanded me to bring them along, for dessert. I am a very casual person :)

Caption: Snowflake dessert-shop in Kota Damansara

Caption: tohua-series dessert

Caption: promotions at Snowflake

Sorry for such casual-writting post. I do not have much time thinking and formulating to write a post recently. The next post will be posted after my trip to Iceland (for conference purpose). I am publish a paper after the trip - I think I could write up some stories about my two-weeks stay in Iceland, hopefully a nice trip so I could produce a better story here.

Tip of the Day

2010-05-08T13:08:00.001-07:00

Do you know:

Devitalising foods such as white flour, refined sugar and all products made from them, soft drinks, pastries, jams and jellies should be avoided. These foods take away energy, cause wrinkles, unattractive skin, grey hair, and premature old age.

Asthmatic Attack

2010-05-07T22:43:00.001-07:00

Asthmatic attack can be an extremely serious illness, mainly characterised by spasms in the airway in our lungs. This impedes the exhalation of air and caused breathing difficulties and other relevant lung-related diseases such as coughing, wheezing, tightness in the chest. The main reason is that the spasms are caused by chronic or excessive inflammation, usually by sensitivity of the air flow to the outside stimuli such as cold air, pollution and other factors caused by pollens, chemicals, smokes produced by cigarette, cars, factories etc. However, many other research indicated that other major factors that may trigger asthma is stress, exercise, laughing and expiratory infections. Therefore, try not to over-stress yourself if you are originally suffering from the asthmatic illness.

Caption: asthmatic

Since he asthma allergy (or shortness of breath) is an extremely serious allergy that may bring death to the person if not handle carefully, there are plenty of on-going medical research conducted, mainly to diagnose its underlyning cause and cure. According to some research articles, the asthmatic has a genetic component. This means that one parents (i.e only daddy or mummy) who has the asthmatic may be brought down to their children, but only with a 33.33% chance. The chances will rise to 70% if both parents have this allergy. This chronic inflammatory disease usually deals with the shortage of breath because it was characterised by some recurring symptoms that deals with our bronchospasm (the lung area). There were evidences stating clearly that more females die of asthma than males. Womens account for nearly 65% of the asthma's death toll. So, this is an extremely serious allergy that you may wish to avoid from suffering.

Caption: normal bronchiole VS asthmatic bronchiole (lung area)

Caption: air-scottish pipe

Actually what triggers asthma? The introduction of this post indicated that environment, stress (from job pressure; e.g. sportsmen) may be the main factor that triggers the asthmatic attack. It is true that heavy exercises such as mountain climbing will trigger asthma. However, some articles from the newspaper has proven that some people with asthma have automatically cured the illness by doing heavy exercises such as swimming. Swimming was believed to be an extremely important exercise that may broaden our lung and airway in some ways. Some people also managed to cure asthma by playing on an air-scottish pipe (a musical instrument). They believed that practicing this musical instrument will widen our lung so we could breath better.

Caption: swimming

There at at least 85 per cent of the Malaysian citizens who were born with asthma. Because the is no cure for asthma, it has ranked the third of hospitalization children over the world. Thus, a person with asthma has no choice to manage this allerge properly with numerous preventation methods. There is no direct cure for asthma. Even the most effective treatment is only available to prevent asthma attack and not curing it entirely.

Caption: avoid approaching cute but fluffy animals

Caption: avoid cooling foods, i.e. courgette

Traditionally, cooling foods should be avoided. You may wish to read more about cooling foods by clicking HERE. Foods such as ice and courgette should be listed as the number one in list of foods to avoid. Sometimes, severe stress may narrow down the airway in our body and that will trigger asthma attack. So, try avoid stress. Please read more about stress reliever and remedies by clicking HERE. Few research indicated that smoking may help curing the patient, however, there are many more research papers suggested that smoking will impair the efficacy of our lungs by declining the lung from functioning for patients with chronic asthma. So, please stay away from cigarette and its smokes. Please click HERE if you wish to study the original full-version of the journal. Try avoid pollen, dust, animal air and dust mites by vaccuming regularly and use anti-allergenic beeding. Try replace carpets with ceramic, stone and other hardwood floors. Try avoid consuming nuts, particularly for children with asthma.

Caption: dairy products

Try avoid dairy products since they are famous for the formation of musuc. Other sources of mucus-formation includes wheat, soya, chocolate, sugar and eggs. So try avoid those products. High salt intake is linked to respiratory-tract disorder. Respiratory-tract disorder refers to asthmatic diseases, i.e. lung diseases, breathing disorders, nose and throat problems. Salt usually contain in all processed and packaged foods so avoid them.

Caption: sources of antioxidants

The asthmatic symptom could be relieve through diet. Thus, healthy diet is necessary. When dealing with healthy diet, the first thing that comes to our mind is fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are extremely important sources for dieting because they are high in potassium which counteracts with sodium (i.e. salt). They are also the best source of vitamin C which are extremely important for inflammation. Consuming oily fish is also important to help our body to fight againsts inflamed asthmatic. Oily fish includes salmon, sardine, mackerel and trout. Please also consume garlic and red onion. These sources contain quercetin. Quercetin comes from an exerting powerful antioxidant source known as the flavanoid. Flavanoid is a powerful antioxidant source that can block the formation of cancer cells in our body, and usually found in a wide range of foods such as citrus, soy products (i.e. tofu, soy bean), apples and green tea. Quercetin is an anti-inflammatory source, mainly used therapeutically to ease age related inflammatory conditions and asthmatic.

Caption: anatomy of asthmatic attack

Foods containing selenium is also important for asthmatic. several studies relate selenium consumption with the protection from asthma and inflammatory effect. Selenium often synergy with vitamin E, acting similarly like antioxidant, needed for proper immune system and heart functioning. It also protect the membrane cells in our body. Anyway, consuming foods that contained selenium would help preventing cellular damages from free radicals. Foods that contain selenium includes chicken, prawn, fish, oysters etc. Our body also need magnesium to fight againsts asthmatic. Green leafy vegetables are definitely good sources of magnesium. The magnesium mineral may prevent the constriction of airways in the lung by promoting relaxation in the muscles in the lung system.

Caption: peppermint, a herb that helps to relief asthma attack

There are some herbs recommended by herbalist, that could be used to strengthen our lungs. For example, the astragalus. Other good herbs include peppermint and liquorice. Herbalist suggest us to consume mullein tea. It can help to expel excess mucus in our body and contribute in easier-breathing. Vitamin such as B6 and B12 (I personally still recommend consuming vitamin B complex) may help to reduce stress and the asthmatic symptoms. Consume vitamin C sources (i.e. oranges, kiwi, goji berries etc.) for anti-allergenic and anti-inflammatory effect

Caption: albuterol or inhaler

Caption: yoga

Other cure for asthma includes drug intake. Albuterol, or traditionally known as the inhaler, is a special drug used to reduce asthma attack. The consumption of this drug for asthmaticulus (only asthma) is extremely safe, unless you overdose it. The normal intake of one whole inhaler for a normal asthmatic patient is one month. So, please consult your GP if you notice the intake increases. Practising yoga is great to improve our breathing. Swimming in the sea or lake is also good for our lungs. However, try staying away from chlorinated pools. Participate in singing classes as singing is a great exercise.

Tip of the Day

2010-05-07T03:00:00.004-07:00

Do you know:

Sleeping for 8 hours a day is important. Some worldwide health specialists have proven that too much sleep (9 hours or more) or too little sleeep (below 6 hours) a day may lead to the early death. There is another research suggested the recommendation time to sleep is between 10.00 PM - 5.00 AM or 11.00 PM - 6.00 AM.

Some Facts of Salt

2010-05-07T03:00:00.003-07:00

Do you like salty foods? Sometimes, your sense of taste may decline and that you may wish to add a table spoon of salt in the food you are cooking. This may apply to people who start aging. People with taste loss can also lead to the temptation to add salt to their food. It is a part of flavouring. However, do we know that salt is hidden, and usually found in most of the foods that we consume - excessive amount of salt may kill millions of people worldwide.

Caption: salt

Caption: different types of sodium (salt)

Salt can lead to the increase of blood pressure and water retention. This is also a reason of why some people like myself who love using herbs to flavour foods instead of salt. At the very least, these herbs are beneficial for my health rather than salt. Anyway, if you really want a little salt added into your food, please do use sea salt instead of table salt. There are many types of sea salt. I would recommend you to consume Celtic sea salt since this type of salt contain lowest sodium when compared to all different types of salts available, and has the richest beneficial elements when compared to any other salts. Reducing salt consumption is highly important for living being. At the very least, resist the intake of salt consumption may be the most common, cheapest and easiest method to save our lives. Lastly, though not conclusively, try increase your intake of any green vegetables and fruits since they are nearly salt-free. I am not sure if this is real, but some people suggests adding salt into vegetables or fruits, and consume it in order to break down carbohydrates, an effective way of dieting.

Caption: rock sodium chloride, also known as rock salt

Here are some facts of salt intake. Substantially reducing salt intake will reduce blood pressure. That is a fact. Reducing salt consumption wil also lower the risk of heart attack and suffering from strokes. This is another fact. There is an evident published in year 2007 calculated risk of salt consumption. The research paper suggested that reducing salt consumption by all human worldwide should prevent approximately 9 million deaths in the next 5 years. Other analyses have proven that reducing the consumption of salt daily (as little as 5 grams per intake) could reduce approximately 40 per cent of cardiovascular disease (a disease related to heart). Since salt is unable to be combined with any fluids contained in the human body, it tend to create health disturbances.

Caption: celtic sea salt

Caption: real salt VS celtic sea salt

Here is one fact of the Celtic sea salt - it has countless medical usage. First, it will fix your body's excessive amount of acidity and restore good digestion to your digestive system. It will also relief allergies and skin-related diseases. The Celtic sea salt is a very beneficial type of salt that will help you to prevent some types of cancer disease since it will help to boost the cellular energy and strengthened the resistance of infections by various bacterials. You should imagine the importance of sea salt consumption when you read this - a medical doctor kept a chicken heart alive for more than 35 years in the solution of sea salt.

Tip of the Day

2010-05-07T03:00:00.001-07:00

Do you know:

When we sneeze, the bloods cells in our body will stop responding for 0.1 second? This means that a person who coughs too oftenly (coughing for weeks or months) might trigger his heart, whilst subsequently lead to the heart disease / death.

Random Stories

2010-05-03T03:40:00.001-07:00

I have not been writting any post about myself for many months now (near to one year). Intentionally, this blog is not only a personal blog. I planned to write something that will provide more general knowledge about the evolvement of the world today. However, I find it rather boring. Plus, a busy person like me will not able to spend many hours reading and writting. I can, probably one post within two months then? Therefore, I planned to include my life (stories about myself) as a part of this blog from now on. This time, i will write about foods. By the way, sorry for such a bad quality phone-camera. I will, if I am richer, change a new phone-camera.

Caption: Pizza Uno

Caption: seafood pasta

Caption: pasta carbonara

Caption: Tropiacana Pizza

Caption: whole deep-fried chicken

We shall begin our story with this restaurant, namely the Pizza Uno. The restaurant is located inside this place called the Centrepoint in Bandar Utama, Malaysia. Most of us ordered their Pasta Carbonara for one reason, we always believe a good restaurant will offer good pasta *LOL*. We might be wrong though. Anyway, I am quite dissapointed. I remember the portion of Pasta Carbonara from Pizza Italia was bulk, yet their price and toppings are too, reasonable. We also ordered one Tropicana Pizza. I thik the price was way too expensive - looking at a super less amount of toppings on top of the thinly cooked 10 inch pizza, and for the price that we paid, I really think not quite worth. The only dish I think is worth ordering is their fried chicken. Overall, the foods are OKAY, though my dad said it tastes good. Anyway, my dad is also a very easy-going person when dealing with western foods.

Caption: Malaysian Association for the Blind

Caption: nasi lemak

Caption: Mr. Rahim using the computer for games

Caption: Nicholas playing audio-only softwares

Recently, I have been busy with some PhD experiments. My research deals with auditory perception. I will not elaborate too much of what have I done in the Blind Institution, but I have captured some really cool photos (with their permission). By the way, what really amazed me is when Mr. Rahim proof to me that he can use and iPhone! By just memorizing the icons, he can use the iPhone applications well, and also sending and receiving SMS properly. Blind people definitely have stronger working memory than us. Mr. Rahim spend me nasi lemak for lunch. Yummy!

Caption: d'italiane kitchen

Caption: menu

Caption: pasta carbonara

Caption: my portion of dinner

Caption: this noodle (forgotten the name) comes with salmon and tuna

Caption: fruit yogurt smoothies

Caption: forgotten the name for this

Caption: seafood pasta

Caption: Liz and grandpa

Caption: mom and grandma

Caption: pamesan cheese comes with the noodles

Daryl and Liz have decided to bring us to d'italiane kitchen (Kota Damansara) for dinner. The ambience of the restaurant is acceptable, providing some comfortable and relaxation feeling, the staffs are polite and helpful, and most importantly, the price is reasonable for the portion of foods we ordered. I always like to make some comparisons between the foods I have eaten, particularly italian foods. Firstly, their Pasta Carbonara is definitely cremier and thicker when we compared the pasta carbonara served by Pizza Uno. We also ordered two cups of tropical yogurt drinks. It is tasty and comforting to drink. Averagely, we spend around RM 35.00 per person and I think it is fine for a 4.5/5-star rating for their ambience, 4-star rating for their service and another 4-star for their food.

The only drawback I could suggests (and the same thing happens for our next few attempts) is their time management. I think they should speed up their cooking time. I am sure no one is happy to dine like us, sitting down for 40 minutes to wait for their food. Lastly, their opening time is as follows: 11.30AM until 11.00PM.

Caption: BKT restaurant in Klang

Caption: dried-style BKT

Everyone told me that the Bah Kut Teh (BKT - consist of meaty pork ribs simmered in a complex broth of herbs and spices) in Klang tastes the best. Some of my friends even suggested to try on Klang's Dried BKT. Few of us went to try one weekend. We ordered 3 portions of BKT, varies from dried and traditional (with soup) BKT. Truthfully, I still prefer the old and traditional BKT-style. First, I prefer BKT with herbal soup. The dried-style BKT is very plain and simple, giving me an impression that these chefs only cook it with dried shrimps, some salt, some gingers and garlics, and massive amount of dark soy sauce, and that's about it. Plus, the dried-style BKT tastes quite awful for me. I think they should add more salt to make it taste better. Perhaps, we have visited the wrong restaurant for dried-style BKT? At the very least, people from different shops around that area (Klang city) suggested us to try eating in this BKT shop. Anyone could recommend a different dried-style BKT shop for us?

Caption: Ichiban Ramen restaurant

Caption: Terriyaki and Chicken Katsu Don with Rice

I went to this japanese restaurant called the Ichiban Ramen inside the Ikano Power Centre in Kota Damansara. We ordered their Chicken Katsu Don with rice and Chicken Terriyaki with rice. Overall, we rated the food as 3/5-star, 5/5-star for their staffs, and 4.5/5-star for their cleanliness.

Caption: Porridge Time restaurant

Caption: frog-meat porridge

We also went to this restaurant called the Porridge Time, located in the Tropicana Shopping Mall building, next to the entrance of the washroom. I really love the taste of their porridge, especially the one that we ordered has one portion of, hmm, frog meat. I do not know what is the exact term for this frog meat, but initially, the meat comes from frog so i called it as frog meat. Very much similar to chicken meat, abit tender and sweeter. Hey people, you should try it too, it tastes really good!

Caption: Sugar and Daryl

Caption: Sugar and Liz

Sugar will sometimes pay us a visit, during the weekend and that is when she will stay one night with us. She is a grown up dog, no longer a puppy anymore. She is much more mature looking now. Plus, she has her menstraul-cycle now (her first time). Veteranian told us that a dog can only start mating when they have their SECOND time period. Liz will not mate Sugar with another dog, thus she even considered the spay her. Aww, poor sugar. There are few pros of spaying Sugar; at the very least, she should live longer and free from various dog-diseases (i.e. ovarian cancer). We will all decide slowly about spaying Sugar.

Caption: Sugar walking up the stairs

Caption: Sugar with a very bushy fur, and a super huge buttock

Caption: woof! I'm Sugar, the 7 months old Chow-Chow dog

Guess what, Sugar is a very lazy dog by mean, she will only turn hyper-active if she is fancy to you, usually when (1) you are holding her favourite toy, and luring her to play with you and (2) you are holding a piece of cookie. We spend hours training her to walk up the staircase. Initially, we failed, but since a friend (Miss Khyelin) of mine taught me some secrets of training a dog with a piece of cookie. This method work well. When she ever walk one step further, grant her one-half cookie. Thanks Khyelin, your method works pretty well.

Caption: Sugar and her toy

Caption: Sugar and TL

Caption: mom and Sugar

We also observed that Sugar hates something that is Red in colour. I think this applies to all chow-chow dogs. I am not sure what colour they love the most, but from observation, Sugar loves green.

Caption: the gardens, 1-Utama

Caption: the white piano, the emblem of The Gardens

Caption: they were thinking what foods to order

Caption: spagetthi - this tastes awful *LOL*

Caption: Dori fish

Caption: fries

Caption: calamari and steak?

Caption: thai-style pineapple fried rice

Caption: white cod fish

Caption: fish and chip steak, and satay?

Caption: Yumm, white-sauce pasta

Caption: this piece of calamari reminds me of Paul the Mystic Worldcup Octopus

Caption: mom and grandma, and her favourite birthday cake

Caption: dad, mom and grandma

We went to The Gardens to celebrate for my mom. It was her birthday on that day. The concept of The Gardens is pretty much alike Full House in Niu Ze Xui (click HERE to read more about NZX). Okay, back to the foods. Their foods are pretty much tasteless, particularly their spagetthi noodles. My only compliment goes to their cod fish. However, the portion is just too little by mean that TWO plates of pasta will not be enough for one big eater. After the visit on that day, I still think I prefer dining at d'italiane kitchen. This applies to their food quality and ambience. For food quality, I am dare to rate 2/5-star and 3.5/5-star for ambience.

Caption: Solaris Mont Kiara

Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (i)

Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (ii)

Caption: a view in the Solaris at Mont Kiara (iii)

Oh yah, before ending this post, I would love to share with all of you, in case you have not been to this wonderful place, recognised as the SOHO KL. The term SOHO had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry in the United Kingdom. In Malaysia, the SOHO in Kuala Lumpur is not predominantly as a fashionable district of restaurants and high-rise shop lots, consist of offices and other industries around the area.

Caption: a night view of Solaris at Mont Kiara

Caption: a mini-map of Solaris at Mont Kiara

Caption: beautiful scenery outside the Solaris

Caption: Tenji, the japanese restaurant at Solaris

After dinner, Daryl and Liz decided to drive us to Solaris at Mont Kiara. According to them, this place is a very brilliant place; there were many restaurants, cafes and pubs scattered all around this commercial area. Most people from the Western countries will enjoy their nightlife in this place, mainly for gathering purpose. People, you should visit this place if you have a chance. This is an ideal place to spend some quality time with your friends, sitting down at the cafes, relaxing and chit chatting.

Heart: High Blood and Cholesterol Levels

2010-05-01T13:45:00.001-07:00

How much do we love our heart? Do we know that the first two symptoms of the heart disease that comes to my mind is, often aimed at the higher cholesterol level and higher blood pressure in our body. However, how much do you understand these two terms? Do we know that the heart disease will not only threaten males? It will also threaten females! The heart disease may trigger the breast cancer illness.

Caption: heart disease

We can read more about high blood pressure here (click HERE for part 1 and HERE for part 2).

Caption: love your heart

Many people talk bad about cholesterols. However, how much do we understand the "cholesterol" term? Cholesterol is soft and waxy substance. There is an article written that 90 per cent of our body tissues and cells, particularly the brain and nervous system, liver and blood contains cholesterol. There are 2 types of cholesterols; bad and good cholesterols. Bad cholesterols refers to the low-density lipoproteins (LDL). The LDL will carry cholesterols to our brain and body cells and this process can damage our arteries. Good cholesterol refers to the high-density lipoproteins (HDL) that carry out of our body. In other words, cholesterol is not a problem, the only problem is the amount of LDL and HDL, because too much cholesterols will subsequently destroy our artery walls and good cholesterols will deposited on the artery wall. This is also a reason of why most doctors will suggest us to reduce bad cholesterols BUT maintain the good cholesterol in our body.

Caption: the cholesterol figure

Higher risk of heart disease depended on risk factors. The LDL will determine these risk factors. When you visit a doctor, he will usually look at your LDL level first to determine the risk of heart disease. They will also create a plan to help lowering down your excessive LDL cholesterol level.

Caption: some foods that reduces high cholesterol risk

There are several factors that raises the bad cholesterol in our body. This include saturated fats (i.e. coconut and coconut oil, butters BUT NOT margarines), excessive amount of sugar, excess carbohydrates, alcohol, stress and the lack of exercising. Factors that raise the good cholesterol ratios include olive oil, garlic, onions, oats, varieties of fruits, pulses, nuts and oils and seeds (i.e. almond, hazelnuts, cashews, appricot, macadamia, pumpkin seeds, walnut, avacado, omega-6 fats), fish (i.e. mackerel, salmon, trout, sardines and halibut), animal products (i.e. chicken eggs, organic white meats and other organic dairy products) and plenty of exercises.

Caption: tasty foods we should avoid

I will continue expanding the food sources here. There are things you may wish to reduce in order to avoid high cholesterol level. Here are some examples; margarines, heated fats, junk foods, processed foods (process foods such as chocolates may produce long term depression), palm oil, fried foods (such as french fries). They all can negatively affect your cardio-vascular health. Also try to avoid excessive amount of sugar, white flour, white bread, white rice and white pasta. They will contribute in high cholesterol level. Try reduce alcohol, coffee and fizzy drinks consumption. These drinks may worsen your stress level.

Caption: a figure of the cell membranes

Here are some stories of cholesterol that we may wish to know. Cholesterol is essential for building up our health. We also need cholesterol for other cell membranes and steroid hormones in our body. Steroid hormones include testoterone, progesterone and oestrogen. The cholesterol level in our body also depend on family background (genetically). This means that a fat father and mother will usually give birth to a fat daughter. To date, there are no obvious symptoms of high cholesterol, a part from obesity (fatness), high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes and gallstones. For vegans (vegetarians who cannot consume diary products such as egg and milk), their entire cholesterol were built up by their liver. Thus, they should not consume too much oily or high cholesterol foods although foods may only account 20 per cent of our total cholesterol, the rest is made in our liver.

Caption: relaxation

Remember, we can only find cholesterol from animal products and NOT from plant foods. Few studies suggested that stress may directly increase your cholesterol level. Therefore, please reduce the amount of stress by drinking plenty of plain water and take daily, moderate exercise (i.e meditation such as yoga). It is beneficial to improve heart function, lowering blood and cholesterol level and reduces weight. Breathing exercise is also important, that will contribute to relaxation. Last but not least, stop worrying about the past and future lives in order to avoid over pressure and stress.

Tip of the Day

2010-04-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

Do you know:

Recent studies have shown that couples who have sex regularly will look younger by 10 years than those who don't; this does not concern your particular age.

Choosing the Gender of Our Babies

2010-04-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

Is it really possible to determine the gender of our unborn baby during pregnancy, or do we think all these concerns fate? One of the greatest Greek philosopher, Aristotle (a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great) believe that the wind direction will determine the sex of unborn babies. But do we really have to trust Aristotle's philosophy? I personally do not believe in fate for baby genders since I still trust the advancement of science and technology in this context, more than anything else. Why? Few years ago, written clearly on the newspaper, it says that a group of scientist from Malaysia is developing a machine that will allow us to choose our baby genders. I do not really know how this machine work because their project was aborted by the Malaysian govenments.

Caption: babies

There are various child-gender prediction methods available, but is there any science behind them? It all depends on how you trust these philosophies. Very briefly, any pregnancy mothers who do not suffer from morning sickness will usually expect a baby girl. However, the opposite is also considered as true. Mother's who usually suffer from severe pregnancy sickness will more likely have a baby girl. However, in Sweden, there is a research analysing many pregnancy womens suggested that womens who suffered from sickness (approximately 44 per cent of them) giving birth to baby boys compared to other 56 per cents. In separate studies, they found single mothers (who suffered from divorce/death of their husband) have greater possibility in giving births to baby females. The result of the research has proven that mothers who lived with their partners will have a 5 per cent greater chance to give birth to baby boys. In other words, pregnant mothers who suffer from mental illness (not happy) should have the same outcome.

Caption: pregnancy mother

There is a traditional and simplistic method used to predict the baby's gender; that is by measuring their heart beat. If the fetus's heart rate exceeded 140 bmp (beats per minute), then the baby is more likely a female. Alternatively, a baby boy's bmp is usually below 140 per minute. However, medical sciences had proven that the heart rate decreases by mid-pregnancy and increases again at 8to 10th week, rapidly (usually exceeding 170 bmp). On the other hand, a study also reported that a group of research uses the ultrasound technology to measure the fetus's heart beat and found that the average heart rate of girl was around 151 and 154 for guys. So, I believe the heart beat measurement will only work during early pregnancy?

Caption: fetus

Though there were no concrete evidences from sciences proving that eating habbits can change the baby's gender, thus mothers usually have bigger appetites. So, if they are carrying a baby boy, they will usually eat more than usual when carrying a baby girl. Indeed, the authors of the previous study admitted that the difference in appetite is not striking enough to predict the sex of a baby with accuracy. Some research suggested that the mysterious thing called "female intuition" were also proven effective to predict baby's gender. Ridiculously, either gut feeling or a dream, 60 per cent of the women from the previous study were able to predict the sex of their babies. Some predicted from the shape of their tummy during pregnancy; if the shape is sharpen plus oval, then the baby is predicted to be a female.

Caption: eating habbits

Eating habbits are important. It will not determine the babies gender, but at the very least, it will contribute in assisting your body to conceive the baby gender that you prefer, and I believe a 50 per cent rate for this. Recent research suggest that breakfast are particularly important. For instance, foods rich of potassium will contribute in helping the mom to deliver a baby boy. Here is a list of foods rich of potassium: bran wheat, soy, dried mixed fruits, tomato puree, figs, papadums, raisins, baked potato and skin, and wheatgerms. Banana's are considered as fruits rich in potassium. Experts suggests that mothers who NEVER skip breakfasts will delivered more boys than those who skipped breakfast. I personally suggest breakfast cereals. They are not only healthy, but also considered as food rich of potassium. Some articles also written clearly that mothers who consume more meat (potassium) will have a chance of delivering baby boys, than those who consume more vegetables. Acidic foods that will raise the chance for mothers to conceive a female baby are: asparagus, olive, green pickle, brazil nut, white rice, lentils and peanuts. This also means that well-fed mothers will give birth to males and less well-fed mothers delivering females. This was proven when researchers conducted some experiments with hamsters, and the conclusion suggested that underfed hamsters tend to deliver more females while hamsters not restricted on diet do not.

Caption: sexual intercourse

Other approaches involves the timing of sexual intercourse. An article reported that having sexual intercourse as close as possible to ovulation will allow the maleness sperm to fight meeting the egg. The second alternative approach is douching with water and vinegar to produce an acidic environment for the female for a female baby, and by douching with water and baking soda to make the environment more alkaline for a male baby. We now understand that males referred to alkaline whilst acid referred to females. According to the Cambridge dictionary, douching means to put a liquid, usually water, into the vagina in order to wash it or treat it medically. Lastly, adopting various sexual positions may also increase the chance of conceiving a baby boy, i.e. rear-entry sexual position for having a baby boy and missionary position for producing girls. Missionary position refers to a position for having sex in which a woman lies on her back and her partner is above and facing her. If unsure with the positions, then do check it out on google for a picture of those sex positions mentioned above.

Blog Abandoned!

2010-04-29T03:27:00.001-07:00

Dear readers, sorry for not updating my blog for more than a week. I have some serious time management problem due to both work and studies. I will update the blog as soon as possible. So, please stay tuned!

Tip of the Day

2010-04-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Do you know?

Smoking can lead a person to dementia? Dementia refers to some serious loss of brain abilities in a normal person. In other words, nicotine contained in cigarettes increases Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease happens when the brain becomes riddled with (1) amyloid protein (increases the production of amyloid protein plaques) and (2) tangles of tau proteins. This means that smoking will subsequently reduce the two important components in human body. Although some previous studies suggested that tobacco helps the reduction of the Alzheimer's disease, however recently studies have also indicated that smoking actually increases the risk of Alzheimer's.

Part 5: Brain Regions and Controls

2010-04-08T22:44:00.001-07:00

Brain is the most complex chemistry kit in human body. Due to this fact, many psychology researcher, particularly neurology and cognitive psychologists, started to analyse human brain so they could understand the brain more proper. This mechanism only require steady supply of glucose to function properly (click HERE to read about proper brain foods). In other words, the brain may only absorb glucose as food and nothing else. Human brain consist of 5 main regions; prefrontal, frontal, parietal, occipital and the temporal lobes. Other sub-components of the brain include: cortical, medial, central nuclei, lateral, basal, accessory basal nuclei, executive function etc., but will not be discussed in this post.

Please click on the diagrams to enlarge its size.

Anyway, here is one piece of information to remind everyone before writting this post. There is a research written very clearly that fatness gene will reduce the efficacy of the brain. A group of scientists suggests that people with the FTO gene (fat mass and obesity gene, or fat people) had 8% lesser volume in their frontal lobes and 12% lesser in the occipital lobes. Elder obese adults usually have smaller brains and so, will more likely to develop dementia. Why? Because our brain can only accept blood foods through the blood vessels from the body. If the fats in our body slow down the flow of the blood from flowing to our brain, the consequence is killing the neurons. So, people, try to stay away from being fat.

Caption: human brain

Caption: general view of the human brain regions

I am sure many of us are curious about these function of these brain lobes. What do these brain lobes do? How could we interact the brain and functioning of our body? In this post, I will briefly explain the function of these brain lobes with some diagrams in the below.

Caption: visual

The back section of the brain, the occipital lobe controls human vision. When human perceive information with their eye, the information will travel along the eye (perception) and reach the back of the brain. This is the brain region that deals with brain processing. Anyway, the information will be passed on to many other brain regions to be analysed into edges, forms, colours and positions. Overall, the occipital lobe only deals with visual processing.

Caption: auditory

Caption: left and right brain hemispheres

The auditory cortex of the brain deals with sound analyses. The auditory cortex is located somewhere in the temporal lobe. However, the temporal lobe does not deal only with sound; it also deals with visual perception and analyses. This is why the temporal lobe is an extremely important brain region dealing with information perception. Anyway, the auditory cortex analyses the frquency and location (i.e. which ear, distance etc.) of the sound. Since human brain is splitted into two, the left and right hemisphere; music is analysed mostly by the right hemisphere whilst speech mostly on the left.

Caption: touch

Touch, formelly known as sensory or tactile is one of the five human senses, controlled by the somatosensory cortex. Shown in the picture above, the somatosensory cortex laid on the brain surface around the parietal lobe, and has formed a complex map of human body. The somatosensory cortex also deals more with the most sensitive body parts (i.e. fingertips, toes, lips, genital areas) than lesser sensitive body areas.

Caption: sense

Caption: cerebral cortex

Caption: top-view of the olfactory bulb

Smell and taste important part of human senses, and are usually analysed in the lower region of the prefrontal lobes. This brain region also analyses the olfactory bulb. Olfactory is another term used to represent scent. The olfactory bulb is also the most forward region in the brain, dealing with scent receptors and nerves. On the other hand, the olfactory bulb connect directly with the emotion area, though are less analytical. If you look closely at the diagram above, the olfactory bulb is connected to the thalamus. The thalamus is situated in the midbrain. It deals with relaying sensation, special sense and motor (limb movement) signals to the cerebral cortex, along with the regulation of consciousness, sleep and alertness, and most importantly, it help direct our attention and behaviour.

Caption: speech and language

The two brain areas controlling speech analyses, on the left side of the brain, analyses basic sound frequencies. The two areas are controlled by the cerebral cortex, and are located next to the auditory cortex. The two brain modules, (1) Wernicke's area deals with language comprehension (i.e. the understanding of written and spoken language),and (2) Broca's area is responsible for speech articulation (production). The motor region is intentionally used to control and coordinate the physical process of limb movements (i.e. moving hands and legs), but is also important in the process of speaking. For instance, mouth and tongue movements.

Caption: planning and decision-making

The prefrontal and frontal lobe regions deal with planning and plotting of ideas, and decision-making. These two regions are highly developed more in human than in other animals. These complex brain areas formulate calculations and cognitions, particularly important for intelligent thought. This is why humans are recognised as the most intelligent living being. These components store information about past rewards, what they like and not. They also have a working memory, allowing human to keep and process serveral ideas in the mind at the same time (i.e. multitasking).

Caption: social interaction

The lower region of the front section, the prefrontal lobe controlled our ability to interact socially with other people. The prefrontal lobe deals with complex social emotions, controlling emotional traits such as empathy, guilt, trust and other behavioral control. If the stems in this region are damaged, then human will keep doing inappropriate things, such as criminal and psyhopathic.

Caption: memory

The three types of memory; short term, long term and the episodic memory are controlled by the frontal region of our brain by both frontal lobe and the prefrontal lobe. Specifically, the prefrontal lobe deals with immediate recall of informations. For such, we should thank our prefrontal lobe for allowing us to immediately answer simple questions like 100 + 100. The prefrontal lobe also controls the working memory of our brain. Working memory deals with the three major human memories, and is associated with the hippocampus. The hippocampus govern our long term memories, such as places we went, things we have done and so (click HERE to read more of the hippocampus). Numerous research suggest that the hippocampus is also associated with directions. If so, a person with strong long term memory should have a strong sense of direction. There are some research explained that the long term memories and factual information, gradually shifting around our brain and so, the memories should be analysed by 2 additional brain regions, that is the temporal lobes and frontal lobes. The cerebellum is also an important brain region that store memories of how to conduct different activities.

Caption: emotion

Emotion is probably the hardest component to understand in the human brain. Emotion is primitively connected to the region of the brain called the limbic system. The limbic system lies somewhere in the below of the cerebral cortex. The limbic system is connected to the amyglada, a brain component which controls every aspects of emotion in a person. It is also the brain component producing adrenaline. Adrenaline is a hormone produced by the body when you are frightened, angry or excited, which makes the heart beat faster and prepares the body to react to danger. The amyglada component was heavily debated, when some psychologist believed that this component is not necessary when dealing with human emotion. Anyway, the limbic system has connections with all senses. The limbic system has a very direct link to unconcious reactions such as guts and instincts.

Caption: body functions

Caption: spinal cord

The brainstem in our brain controls our body functions, such as heart beat rate, blood pressure, the release of hormones such as adrenaline, and other basic activities such as breathing, sleeping and walking. The brainstem is located somewhere on top of the spinal cord (look at the photo in the above).

Caption: problem-solving

The anterior cingulate cortex in our brain govern all forms of human behaviour. The anterior cingulate cortex is linked to the limbic system (emotion). This is why it will decide which behaviour is appropriate for us, and how we should react at different scenarios. The anterior cingulate cortex will also monitor our problemss, such as conflict, errors and pain.

Caption: limbs and movements

In psychology, the movement control term has been replaced by motor. Motor represents the movement of limbs. The control of body movement is a complex process. It recruits several brain regions. For instance, we will first plan to walk to "somewhere". The planning process takes place in the prefrontal and frontal lobe. Then, we start moving our leg to that destination. That process involves the motor cortex next to the frontal lobe. Sometimes, walking towards the girl we love involves a different brain components, a part from the three (prefrontal, frontal and motor cortex). The basal ganglia controls the motivaton to move and its coordination. However, the damage of this brain component will result in Parkinson's disease. However, when a person has the Parkinson's disease, most of the time, the cerebellum region of his brain is damaged too. The cerebellum stores routine patterns of movements. Movement also needs continuous feedback from our senses. In other words, body movements will involve many regions of the brain.

Auto-Rechargable Mobile

2010-04-06T02:24:00.001-07:00

When was the last time your mobile phone ran out of battery? Will you feel annoyed when your mobile phone turned off automatically due to the lack of battery while waiting for an extremely important call? Anyway, here is the good news. Nokia Finland filed a US patern of phones that will automatically recharge itself by harvesting the energy from the owner's motion.

Caption: example of a charging phone

Nokia suggests that the mobile phone itself will collect energy from different sources such as the ambient radio waves/transmitter circuit emitted by antennas, Wi-Fi transmitters, and the battery - these are well supported on a sturdy frame. This frame can move along two sets of rails, allowing it to travel up and down, or to the other side to side. The stips of crystals at the end of each rail, moving the phone and the motion will generate the energy (or electricity) for that particular phone. Nokia's goal is to harvest a lot of energy power (50 milliwatts of power?) to keep the battery fully charged at all time. The Nokia research lab at Cambridge (UK) is currently working on a prototype mobile that would eliminate the traditional cell phone charger - an auto-recharged phone.

iPhone 4 (A Real Phone)

2010-03-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

I am sure most of you have heard of the news of a stolen iPhone? Anyway, here is the latest iPhone 4 model exposed by Gizmodo.

Caption: iPhone 4

Tip of the Day

2010-03-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

Do you know:

There are many bad things that are good for us? For instance, drinking coffee. Initially, drinking a cup of coffee is a bad habbit, and is linked to the increase risk of heart disease (or heart attack), raised in blood pressure arthritis and stillbirth. However, in some studies, coffee is the best use stimulant drug that will keep us awake in the morning. It was also proven to improve a person's short term memory, boosts of muscle power and raises alertness. On the other hand, coffee is a major source of antioxidants that will help our body to fight againsts free radicals. Coffee also offer an important component for our body to reduce the risk of diabetes.

Part 4: Improving Human Memory

2010-03-12T22:27:00.001-08:00

Our brain is originally a complex chemistry kit, and so, psychologist usually define the brain as a mechanism. In fact, the balance of our brain is important and will determine the efficacy of the entire brain circulation, for such, the psychometrics (e.g. emotion and behaviour) and memory. I will explain few approaches to enhance the human memory in this post, but first, I will briefly discuss the human memory. You may also wish to read some facts of human brain (if you have not) in some previous posts from this blog (click here for: part 1, part 2, part 3).

Caption: human brain structure

Caption: Baddeley and Hitch's working memory theory, 1974

Generally, there are 3 major components of the human memory; (1) short term (2) long term and the (3) episodic memory. In fact, there are other types of memory, i.e. semantic memory, sensory memory etc. but those are associate memories to the three main components defined above. In brief, the short term memory is a temporary memory store in human that store memory for only 2 to 20 seconds. The long term memory is a long term memory store intended to hold a piece of information for more than 15 years upon rehearsal. An effective method to transfer the information from our short term to the long term memory is by rehearsal. There is a calculation for memory rehearsal: every piece of information will be stored in our memory for 8 minutes, and will be enhanced upon rehearsal. For instance, reading through an identical code for one time should be stored in your memory for 8 minutes. When you try reading through and memorizing the code again, the item will be stored in your memory for 64 minutes (8 x 8 minutes). Anyway, the episodic memory refers to the personal experiences memory, e.g. times of meeting, places of meeting, and other associated emotions. The three types of memories were later combined, are classified as the working memory by some famous cognitive psychologists, including Baddeley and Hitch theory in 1974. The prefrontal lobe will govern the short term memory store while the hippocampus will control the episodic memory. The long term memory is rather complicated. When we remember new information by repeating them simultaneously, our brain is actually passing the information between the few brain components, such as the hippocampus, amygdala and the cerebral cortex. However, these three components are not the only brain regions controlling the three types of memories since memory involves other brain regions, such as the temporal lobe.

Caption: the hippocampal region

Caption: brain regions controlling the three memories

By the way, the hippocampus deals with directions and the long term memory (click HERE to read more about the hippocampus). The amygdala incorprate memories and emotions. The cerebral cortex (also known as the outer layer of the brain) stores the long term memory in many brain regions depending on the information types, namely the language, sensory input, problem solving, decision making etc.

Caption: indepth view of human brain

Anyway, I will not continue elaborating human memory or this post will end up with few hundred pages, and the main objective of this post is the approach to enhance human memory and not explaining about the brain. Our brain usually utilises the chemicals (known as the neurotransmitters) to communicate with the rest of our body. There is a story which explained the difficulty of enhancing our brain memory. The story goes like this: if only our brain is a computer, we could easily upgrade the processor speed and RAM (random access memory). This means that improving human memory requires slightly more effort.

Here are some tips to improve your human memory.

The psychological view has suggested 7 principles to enhance a person's memory. Here it is: (1) brush up your memory by using them regularly. Novelty and sensory stimulation is the foundation of brain exercise. This means that the more you work something novel with your brain, the better you will be able to think and process. Learning new strategy is also important to enhance your memory (2) Paying attention is important because the paying serious attention to something will help the information to be sent to the hippocampus and flow to the appropriate memory store, so try not doing any multitasking (i.e. study in a quiet room) when concentrating (3) try to include other senses when concentrating is an effective way to enhance your memory. Try to relate the information in a varied way, involving other senses, e.g. smell, touch, taste etc. A mixture of senses such as reading (visual) an article aloud (auditory) were proven helpful to enhance your memory (4) relate informations you have already know may help you to generate new knowledge from old knowledges in your brain (5) external representations such as writting down an information somewhere (e.g. a piece of paper) are additional approach to enhance a person's memory (6) interpreting a complex material in simplistic form may help you to focus on something easier and (7) regular rehearsal is effective to increase your working memory capacity.

Caption: exercising

Here are some health habbits that were proven helpful to improve a person's memory (1) regular exercise will increase oxygen in your brain, reduces risk of diseases related to memory loss, such as diabetes and heart disease, and enhances brain chemicals for a better brain (2) monitoring stress is important since our brain produces cortisol (a hormone or plaque that damages the hippocampus region, click HERE to read more about cortisol). Usually, stress will not allow us to pay serious attention when concentrating something and so, we are not learning something (3) sleeping is important for memory consolidation and (4) smoking is strictly prohibitted since it may damage arteries that deliver oxygen to the brain.

Caption: water

Foods, drinks and nutrients are extremely important sources for brain memories. It is extremely important to NOT dehyrate your brain since water is the best brain booster (click HERE to read about water consumption). However, try steer clear of caffeine and alcohol, e.g coffee, wine etc. Those may mess up your emotion (including mood, behaviour and stress) and destruct your brain in a long term condition. There are some facts proposed by some nutrient experts, stating carefully that some vegetable fats (also known as trans-fats) may reduce the efficacy of a person's brain. Examples of trans-fats are fats found from margerine and low fat spreads. So try avoid consuming them regularly.

Caption: rich nutrient foods

Anyway, poor nutrition and lifestyle can easily upset the balance of your brain chemicals. If you have problems with memory, particularly loosing your mobiles, wallets etc. or forgetting a person's name repeatedly, or difficulties to memorize phone numbers after trying out for many times, then you definitely need some brain foods (nutritions) since these nutrients are extremely important and may help you to solve these problems. Here are some examples of brain foods you need for a healthy brain. Essential fatty acids, antioxidants, proteins and vitamin B are extremely important for your brain. (Click HERE to read about antioxidants. Click HERE to read more about vitamin B and B complex). Equaly of interest, though not conclusive, consume some foods with carbohydrate is essential. Carbohydrate will be converted into glucose, and is an extremely important fuel for the entire body organs, particularly brain memory. However, try NOT exceed the intake of carbohydrate (or glucose) or this may lead to some serious disease, e.g. diabetes. These are some foods examples treated as brain fuels: Salmon, tuna, sardines, chicken, lean white meats, tofu, eggs, avacados, spinash, peas, beans, berries, brown rice, whole grains, oats, barley, nuts and seeds.

Caption: the deficiencies of nutrients; stress

There are some special herbs and suppliments recommended by some food nutritionists. They are ideal components for brain memory enhancement.

1. Vitamin B (particularly vitamin B6 and B12) and folic acid are important to protect neurons from breaking down. These vitamin B complex are helpful to produce red blood cells by mean of carrying oxygen from one body organ to another. If you do not consume suppliment pills, then the best source of these vitamin B are dark leafy green vegetables such as spinash, brocolli, asparagus, and some other fruits including strawberries, melons, black beans, soya beans and citrus fruits (e.g. grape fruit).

2. Fatty Acids such as the Omega-3 are concentrated acids associated with the cognitive functions. These healthy fats are opposed to saturated and trans fats, and helps protecting againsts inflammation and high cholestrols. Best source of fatty acids include cold water fish (e.g. salmon, tuna and mackerel) and nuts such as walnuts.

3. Ginko Biloba is a herbal suppliment that was believe to be helpful to increase cognitive functions. It was known as the memory herb.

4. Choline is important to enhance a person's brain function, their mental acuity and neurological systems. Here are some examples of foods contain choline; soya beans, nuts, organic fish such as sardines, and organic eggs.

5. Lecithin may help to restore your brain creativity and thoughts. There are evidences stating that our brain are built up with 20 per cent of lecithin. Foods rich in lecithin are eggs, grains, soya beans and nuts.

Caption: the coverage of memory in brain

Elder adults are usually prone to the deficiencies of vitamin B12 and folic acid, so I strictly suggest to consume suppliments. Try buying Omega-3 suppliment if you do not like eating fish. Overall, water is still the best nutrient for our body and brain, when compared to all other nutrients, so please drink a lot of water every day. Anyway. I do hope that this guide will help some of you to enhance your brain memory, and do share it with all of us (i.e. tag board) on this blog if it work out for you.

Is Water Important for our Body?

2010-03-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

Truthfully, I am writting this post for an extremely important person around me, and so, I will just write some facts that I think is really important for you. I am not here to nag you. Instead, I am here to help. The only way I could help you is to provide you some insight of what gives you a healthier life. Why? The fact is that I truly care about empowering everyone around me, particularly my family members, relatives and friends to be healthier with their lives. For that, a healthy life is often raise within our hands, and that aimed at the foods and drinks that we consume everyday.

Caption: water

I assume everyone know what water is. The combination of the two chemical substances, hydrogen and oxygen are extremely important for our body. Water covers approximately 70% of the earth surface, so does human body. The question here is, how much do we understand about water, particularly the importance of water for our body?

Caption: some disease: migraine

You may find this briefly through conversations with any medical doctors. Thus, they will advice the same explanation: water is extremely important for your body because it helps to flush the toxics off your body. Water is classified as a natural remedy. Drinking plenty of water do cure almost ALL types of diseases, ranging from minor to serious diseases. Water is also a transporter that helps your body to transport nutritions from one part to another part of your body.

Water can lower the incidence of the following diseases: Headache (migraine), body ache, heart system, arthritis, fast heart beat, epilepsy, excess fatness, bronchitis asthma, TB, meningitis, kidney and urine diseases, vomiting, gastritis, diarrhea, piles, diabetes, constipation, all eye diseases, womb, cancer and menstrual disorders, ear nose and throat diseases. It has been a tradition for most Japanese to drink two cups of water every morning, before breakfast (and before brushing their teeth). The first cup of water should flush those mucus sticking in our intestine out of our body and the second cup of water should absorb by our bowel. In other words, please drink water on empty stomach because it was proven scientifically that it could cure these diseases (stated on the above) in a rate of 100%. Even our body muscles and brain consist of 75 percent water. This means that a reduction of water in our body may lead to diminishing of body functions, particularly in the digestive system, and lack of energy in both body and brain power. You may sometimes realize a slow reaction time in your body if lack of water. Water also play an extremely important role in every component of body tissues. In other words, without sufficient amount of water, our body will produce the following problem in: digestion, assimilation, elimination, metabolism (or dieting), respiration and body temperature.

Caption: tap water

Tap water may not be the best source of water for every human although it is easy to get. However, it is not ideal since tap water contain undesirable elements such as chlorine, aluminium, floride, oestrogens and of course copper. However, these water may also contain lead if the water pipes are leaded. Besides that, the addition of copper in tap water may lead to inbalances of our body if ingested. Therefore, filtered water is highly recommended. As long as the water is filtered, e.g. jug filters, fitted water filters, reverse osmosis (RO) filtered water etc., then these water should be safe to drink or consume.

Caption: you need 2 bottles of these waters a day (1 litre per bottle)

So how much should I drink on daily basis? Experts recommended 2 litre of water a day. Two litre by mean 8 small glasses of water. Approximately 2 litre of water a day is highly recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) since we have to take into account that heavy exercises, e.g. gym, yoga etc (this may include sweating) may result in significant water loss. So, drinking plenty of plain water is definitely beneficial. Remember, 2 litre of water does not include tea, coffee, alcohol and soft drinks because these are dehydrating and can lead to nutrient loss. However, fluids such as herbal teas and vegetable juices are esecially useful and should be counted as daily water intake. It was proven that the mineral content of vegetable juices will stay longer in a person's body and thus, better for hydrating the body cells. There are other possibilities to get away from drinking water, that is to consume foods with high fluid content. Some foods contain lots of water, i.e. fruits and dark green vegetables.

Remember, you can never underestimate the importance of water in our body!

Foods: Is It Cooling or Heaty?

2010-03-11T08:15:00.001-08:00

Chinese people always suggest to avoid consuming heaty foods when you are having illness, sore throat, ulcers etc. But what heaty foods really are? The difference between heaty and cooling foods is always referred to the capacity of our body in generating sensation; though these foods do not aim at the temperature of the food itself, the sensation of the food will affect our body.

If a person suffers from cold rheumatism, eating foods with a warm or hot energy would be helpful. However, if the person's acne condition deteriorate due to the consumption of fried foods, it is beneficial to consume cooling foods to counter heatiness and relieve symptoms. This is all depending on the balances between the consumption of heaty and cooling foods. Therefore, you will see most chinese are consuming the two types of foods equally; drinking a cup of tea (cool) with a plate of fried rice (hot) and a plate of black pepper chicken steak (hot). That person will also consume some fruits such as watermelon (cool) after the meal.

Please do remember that anyone who once (or currently) has the asthma allergy should NOT consume any cooling foods. You may consume cooling foods, but definitely not in a regular basis (i.e. eat some cooling food once a month?). So please put that in your mind !

In this post, I will try to name some foods, classifying them in groups of hot, neutral and cool.

Caption: cooling foods; strawberry and cucumber

Cool Foods:
Bamboo shoot, banana, bitter gourd, clam, crab, grapefruit, lettuce, persimmon, salt, seaweed, star fruit, sugar cane, water chestnut, watermelon, lotus root, cucumber, barley, bean curd, chicken egg white, marjoram, oyster, pear, peppermint, radish, strawberry, tangerine, and yogurt, broccoli, cauliflower, zuccini, corn, tomatoes, pineapple, turmeric.

Caption: neutral foods; beans and papaya

Neutral Foods:
Honey, corn, abalone, apricot, beef, beetroot, black fungus, carp, carrot, celery, chicken egg yolk, cuttlefish, duck, fig, kidney bean, lotus fruit and seed, milk, olive, oyster, papaya, pork, potato, pumpkin, radish leaf, red bean, plum, sunflower seed, sweet rice, sweet potato, white fungus, yellow soybean, brussels sprouts, snow peas, sweet potato, taro, dates, figs, raspberries, raisins, sage, rosemary, thyme, brown rice, apple.

Caption: hot foods; blackberries and ginger

Heaty (hot) Foods:
Pepper, cinnamon bark, ginger, soybean oil, red and green pepper, chicken, apricot seed, brown sugar, cherry, chestnut, chive, cinnamon twig, clove, coconut, coffee, coriander (Chinese parsley), date, dillseed, eel, garlic, grapefruit peel, green onion, guava, ham, leaf mustard, leek, longan, mutton, nutmeg, peach, raspberry, rosemary, shrimp, spearmint, sweet basil, tobacco, vinegar, walnut, jackfruit, durian, leek, shallots, spring onion, , apricots, blackberries, black currant, mangoes, peaches, cherry, mandarin orange, grape.

By the way, ice cube is originally hot, but beer is cold. Coconut is hot, but the water contained in the coconut contained sodium (cooling) that will increase the speed of recovery for fever. However, it will not always work out for fever. This is also a reason I will not encourage anyone to consume coconut juice when they are ill.

Sugar: The Story of Our Beloved Puppy

2010-03-09T10:32:00.001-08:00

Woof ... woof ... grrrr

"Do we have any plans to bring any of these puppies home", I quirked my head in a peculiar way. Liz noded her head and said: Yes! and slowly glances through the window at Daryl who has just finished parking his car at the roadside. Let's run to Daryl and see what he thinks of getting one home.

Caption: Sugar

Caption: sleepy-head Sugar

I was brought up from a dog lover family. It has been many years since the last time we had a dog at home. Let see, we used to have at least 5 to 6 different dogs breeds at home, including Pomeranian, Dobberman, Shar Pei etc. Unfortunately, both my parents felt extremely upset when they died one by one and therefore, we did not keep any pets at home anymore. According to my mom, the longest lifespan of a particular dog can never exceed 15 years, though I have read some articles from some blogs, stated clearly that their dogs exceeded 18 years of age and still alive. But have you imagined when the dog dies. How would you feel? I mean, how would we feel? We have ever thought of that, too, but again, which living being will not die when their time is up? So, we still decide to bring a puppy home on that day.

Caption: how is it like to sleep with Sugar

Caption: we were about to bring her home from the pet shop

Caption: myself and Sugar at the pet shop

The reason I took so long to write this post is because the lack of photos taken with Sugar. I spend many nights (including few nights of sleep with her) just to capture as many photos as possible so I can share it over here.

Caption: brought Sugar back home

We returned home later. During the journey back home, she was sitting quietly in the car, around Liz's arm. She was shivering! She was crying! I could not sense the presence of her eyes since it was totally covered by her tears. She was feeling extremely scared and worried. The only thing we could do was to pet her, along with some cuddles to calm her down.

Caption: Sugar and I

Caption: Liz and I, and Sugar

Caption: some random photos

Truthfully, I did not observe any cute dogs, particularly annoying dogs like Chi Wa Wa because they are too noisy. As I walked passed the shop, glancing through the window, I could see at least 20 types of puppies locked inside the kennels. The first puppy I approached near was a black puppy. Brandon think it was ugly because of it's colour, but again, I ignored them. I kept spying on the so called black puppy without even looking at what dog breed and its price at all. Accidentally, I found out that this cute puppy is a Dobberman breed (unfortunately, I did not save a copy of the photo of this cute puppy Dobberman). Since then, I have never spy on that puppy anymore - Here is a story related to a puppy Dobberman: A friend touched his friend's dobberman because he found it cute. Suddenly, this cute little Dobberman accidentally bitten his finger. It suppose to be a minor injury since getting a bite from a 2 months puppy is not a big deal at all. Two days later, this friend found his hand paralyzed, and rushed to the hospital. He found out that he was infected with rabbies. For your information, rabbies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in warm-blooded animals.

Caption: Daryl and Sugar

So why have we chosen a Chow-Chow? What a tough question. To be frank, since young, my favourite dog should be a Golden Retriever. My only reason is that a retriever is so fluffy and cute, along with its special ability in assisting the disable people, particularly the blind people. My perception of a favourite dog is totally different as soon as I met Sugar. According to them, they said Sugar is a part of the champion breed. The champion breed means the dog's parents have won numerous awards from different events and shows. This explains why Sugar is quite different from other Chow-Chow puppies.

Caption: Sugar and her mom

Bringing a new puppy into your home will change your life indefinitely. Puppies are definitely a lot of work, but they could also bring plenty of joy to you. Whether or not of getting your first puppy or just need a refresher course, there are many things you'll have to know. However, it is definitely worth keeping one puppy pet at home, especially one that is really cute and comfortable to hug when you need someone around you at any time!

Caption: look at the position of her tail

Okay, here are some informations we have collected: The Chow-Chow is a beautiful and loyal dog breed with has a rich historical background for both companion and as working guard dog. One of the most remarkable feature of the Chow-Chow dog is that the blue black colour of its tongue. A part from that, the tail is always position to the north compared to other dog breeds. There are various descriptions given to a Chow-Chow dog. Some said that Chow-Chow can be a difficult pet due to its stubborness whilst some said this dog breed will only stick to one owner and not other people. It hate's getting wet as in showering and is perfect to be kept in any places including an apartment since it rarely bark at anyone, unless to strangers! A part from that, the Chow-Chow dog are meant to survive in cold places (i.e. colder temperature place), I assume too hot will peel off it's fluffy fur.

Caption: cotton-made sandals, Sugar's favourite toy

Caption: Sugar is playing with a cloth

Caption: says who a Chow-Chow dislike bathing?

Caption: super wet Sugar

Overall, Sugar is a little difer compared to what have been described on other blogs, from our experiences at least. She is only hyperactive IF you could find something to attract her attention. Else, she will prefer sitting down, or perhaps, lying down peacefully in the aircond room. I think the most attractive thing that will attract it is a towel. Besides that, something soft should ease its itch for the growth of its teeth. She can also be a very lazy dog where it can sleep for one whole day inside an aircond room. Oh, most importantly, she loves bathing. Says who a Chow-Chow dislike bathing? I can't believe when Sugar can be so obedient sitting down (or lying down) while bathing. By the way, Sugar is an extremely dicipline dog. She will only pee and stool at one place, when well trained. She will only wait until someone open the door so she can pee and poo outside the original spot. Sugar is also a quick learner. When we said: "Sugar, sit", she will definitely sit down. I think she has grown smarter now, and that she has understand some sign languages. When we move our fingers, asking her to sit down, she will obey and sit. Though we have not trained her to greet us with both her hands, but I am sure that she will learn it real quick. The information provided by other Chow-Chow owners are so much different than those I have observed myself. Therefore, I assume we can only conclude anything by experiencing it ourselves.

Caption: Sugar loves to travel by car

Caption: prepared to sleep with Sugar

Caption: she is extremely comfortable to sleep with

By the way, theres a myth saying that your very own puppy pet will sometimes has the ability to heal their owner or anyone they treat as their family member. If the myth is true, then the puppy will lick your wound and it should recover within a short period of time.

Caption: Sugar on my bed

We have some plans to mate Sugar with some special Chow-Chow breed in the future, and Liz had promised me to let me keep one of her baby, and I think I will not mind a male or a female Chow-Chow. I even have few special names for him or her, but will only reveal it when I own one of them, so I can have more time to choose a more suitable and cute name.

By the way, you can view more photos of Sugar through my facebook account. Feel free to discuss anything about a puppy Chow-Chow here, particularly when you need more information of it.

How True is This?

2010-03-06T00:45:00.001-08:00

I found this article from my friend's blog. Every sentence do make some sense if we try to relate them:

Men say: beer is better than women, because:
(1) You can have more than one beer a night and not feel guilty;
(2) Beer dosen't care if you fall asleep after you've had it;
(3) Beer tastes good;
(4) You always know that you are the first one to pop a beer;
(5) After you have a beer, you are committed nothing more than dumping the empty bottle;
(6) With a glass of beer, you can always get good head;
(7) When you say you love beer, you really mean it;
(8) A beer has no problem with you taking its top off;
(9) Beer has no mother and can be mature within a year;
(10) Beer won't follow you around for a week after you've had it;
(11) A beer makes everything OK, a woman makes everything a problem;
(12) A beer won't get upset if you come home and have another beer;
(13) Beer is happy to ride in the trunk of your car;
(14) It's easy to compliment a good beer;
(15) You can shoot a beer;
(16) Beer dosen't want foreplay before you have it;
(17) If a beer leaks all over the room, it smells kinda good for a while;
(18) You are never embarrased about the beer you take to the party;
(19) You can have a beer in public!
(20) A beer is always wet;
(21) A beer will always go down easily;
(22) BIG, FAT beers are nice to have;
(23) When you go to bar,you know you can always pick up a beer;
(24) Beer dosen't think football is stupid;
(25) Beer dosen't go crazy once a month on a regular basis;
(26) You can share a beer with your mates;
(27) Beer dosen't demand equality;
(28) Beer stains can easily be washed out;
(29) Beer dosen't make you go shopping;
(30) Beer always listens and never argues.

And women say: chocolate is better than men, because:
(1) Chocolate is rich, dark and satisfying;
(2) With chocolate, you are never disappointed when you open the wrapper;
(3) Chocolate dosen't care how many pieces you've eaten before;
(4) Chocolate always hits the spots;
(5) Chocolate dosen't secretly want to be eaten by your best friend;
(6) Chocolate dosen't think the shipping channel is stupid;
(7) Chocolate always smells good;
(8) Chocolate won't ask "am I the best?"/"how was it?"
(9) Chocolate dosen't sulk if you don't want it first thing in the morning;
(10) Chocolates are easy to pick up;
(11) Chocolate satisfies even when it has gone soft;
(12) You can suck a piece of chocolate in front of your mum;
(13) Chocolate never leaves a bad taste in your mouth;
(14) Chocolate dosen't mind what time of the month it is;
(15) You don't mind the brown stain left by chocolate;
(16) With chocolate, size dosen't really matter, it's always good;
(17) Chocolates do not wear white socks;
(18) Chocolate dosen't mind you bite its nuts; :
(19) With chocolate, you don't have to be a virgin more than once;
(20) "If you love me, you will swallow that" has real meaning with chocolate;
(21) You can have more than one chocolate a night without ruinning your reputation;
(22) Chocolate dosen't just think it's smooth;
(23) Chocolate aren't into rope and leather;
(24) With chocolate, you can tell just by looking at it, that it hasn't been in anyone else's mouth.

Tip of the Day

2010-03-06T00:28:00.000-08:00

Sorry friends and readers, I am pretty busy lately to compose something. I will, I swear, as soon as I have completed all my experiments (it is completing very soon) as a part of my PhD work, and will write something truly interesting here.

Do you know:

Smiling will is essential because it was proven that will increase a person's lifespan. For instance, a research has stated that a person with honest grins lived an average of seven years longer than those who smile occasionally (or not at all), and usually five years longer than those who faked it.

Tip of the Day

2010-02-21T00:21:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Chameleons are the only lizards that eat breakfast? There are evidences shown that this lizard can catch their pray with their tongue at a body temperature of 15 celcius or at warmer, 35 celcius degree, way too different than other lizards.

A Little Update

2010-02-09T21:30:00.001-08:00

busy... busy... busy...

But, what am I so busy with? T h e s i s writting! I am also currently working in a research dealing with the blind institution in my country. Lot's of preparations and software developments, and stuffs like that. Oh yah, I am also busy with 'some' music production work! These are massive workloads, but of course, a very fun activity.

Caption: a puppy Chow Chow

By the way, we went to this pet shop few weeks ago, walking around, gazing at some really cute puppies. They are really cute! Then, from no where, Liz proposed to buy one of the puppy, planning to bring it back home. Well this is really a surprise for me, because a busy lady like her should not has any time to handle a pet. Yet, her mom will not allow petting at home. But finally, we have chosen a really cute female puppy (Chow Chow), paying around RM 4k to the pet shop and brought her home. Two months old at that time, she is extremely cute for me and everyone else. Everyone also proposed a name for her, thinking which will suit her most. Guess what, we even proposed names like Brenda, Lovey, Lovely, Cutey, Baby, Darling, Bear-Bear (indeed she do look like a bear) etc. but finally Liz had chosen Sugar. Why was that? Because she is just as sweet as a piece of sugar ;)

Caption: she don't even bother looking at us!

Caption: Sugar in her kennel

Caption: how was it like to bath a Chow Chow?

Caption: oh dear, you do enjoy bathing!

I will write a longer post about Sugar soon when I have some time for blogging, again.

Tip of the Day

2010-02-02T22:06:00.003-08:00

Do you know:

Complex aroma from foods appears to produce a fullness feeling? A team of researcher compared 2 different strawberry aromas in two small pots of yoghurt, and asked volunteers to test it out. The first pot contained simple aroma from one chemical, and the other a more complex aroma produces by 15 different chemicals. Both groups of volunteers were given the same amount of yoghurts. The result of the experiment shows that the volunteers feel more satisfied and full after eating the yoghurt with complex aromas.

Invisible Survillence

2010-02-02T22:06:00.001-08:00

The accident rate is increasing every day by day. If only drivers could glance through walls, then the amount of accidents should significantly be reduced. There is this augmented reality technology built to help drivers to glance through blind spots. But how does this work? They uses two cameras in 2 different spots (shown in the picture below); (1) to capture the driver's view, and (2) to capture the scene behind the wall. Then, they uses a computer to connect through the second camera (behind the wall), projecting the scene in a big screen to make it look as if the wall appears to be transparent.

Caption: how the camera works

In other words, CCTV do have blind spot where u can't capture every single part of a place. This may enhance the security system whilst preventing accidents from occuring all over the place.

Video: transparent wall with the augmented reality technology

Although the technique of combining images from two different cameras looked simplistic, they were extremely challenging to develop. The research team from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) were trying to emerge this technology into a car. First, they are going to utilise a video processor, tuning it into a wireless roadside camera that has the capability of viewing hidden spots onto the windscreen of the car rather than just a small monitor. The project is funded by Denso, a car parts manufacturer based in Japan.

Apple: iPhone 4G

2010-01-17T23:45:00.001-08:00

These dodgy images were found from some websites, and of course, no additional informations of the phone (besides those written in the below) were given.

Caption: iPhone 4G

Caption: iPhone 4G

1. 4G support: The phone per se supports up to 4G data rates significantly, and better access to the internet by its data retrieving speed of up to 100 megabits per second.

2. OLED screen: A brighter and colour enhanced OLED screen than the iPhone 3GS.

3. Camera: A 5-Megapixel camera phone.

4. Dual-core processor: The iPhone 4G is going to be a successor of the HTC HD2 (1Ghz processor) by integrating a ARM Cortex A9 dual-core processor. The clock speed of the iPhone 4 is going to run at the speed of 2Ghz, making it an extremely powerful and portable machine.

5. Touch-sensitive case: It create a new innovative way to control your iPhone. As much as touch-sensitive casing sounds like a massive navigational leap for the smartphone, Apple's recent buyout of Magic-Mouse, who specialise in the technology, could well help bring it to life in the iPhone 4.

6. Removable battery: The apple technology is about to change. It was rumoured that we could remove the battery of the iPhone 4 and replace with a different one.

7. Video Chat: The iPhone 4 incorporate a front facing camera which would help to support different video chats such as video conferencing.

8. Front-facing camera: The front-facing camera will unlock the possibilities of facial and expression recognition of the user when using.

9. Location-sharing software: Users can share their location with their friends with this additional but novel technology.

10. Size: The size of the iPhone 4 is bigger than its previous version, the 3GS.

Caption: additional photos of the iPhone 4G

Caption: additional photos of the iPhone 4G

Caption: additional photos of the iPhone 4G

Caption: additional photos of the iPhone 4G

Caption: additional photos of the iPhone 4G

Two Musics

2010-01-10T05:44:00.001-08:00

Let's enjoy the two music played by ting ting (you may also log onto your youtube account to give her a vote by clicking HERE for the first music, and HERE for the second music if you enjoy listening to the music).

Music one by Mika Nakashima: Always (Sayonara Itsuka" theme song)

Music two composed by Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata (3rd mov)

Tip of the Day

2010-01-03T01:47:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Murdering a person as in sleep walking is not recognised as a crime? Why? Recent research identified that sleepwalkers (particularly those with lucid dreams, click HERE to read about dreams) have showed no activation in the brain area associated with emotion and movement. A medical journal reported that, "as long as you are in a dream, you have no free rein on your actions and emotions". This means that a person who murdered a person while sleeping could use this reason to make a strong defence in the court.

The Importance of Sleep

2009-12-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

The perception of audio cues, or auditory is recognised as an automation process. This was recognised by a group of psychologist who studied about sound and sleep in the Northwestern University in Evanston. According to them, sound may enhance your memory while sleeping. Then, they conducted some experiments with 2 groups of people. The first group of participants were asked to memorise a computerised-image associated with sound. For example, a picture of a dog, along with some barking sound, infront of a computer. They were asked to nap later. The barking sound was played for them to listen when sleeping. The results of analyses have proven that the first group could remember better than the second group.

Caption: sleeping

Sound is something important, that will enhance a person's memory. The same theory applies to scent. A group of scientist at the University of Lübeck (Germany) found that people were usually better at remembering objects belonged on a computer screen with the scent of a particular object which they had smelled during the learning task and when sleeping. The two scenarios above were proven to be useful to boost a person's sleep learning capacity.

In fact, sleeping is something very important for human. Sleeping is usually a process for us to continue our healthy life. It is a natural restorative cycle that allows our body to rest properly by regenerating itself, so that it can continue to function appropriately. Therefore, taking a nap in the afternoon is healthy for you. A researcher at the Loughborough University (UK) who studied about sleep as a part of his research, suggests that a 10 minutes sleep will enhance performance. This applies to overtired drivers, and could save plenty of lives. On the other hand, computer game players who dreamed about that particular game during their sleep would play the game better in the next day, compared to other players. A brief explanation is that their mental effort increases as soon as they dream of something, and so, sleeping do improve our learning capacity. Although a short nap is useful, but do remember to NOT ignore long sleep. There are various research suggest that long sleep may improve memory performance.

Caption: stages of sleep

My traditional understanding of NOT sleeping enough often refers to the delay of growth rate. Since young, everyone have been telling me that sleeping late / insufficient sleep may cause our body to not grow well. In fact, there are many research proven that sleeping late may become obese. The research by a group of researcher in the Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, in Ohio) found that 15 per cent of short-sleeping women have grown fat compared to other people (click HERE to read the PDF). In other words, there are possibilities that the sleep deprivation effect may increase your weight rapidly! Anyway, the lack of sleep is usually hazardous. Some people recognised the lack of sleep may cause grumpiness. A research from the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) found that the person who had lack of sleep may usually feel groggy. They could not perform simple mathematical calculations!

Caption: the hippocampus

By the way, how will sleep improve our memory? In psychology, our working memory is usually associated to the hippocampus (click HERE to read more about the hippocampus). The memory improvement is referred to the transferring of information from the hippocampus to other brain regions (cortex) while sleeping. Here is a depiction of our brain: when we were sleeping, our short-term memory will transfer information to the hippocampus (long-term memory). The information will be processed in the long-term memory, and sent to the cortex after processing. This explains why sleeping will improve our memory. Other evidence include a reveal from the psychologist of the University of Kansas Medical Centre (Kansas). The psychologist believes that sleeping may enhance the motor region in our brain (a component that deals with muscles control; i.e. eye-movement, limbs etc.).

How many hours do we need to sleep everyday? Well, this is an important question. According to most health journals, childrens (age 10 and below) do need 11-12 hours everyday. At age 10, we need approximately 9 hours of sleep a day. For most adults, 7.5 a night appears to be the best amount of sleep. Elder adults (age 55 or more) usually need 5 hours of sleep a day.

Brain: Jokes and Laughters

2009-12-24T22:35:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, I was wondering how human brain works when a person get excited when they heard some jokes, whilst start laughing? In fact, humour is an important understanding to human psychology, especially when jokes require a tremendous amount of brain power and mental activities where a human can never fully understand how joke usually works. Many neuroscientists have used numerous methods to pin down how the brain react when a joke tickled us. However, why some jokes are extremely humorous to some people, but the same joke leave others cold.

Caption: laughter

Caption: brain regions

So, what is joke? The Cambridge dictionary dictated joke as : "something, such as a funny story or trick, that is said or done in order to make people laugh ". Since jokes are meant to be funny, if so, how can we explain cold jokes? A researcher from Durham University (North Carolina) also suggests that jokes will aim at human ability to make rapid judgements about a situation. The question here is which section of human brain deals with these processes.

Caption: fMRI machine

Caption: fMRI detector

Some neuroscientists from New Hampshire utilises the functional Magnetic Resonance Imagine (fMRI: is a system to monitor the blood flow the human brain), monitoring human brain when watching movies. They revealed that our left posterior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus in human brain handle jokes. That is also the brain region that linked to language and attention. On the other hand, this section of the brain has some relation with the motor output (movement of limbs), associating with the reward processing. This explains the pleasure you attain, moving your limbs etc. when you get a joke. The correspondence level of limb movement also depends on the humour level of that particular joke.

Caption: ventral striatum

Caption: prefrontal cortex

Caption: cingulate cortex of the brain

The ventral striatum is a section of our brain that deals with rewarding. By the way, there were 4 major senses in a human: (1) eye - vision (2) ear - auditory (3) touch - tactile and (4) nose - olfaction. This ventral striatum controls the olfaction (also known as olfactory), the sense of smell. Recent research indicated that the olfactory strongly involved in tongue activities. It means that our tongue may stimulate the olfactory senses. Different rewards such as drug, sex and other entertainments (i.e. music, movies) are involved in this region of the brain. Though humour (or joke) is way more complex compared to other primeval rewards such as sex and food. Why? Mainly because activities such as sex only involve circulation of information within small sections of brain regions (such as the ventral striatum) but jokes usually involve other brain regions also, such as the frontal and cingulate cortex. Things are usually more complex and complicated when it involve circulation of information within many brain regions! The brain sciences unit at Cambridge (UK) indicated that jokes are basic reward for a person, but are strictly important to a person's survival.

Caption: the left prefrontal cortex

Senior research Watson suggests that the process of a particular joke may circulate differently to a men and women. This means that both men and women may perceive a joke differently. There are research that focuses at this topic, stating that women will show greater activity in their left prefrontal cortex than men. This means that you require more effort to make a women laugh than a men. In fact, women show greater response in their limb movement than men. This suggests that women do feel a greater sense of reward. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (vol. 102) suggests that a person's personality is also important in the contribution of jokes. It was stated that there were more reward responses in an average person (average by mean of extrovert and emotionally stable). By the way, the left prefrontal cortex handle different cognitive abilities such as language, memory processing and other more significant activities dealing with stress and other more complex mental processes (also known as the executive function).

Many future research are aiming at the rewarding system as they do believe that the reward system is disrupted in depression, and could be interesting to see if this deficit extends to more complex processing such as humour. They are also looking forward on similar research dealing with austism since people with autism have difficulty understanding comedy.

Tip of the Day

2009-12-14T21:46:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Why human yawn? Most research suggest that the lack of oxygen in our brain or the lack of fresh air causes a person to yawn. Well, that was true at some points. However, recent research has proven that yawning is coordinated to the social behaviour of a group. This means that when a person yawn in a bus, other people will start yawning very soon. This may be due to the human ability of detecting and responding to other people's yawns.

Proteins

2009-12-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

There are few types of proteins; animal proteins are those that comes from animal products and vegetables protein that comes from vegetables, particularly green vegetables. In chemistry, the amino acid is a molecule that builds up proteins. There are 8 amino acids with which a person's body need for different functions. If any amino acid components are missing, then the protein sunthesis in our body will significantly be reduced. However, if we consume any foods that has all components of the amino acid, then that particular food is called a complete protein. Most vegetables does not have all amino acids. So what a person usually do is to consume different vegetables in order to attain all amino acids for their body. For instance, grain is low in methionine (an essential protein for body nutrition) but pulse contain sufficient amount of acid amino. Therefore, consuming both grain and pulse together are important.

Caption: protein and water

Recently, there are some evidences from some medical journals, stating that proteins may heal a damaged brain. A group of scientist uses laboratory mices for their experiments and analyses. They compared brain injuries of 2 groups of mices: (1) laboratory mice and (2) controlled mice. They spend 7 days and discovered that mices with brain injuries have much lower amino acids compared to controlled mice. These amino acids are usually found in protein-rice foods because proteins has the ability to build muscles. Their experiments also proven that sufficient level of amino acid have caused mices to perform better on learning tasks. This means that protein may have the ability to increase a person's intelligence in learning. The differences of human and mices will probably aimed at their hippocampus (read more about brain and hippocampus by clicking HERE), particularly a person whose brain was damaged. It will usually affect their excitement level! This means that lack of protein may also affect our excitement when doing something.

Caption: protein synthesis

Protein is an extremely essential component in a person's body. It usually deals with building tissues, nerves and bones. Protein will also help in building muscles (evidences from the above), organs, blood, skin, hair and nails. Therefore, a bad skin quality may inform you the lack of protein in your body. Body proteins are usually broken down when converting into energy if your body has insufficient carbohydrate or fats. Therefore, it is a very useful component, acting as a substitution of carbohydrate. People will usually go for protein drinks when dieting, rather than eating massive amount of carbohydrates (i.e. rice and noodles). Excessive amount of proteins that is not needed will usually convert to fats by our liver, and stored for future usage.

Caption: protein pyramid

Enzymes are made off proteins. Enzymes has a function that breaks down fats and carbohydrates in our body. Those are usually known as the digestive enzymes. A part of that, proteins are also useful for our immune system. We know that antibodies are needed to fight against bacterias and viruses. However, do we know that these antibodies are actually made up of proteins? Maybe consuming some protein drinks or foods enriched with proteins are useful when a person is ill?

Caption: some examples of protein

Here are a list of protein sources:

1. Lean meats: organic chicken
2. Fish: organic oily fish such as salmon, sardines, haddock and cod.
3. Pulses: chickpeas, lentils, beans, soya beans, tofu and miso.
4. Eggs: chicken eggs
5. Dairy products: milk (goat's milk is easier to digest than cow's milk), cheese, yogurt and fresh cream
6. Saturated fats: butter and palm oil (but try not overconsuming them, else it will lead to high cholestrol level), omega-3 and omega-6 fats (the omega fats are needed for brain functioning, hormone activity, proper metabolism, healthier skin, hair and nails). omega-6 fats are usually attainable rfom seeds (i.e. sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds) and nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, apriccot, macadamia nuts). Only saturated fats like coconut are acceptable and are appropriate to be consumed regularly.
7. Unsaturated fats: olive oil and avacados.

Caption: protein structure

In conclusion, protein may heal brain injuries / damaged. However, the researcher has no specify what kind of damage it will heal. Brain diseases such as tumor and stroke are famous brain diseases that causes brain damage. If so, will consuming protein heal it in long-run?

Medical Robots

2009-12-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

The world smallest surgeon was developed with the intention of crawling into our body whilst performing surgery. This 1.4 cm beast is sometimes known as the nanobots that has the potential of swimming through the blood. These robots usually take tissue samples and deliver drug for our body through vital human organs such as the ear, eye and lungs. It also has the capability to install other medical devices inside our body.

Caption: medical robots

Caption: the robot in our retina (eyes)

Caption: the actual size of the medical robots

This is how surgery works with the medical bots in the future. Instead of operating our body with large incisions before performing surgery, the surgeons only need to insert a 1 cm device into our body, particularly for surgery related to stomach and gall bladder. The surgery with the medical robots are proven to help in reducing blood loss, surgery pain and increases the recovery speed. This special device could form a snake by connecting 15 of its similar piece simultaneously. The purpose is for hard-to-reach area in our body. One other speciality of the medical robot is that it could perform stitching from the inner part of our body.

Caption: heart lander

A similar but different device to the medical robot for heart surgery, namely the heart lander has been developed. This device has one purpose, that is to deliver minimal invasive therapy to the surface of our beating heart. It is a special device used particularly for cardiac therapy. In other words, this device will help in reducing necessary damage accessing to our heart. The heart lander is twice the size (3 cm) of the medical robot specified above. The main benefits of using the heart lander is: (1) the price is affordable (2) the motion of our heart beat will not affect the operation of the device (3) it does not breach the lung space, and (4) the device could monitor the specific section of our heart, in the exact location.

Caption: future surgery robots

The heart lander is monitord by a surgeon through an external monitor (called the X-Ray video machine), controlling the movement with a joystick. Alternatively, the device has enormous sensors that could detect and navigate its own path to that particular spot in our body. Recent research as reported by the Innovation Journal, stated that the first testing was successful with pigs. A roboticist suggests that these medical robots should be available for use by surgeons in the next 5 years.

Tip of the Day

2009-12-08T05:36:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

A medium-glass of orange juice will ruin a person's diet since it usually contain 200 calories (considering the amount of vitamin C and some other vital nutritions containing in it). Therefore, please make sure the orange juice is freshly squeezed from oranges as cheaper brand orange juice mostly contain unnaturally high levels of sugar.

Happy New Year 2010

2009-11-26T17:46:00.001-08:00

We have finally reached year 2010. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you the love with your family and friends, the happiness and joy, the best of everything and of course, a better year a head. Happy New Year!

Caption: fireworks at Bandar Utama

Caption: fireworks

By the way, how did you celebrate your new year eve / new year? I have celebrated the new year eve in a very special and fortunate way because we get to eat something really huge, definitely more than any portion of food most people ever had in their lives. By the way, how many McDonald burgers can you eat in a meal? Let says 3 or 4 the most? Anyway, let me draw a clearer picture. Also, click on any photos to enlarge its size.

Caption: New York New Deli @ 1-Utama, opposite Cold Storage

Long ago, let says 4 months back, when Daryl told me about this humongous-sized burger and said: "this burger tastes really good, though the size is super huge!". Well, fine then since he suggested that the burger is really tasty, why not going there when I return home during Christmas. When I returned home, and listen to what they have said, I then noticed that eating this giant burger is free (no charges), if we accept the challenge. But what challenge was that? Brandon explained that this New York New York Deli restaurant has this "Giant Yankee Burger Challenge" where customers need not pay for the whole burger if they could finish the burger and fries within an hour. That sounded great to me because I love challenges. Although the fact is that currently no one posted any photos on blog, stating that they managed to complete the challenge. Is the burger really that difficult to finish? I have even browsed some photo's of the burger online, and I think I should be able to finish it (initially) within 30 minutes.

Caption: the original size of the burger (beef burger): taken from some blogs

Caption: inner burger

They planned to dine at New York New York Deli restaurant for celebrating New Year Eve, and so, Daryl asked me to not eat anything in the morning. Seriously, I think I have read this from some articles, stating that the theory of food consumption will not depend on how little we eat on that day. This simply means that not eating anything in the morning will not contribute to eating more at night. Therefore, I had a heavy breakfast before dinner. Aunty Georgia decided to join along to whitness the process; she wanted to see how are we finishing the giant-sized burger alone.

Caption: menu (READ THE MENU)

Seriosly, everyone had a shock when they know both Daryl and I are going for the 'giant yankee burger' challenge. Personally, I felt a little nervous when reading other people's blog. They sounded scary when mentioned the Giant yankee burger challenge in some online forums. In fact, it is true that most bloggers suggest that they were unable to finish the burger alone because the size of the burger itself, plus the significant portion of chips (or fries) are almost impossible to finish by a normal human being. I feel they are exaggerating when I saw some photos from some blogs: "Don't be a chicken, we dare you to finish the monster chicken burger alone". It was written very clearly on the menu. Though it sounded a little exaggerate, they have been browsing on Google and could not find anyone finishing the burger in time (within an hour). Weird, I am sure there must be someone who can finish it on earth. Else, this challenge is kind of worthless due to the waste of time.

Caption: when I planned to start eating the burger

The burger is enough to feed 4 people. The main ingredient of the burger is: 2 pounds of chicken/beef, 8 inches of bun (with a thickness of approximately 10-12cm including the bun and patty), with sauce, salad and cheese. By the way, 2.2 pounds is equal to 1 kilogram. Okay, here is the rules of the giant burger challenge. We have an hour (the time starts ticking based on our own watch). That was fair for me. According to the chef (Mr. Eric), the original challenge should have 1 kilogram of fries. However, they reduced the amount to around 700 gram (or so) of fries so someone could possibly win the challenge. They will ignore charging us if we could finish the burger.

Caption: daryl with his own strategy of finishing the buns first

So, we start eating. I could sense that aunty Georgia was staring at me when I start eating the first quarter of the burger. Although the workers in the restaurant suggest to finish the fries first, but I think I will not make it if i finish the fries first. Psychologically, I think I should finish the burger first. I remember finishing the first portion in 2 minutes and the next in around 3 minutes (finishing half the burger within 5 minutes), and worst is, I still feel okay after finishing half of the burger! The chicken patty is made off solid chicken meat (90% meat, 10% flour). This is what I told Brandon: "I will definitely finish the burger in time".

Caption: "enjoying" the challenge

I start feeling sick when I start eating the 3rd quarter of the burger. Why is that so? Because the size of the burger is really huge, and I could barely bite the burger properly. So what I do was to compress the size of the burger by force, pushing the 2 buns againsts the chicken patty to reduce the size of the burger in sight. Although the burger looks smaller now, the weight should be about the same. Anyway, I still had a hard time finishing the 3rd portion due to the texture of the bun; it is dry and gluey when I start chewing it whilst making my stomach bloated when start drinking plenty of water and swallowing it. I just continue biting and eating, drinking plenty of water and green tea, and finally finished the whole burger within 25 minutes of the elapsed time. Here is a tip. Green tea is helpful in digestion.

Caption: unfinished portion of fries on the plate

I started to have a tremendous bad feeling when staring at the fries. If the amount of fries is near to 1 kilogram (I believe it should be around 700 grams) in weight, how am I going to finish it in such condition. I have been thinking rapidly, again and again repeatedly. Overall, the burger tastes okay for me. The chicken is fine and tastes really good good. However, I will not recommend eating the bun if possible. The quality of the bun is bad, so keep chewing it will make it tougher to swallow. Time passes really quicly. Maybe an hour is not sufficient to finish the whole burger and fries entirely. The photo above was taken 20 minutes before the challenge ends.

Caption: Giant Yankee Burger Challenge [COMPLETED]

Daryl had become my main motivation for that challenge. I could see him eating non stop. I believe his stomach is really strong or energetic on that day. Simply giving up will make me look pretty weak *LOL*. In addition, it is silly by just giving up when I only have fries left in the plate. I start speeding up eating when I have 3 minutes left, and managed to complete the challenge within the remaining 5 to 6 seconds. Thank God! Anyway, I feel like vomitting later. Glad I did not finally.

Caption: the chef and I

Caption: hooray to both Daryl and I

Finally, the chef (Mr. Eric) told us that there were around 6 people who had successfully finished the challenge. Yes, only 6 people. He added: "one customer was from Singapore, and the rest were from East Malaysia (i.e. Sarawak, Sabah etc.)". Therefore, Daryl and I should ranked at 7 and 8 in the chart *LoL*. Mr. Eric added that "no one in Peninsula Malaysia has ever finished the challenge yet" so the two of us were probably the first in West Malaysia. Initially, we finish the challenge so we are not paying for the 2 burgers. I recalled Mr. Eric mentioned about giving us a free membership card (e.g. 10% discount on all their products, getting free drinks, etc.) but we have to wait till the restaurant to have such membership card and rewards. I am a patience person, so that should be fine by me *evil grin*.

Caption: the 2 orders were subsequently slashed out from the receipt

Therefore, says who a person cannot finish a giant yankee burger? To anyone who plan to accept the challenge, just go for it. Remember, if I can do it, then should able to do it! Trust yourself and you will definitely make it! Good luck.

Christmas Trip

2009-11-26T17:34:00.001-08:00

Penang is an island located in the north of peninsula Malaysia. This island embraces modernity whilst retaining traditional architectures all over, including well-preserved heritage buildings in its capital, George Town. Penang was also regarded as the food capital in Malaysia. In fact, the foods and its beautiful coasts have entices visitors all around the world, particularly from western countries. This post is relatively long, and so, I will try to summarize as much as I could. On the other hand, please click on the images to enlarge the size.

Caption: Penang island

Caption: map of Penang

I am feeling extremely grateful for the travelling plan organised by aunty Georgia. This is probably the second time travelling to Penang. The first visit should be around 15 years ago. Our story began in a place called the Batu Ferringi, a place positioned somewhere in the north of the island. We stayed at aunty Georgia's condominium in "Miami Green" in Tanjung Tokong. The place is marvelous. However, the only dissatisfaction we had is when our personal car park is always occupied by some other residence. Basically, the security are doing nothing! I even suggested the security to make more money by clamping the cars parked at other people's space!

Caption: miami green condominium

Caption: the view from the condominium

The most exciting part of our journey is the never-ending food consumption. Guess what, we have been eating non-stop since the first day we reached the island. The schedule in most of my trips are usually crowded, packed with different activities (e.g. walking around, shopping). Indeed, this trip is very different. We enjoy the freedom, spending quality time for something we are interested with. Therefore, a tour is never fun if not well-planned.

Caption: Daryl and I

Caption: Daryl, Brandon and I

Liz decided to buy us some really nice fried banana (we called that as "pisang goreng" in Malay). Although I seldom consume fried foods, the taste was really very great. These fried bananas are definitely perfect savory-sweet treat, particularly for a special day brunch by the seaside. I think this is probably the best fried banana I have ever had! Liz suggest that the bananas are "crunchy in the outside and juicy in the inside".

We visited aunty Q the next morning. According to them, aunty Q has been staying in Penang for more than 50 years. In fact, she is a food critic herself. In any cases, she knows as much about food as she does about the taste of the fanciest meals. We are definitely out of luck if we hadn't bump into her in this trip, thank god.

Caption: fried banana

Caption: fried hawker foods

Caption: eating fried banana

Caption: mini hotel

Caption: the interior of the mini hotels

Caption: myself in the mini hotel

Anyway, aunty Q showed us some well-designed and unique heritage buildings around Penang. We have plenty of walking throughout the day. She showed us the one storey home-hotel, some traditional houses converted to mini hotels. It may sound a little old fashion. However, it provide you a glimpse into a traditional and historical blend into a rich cultural experiences when staying.

Caption: at aunty Q's place

Aunty Q brought us to the George Town city for Teochew Chendul. This Teochew Chendul has a proud history to begin with. According to what I understand, the founder of this Penang Road Teochew Chendul started the business in late 1945. Lately, they have expanded their business to 6 branches all over Malaysia. Therefore, they are extremely successful in this business (look at the amount of customers queuing up by the road). By the way, Chendul is a dessert, consist of green pandan flavour rice flour noodles, added with a variety of toppings such as red beans, coconut milk and shaved ice and dark sugar syrup. I am sure you will like it as soon as you tastes it!

Caption: Penang Road Teochew Chendul

Caption: enjoying chendul

Caption: Daryl protecting Liz in the crowd (the bodyguard from Malaysia)

Our next destination is the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion (also known as the blue mansion). The mansion provided a remarkable history of a successful Chinese entrepreneur in the 19th century. Having 16 childrens (8 males and 8 females), it was stated that his wealth could last for 9 generations. We spend an hour plus, touring around the blue mansion with a spokeman as a guide, telling us the succcessful story of Cheong Fatt Tze.

Caption: Cheong Fatt Tze's blue mansion

Caption: the entrance of the blue mansion

Caption: Liz and I

Caption: the green heritage home

Can you imagine increasing 7 kilograms of weight within a week? In fact, not everyone can do this! Why is that? People are usually reluctant to this because human are usually afraid of getting fat due to several reasons: (1) rise of cholestrol level (2) blood pressure. Sometimes, you need to attain sufficient stress in order to gain some weight (i.e. keep eating when you are struggling with pressure). If so, I should feel proud to increase my weight significantly under a stress free condition.

Caption: padang

Caption: padang (con't)

Caption: aunty Q waiting so happily for a seat

Caption: aunty Georgia eating Apom/Apam Balik (Malay food)

Caption: pasembur

Caption: Penang Popiah

Caption: Popiah

Our first street food with aunty Q was in a place called "Padang" (also known as Field if translated in english). In fact, the portion of the food is not massive, however enough for one person. The flavour of the food is definitely unique. We had popiah (a thin chinese spring roll wrapped with different ingredients, e.g. steamed turnips, bean sprouts, french beans, some slices of pork and tofu) and Pasembur (known as the indian salad, consist of cucumber, turnip, potatoes, beancurd, bean sprouts, prawn fritters, spicy fried crab, fried octopus and served with sweet and spicy nutty sauce). Because every culture has offer their signature dishes in a very different cooking style, the foods that I have had in places other than in Penang is very different. I believe that their special creation have represented a beautiful blend of tastes and spices, and of course, the creativity they have had for the food they produce is extremely tasty.

Caption: the monkey forest

Caption: Brandon, Daryl and I

Caption: deeper section of the forest

Caption: by the mini waterfall

To relax our digestive system, aunty Q brought us to a forest. I called it as the monkey forest and why is that so? Because the most attractive thing I ever seen in the forest is monkey. It is a very nice place indeed, particularly when we do not have to jog like other people when climbing the mountain, I could even feel the breeze by the small lake in the forest. I am feeling extremely relax at that time. We spend approximately an hour here before moving to other restaurant for food. Now you could start imaging how I have gained 6-7 kg within a week!

Caption: Ho Ping Chinese restaurant

Caption: a clearer picture of the stall

Caption: aunty Q and gang ordering the foods

Caption: "pork organ" mee soup

We travelled all the way back to the city again. Aunty Q suggest some really "nice" food. Truthfully, the pork meat, mee and soup was great. However, the pork organs are truely disgusting. Let see what were contained in the mee. They have mee, soup, pork meat and other organs such as pork belly, kidney, liver, brain, intesting and something else with which I could not recall at all. Well, I tasted very small portion of all the organs. Guess what, pork kidney is fine by me because it is tasteless. Except, the crunchy feeling when bitting it is a little disgusting to me. Pork brain on the other hand is truely bad. It tastes as if I am chewing a butter-and-oily tofu. I understand that consuming pork brain will help a human to think better (this is what the Chinese believe). However, mind me, Yucks! Anyway, it is definitely not aunty Q's fault. She thought we like to eat pork organs. By the way, anyone who want to taste the mee soup with pork organ should remember the name of the restaurant, the "Ho Ping" chinese coffee shop in George Town city.

Caption: the lake

Caption: Kim's Asam Laksa shop

Caption: in a place called Balik Pulau

Caption: 2-flavours Asam Laksa

Caption: nutmeg supplier store

Aunty Q and aunty Georgia decided to bring us to this place called "Balik Pulau" (known as returning to island if translated in english). They wanted to bring us to try on an extremely tasty hawker food, Asam Laksa. It is referred to as the sour-fish based soup with a kind of vermicilli noodle. However, travelling from Batu Ferringi is quite distance, about an hour. First, we stopped by a lake. According to Liz, the lake provide water to everywhere in Penang. This means that few drips of toxic should kill everyone entirely in Penang. That sounded scary! Finally we reached the chinese restaurant after driving for approximately 30 minutes. The taste of the asam laksa is extremely tasty. This is probably the best asam laksa on earth! The traditional asam laksa is sour. This is slightly different because it comes with 2 flavours; sour and with santan (coconut milk). The combination of sour taste with coconut milk will produce a brilliant taste. It is extremely special and something new for me. Though I do not prefer eating asam laksa, however, thumbs up to this. Please try if you ever visit the Penang island someday.

Caption: Cheong Kim Chuan (entrance)

Caption: Cheong Kim Chuan (inner)

We proceed to the nutmeg supplier to buy some nutmeg for relatives and friends, and the latter to "Cheong Kim Chuan" in a place called Bayan Lepas. Cheong Kim Chuan is a shop / company which is famous with its nutmeg oil. The nutmeg oil recognised as a traditional remedy and also effectively used as an emergency treatment to reduce rheumatic pain (e.g. limbs, joints and muscles), headache and diarrhea.

Caption: Kek Lok Si (the Guan Yin statue)

Caption: Daryl, Liz, Brandon and aunty Georgia

Caption: myself

Caption: Dog: one of the twelve chinese animals in the chinese astrology (click HERE)

Caption: myself and the God of Mercy

Caption: Kek Lok Si temple

Caption: Kek Lok Si (night view)

Caption: the pagoda (night view)

Caption: around the Kek Lok Si temple (night view)

The Kek Lok Si is a chinese temple located just opposite to Cheong Kim Chuan. It was also recognised as the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. The Kek Lok Si temple has a humongous-sized bronze Guan Yin (recognised as the Buddhist God of Mercy) statue, located in the middle of the temple. The history of the temple is a little striking when the Guan Yin statue was once strike by the lightning. Rumours said the statue detached and later reformed again few years ago. There is this cable car service, lifting visitors to different sections of the temple. However, the size of the cable car is too small to fit few of us. Therefore, we ignore using the service. Also, a complimentary and special thanks to Jordan Lyle for such wonderful night view photos.

Caption: Asia cafe

Caption: Portugal-style steam fish

Caption: roasted duck and bbq pork with rice

Caption: myself and the great fried oyster chef - Mr. Ming and his family

Caption: Mr. Ming frying the oyster

Caption: fried oyster

Caption: remember this fried oyster shop in Asia Cafe Penang Hill

We went for food again after the tour in the Kek Lok Si temple. Aunty Q decided to bring us to the "Asia Cafe" near the famous Penang Hill. There, we get to meet the famous "Fried Oyster" chef, Mr. Ming. Guys and girls, if you ever visit the Penang island and planned to taste the best fried oyster on earth, please visit this restaurant and look for this shop and chef. I can ensure you that you will taste the best fried oyster you have ever taste in your life! Rumours said that Mr. Ming was invited to many countries to cook his famous fried oyster for many catering events.

Caption: Hard Rock Hotel

Caption: myself in Hard Rock hotel

Caption:Liz in Hard Rock hotel

Caption: myself and the King of Pop's statue

Caption: a very nice ambience in the Hard Rock hotel

Caption: Hard Rock hotel

Caption: having some fun in the mini-park in the Hard Rock hotel

Caption: walking around the beach

Caption: Brandon is having some fun in the Hard Rock hotel

We returned to Batu Ferringi an hour later. Aunty Georgia brought us to the Hard Rock hotel. That is definitely a 5-star hotel from the price per room. The hotel was attached to the beautiful beach. Although it was dark at that time (around 8.00 PM), we have decided to walk around the hotel. We did not stay there due to the overpriced room they offer. However, we do enjoy walk around the beach. If you look at one of the picture in the above, you could see how excited Brandon is. By the way girls, Brandon is still single and available :)

Caption: nasi lemak

Caption: some nasi lemak we ordered

We went for food again next morning. This time, we had some traditional Malay food in Batu Ferringi. The food is just moderate, nothing really special to me. I think the reason is the bad-behaviour offer by their workers.

Caption: Gurney Plaza

Caption: inside the plaza

Caption: aunty Georgia and I

Caption: in the G hotel next to Gurney Plaza (we called that as the 'G'eorgia hotel)

After that, we went to this shopping complex called Gurney Plaza. Gurney plaza is a premier lifestyle mall located at the centre of Penang, George Town. We spend an hour or two, walking around the mall.

Caption: gambling

Caption: Liz was playing some songs for me

Caption: one of the 3 (43 inch) televisions aunty Q randomly won when shopping

Caption: glutinous ball Liz's grandma prepared for us for celebrating Winter Solstice

We returned home later and start gambling among each other. Initially, we do not use real money for gambling. Instead, we used some fake chips that act as money for gambling. However, we have invited aunty Q to join, and finally uses real money because she prefer gambling with cash. Anyway, she acted as the banker. Though we have many people dealing with her, trying to win all her money on the table, however I am quite reluctant to accept the fact that she is a great gambler with plenty of luck! Indeed, she is usually a very lucky person. Therefore, please think twice before gambling with people like aunty Q. Else, you may regret.

Caption: Sin Lee Hin Chinese restaurant

Caption: steam egg

Caption: steam brocolli and some vegetable soup

Caption: fried tofu and some french beans

Caption: fried fish and fried lemon chicken

We went for food again an hour later. This time, we came to this typical Chinese restaurant for a light meal. Originally, I am a person who prefer eating home cooked foods. The taste is just nice for me since all these are home-cooked foods.

Caption: Miami beach in Batu Ferringi, Penang

Caption: myself in Miami beach

Caption: Brandon and I were both enjoying the bbq corn

Caption: the process of bbq'ing the corn

We have also spend an hour plus walking around the beach. Although the weather was hot that day, but we were glad there is no downpour as we expected it through the weather forecast. We were soaking in the sun at one of the most beautiful beach in Malaysia, comfortably walking around the without any shoes. While enjoying the walk, Daryl bought us some bbq corns and coconut juice. The feeling was so great even after staying for hours in such a beatiful paradise.

Caption: Beach Corner restaurant

Caption: Hainan-style fried vermicilli

Caption: Duck and Yam dish

Caption: Hainan-style fried egg noodle

Caption: Hainan-style vegetables

Caption: Hainan-style vegetable, popiah and curry fish head

Caption: Hainan-style fried popiah

Caption: Ferringi Garden restaurant (entrance)

Caption: Ferring Garden restaurant (inner)

Caption: the ambience in the restaurant

Caption: they were booking a table from the restaurant

We went for dinner in the evening at the "Beach Corner" restaurant in Batu Ferringi. The foods are really unique and tasty. The chef has also cooked the foods with the Hainanese cooking styles, which produces a very different taste of food that I ever tasted elsewhere in Malaysia. I would strongly recommend the "Duck and Yam" dish to anyone who plan visiting this restaurant someday. After dinner, we decided to walk around. Brandon spotted a fine dining restaurant just opposite the shop. It was the Ferringi Garden restaurant.

Caption: Daryl, Liz, aunty Georgia, Brandon and I

Caption: Liz, Daryl and I before the dinner

Caption: we were enjoying our dinner

Caption: BBQ lobster

Caption: black cod fish

Caption: Grilled Salmon steak

Caption: French style fish and chips

Caption: French-style pasta

Caption: Liz and Brandon after the dinner

There is an online poll, stated that the overall rating for the Ferringi Garden restaurant is 74%. They voted 90% for the quality of the foods and the ambience of the restaurant. Because of that, you have to book your own table a day before the dining. Anyway, we all ordered different foods and really enjoyed them since it is really good. I also think the ambience and scrumptious cuisines in this restaurant has significantly improve our dining experiences. Overall, I would rate it as 8/10 myself. After the dinner, we spend an hour walking around the Shangri-la Rasa Sayang hotel. It is a luxurious 6-star hotel. This explained the reason of why the rooms are tremendously expensive during peak seasons. Roughly looking through the price list, a deluxe suite cost RM 2,200 (around USD $642) whilst RM 6,800 (around USD $1984) for presidental suite per night. That is really costly!

Caption: Shangri-La Rasa Sayang

Caption: in Rasa Sayang hotel

Caption:Daryl and Liz

Caption: Shangri-La SPA

Caption: SPA

We had our brunch before leaving home the next afternoon. The white coffee was really good. In fact, if you love drinking coffee, just order black coffee with milk in any Chinese restaurants in Penang since the taste is just great. Daryl ordered black coffee from all Chinese restaurants that we have visited in Penang to make comparisons, and he think the taste is just nice and thick.

Caption: the restaurant

Caption: Penang white coffee

Caption: Brandon eating Apam (a traditional Malay food)

Caption: leaving Penang

Caption: Penang bridge (one of the longest bridge in the world)

The fascinating fusion of the foods, sight seeing, walking around unique heritage buildings and beaches, tropical gardens and ornately designed temples, Penang is definitely a good place to spend your quality time, particularly with someone you treasure and love. I will definitely spend more time in Penang again, in the coming future. I would also take this opportunity to thank to aunty Georgia and aunty Q for spending their time wondering around with us in Penang, and to our gang for their time and laughter.

2009/10 Wishes

2009-11-21T20:09:00.000-08:00

I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas 2009 and Happy New Year 2010. May this festival bring abundant joy and happiness in your life, and of course, a better year ahead!

Tip of the Day

2009-11-21T08:02:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Human have very long-length blood vessels. As reported in the goggle search, the diameter of the earth is 12 756.2 kilometers. There are evidences suggesting that the blood vessel system in a person is twice the diameter of the earth if we remove every sections of the blood vessel, combining them into one.

High Blood Pressure (con't)

2009-11-21T07:58:00.001-08:00

I had previously written something on high blood pressure (click HERE). However, I believe that only consuming suppliment is sometimes not sufficient, particularly for people who do not prefer taking pills. Since the increase (high) or decrease (low) of blood pressure can sometimes be used to measure a person's health, I will start writting in more detail, especially the type of foods to consume in order to reduce the high blood pressure.

I will stress on food and nutrition on this post.

Caption: symptoms of high blood pressure

As stated in the previous post, high blood pressure is elevated as hypertension, a state where the blood level is abnormally high. It is a physiological state rather than a disease. Therefore, a person can reduce the hypertension with medication or consuming appropriate foods. As a summary from the previous post, blood pressure is measured in two identical numbers (1) systolic is a number measured after the heart contracts and is highest, and (2) diastolic is measured before the heart contracts and lowest. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a person will suffer from high blood pressure when the pressure in their blood is pumping significantly, i.e. 160/90. The measutoement of normal blood pressure is between the two figures; 100/70 a 140/90. The blood pressure below 100/70 produces low blood pressure while higher than 140/90 will subsequently produces high blood pressure. Try to maintain your blood pressure within the two figures.

Caption: what to consume

Those people who suffered from high blood pressure may have no particular symptoms, though some may suffer from headache, nosebleed, palpitation (a rapid and irregular heart beat), visual disturbances, dizziness, chest pain, fatigue and sometimes breathlessness. Having high blood pressure may increase the rate of heart disease and stroke, and associate with various diseases such as diabetes, obesity, kidney. In fact, there are various explanations that causes the high blood pressure. This include genetically, mental stress, overweight, nutrition deficiencies, high cholestrol, kidney disorder, high caffeine (coffee) and alcohol (wine, beer etc.) consumption, smoking and food intolerances.

Caption: importance of dieting

It is really important to consume nutritious foods. If so, you should consume more of these foods when suffer from high blood pressure.

1. Garlic and onions: both of these will help in cardio vascular (increases the efficiency of the circulatory system in an organ, i.e. transporting nutrients, blood gases, hormones, blood cells etc.).

2. Fruits and vegetables (potassium and magnesium): I personally believe you need to consume 8 servings of these everyday, particularly those rich in vitamin B, vitamin C, potassium and magnesium. These are vital for cardio-vascular. Kiwi is a good source of potassium. Lentils and beans are also good source of potassium. Banana is essential to reduce high blood pressure. However, you should not consume more than two a day.Green-leaf vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grain (e.g. brown rice, bread, buckwheat etc.) are good source of magnesium. Whole grain such as buckwheat also contain the B vitamins and fibre, extremely essential for our heart. Fibre is also necessary to remove excessive cholestrol from our body.

3. Fruits and vegetables (vitamin B and C): There is a series of vitamin B (you may wish to read more about vitamin B by clicking HERE). Vitamin C on the other hand is important for healing the blood vessel walls. Both vitamin B and C are almost important to reduce stress! Therefore, you may need a combination of fruits that provide different vitamin B. There are many fruits that contain vitamin B and C, such as kiwi, tomatoes, banana, oranges and watermelon. However, Avacado contain most of the vitamin B (although we should not consume too much avacadoes due to fattening). Other fruits such as peach is also nutritious for a person, though it only contain vitamin B3. You may also wish to consume some fruits that contains vitamin C, such as cantalope, apples, lemon, grapes and lime. They offer plenty of vitamin C. I have match vegetables that a person with high blood pressure should consume. Here are some examples: brocolli, peas, cauliflowers, spinash, green pepper, small portion of potatoes, asparagus, onions, corn and carrots. You should also consume more of these berries: strawberries, blueberries/blackberries, cranberries and raspberries since those provide plenty of antioxidants and different vitamins, way too beneficial for human body.

4. Vegetable juices: vegetable juice is important for our body. It provide significant amount of potassium and magnesium, and other nutritions that helps significantly in the reduction of high blood pressure. This include: carrots, beetroot, radish, ginger, cabbage, chard and celery.

5. Magnesium: consume some magnesium suppliment. They were proven to lower blood pressure.

6. Fish oil: it improves the blood circulation and heal blood vessel walls. However, do not consume any if you are on blood thinning medication.

7. Coenzyme Q10 (CO-Q10): provides antioxidant particularly for our heart. It will reduce high blood pressure when you consume it daily for more than 6 months.

Since high blood pressure is always linked to stress, therefore try reduce stress in the first place. Exercises (e.g. walking, jogging, yoga, tai-chi, gym, ) may help reducing stress. There is one traditional but I heard is a quite effective meditation method. When you wake up early in the morning, sit on your bed, close your eyes, place your right hand on your stomach and simply breath in through your nose and out through your mouth very slowly. Feel the breath in your stomach. You should do this process for 20 times simultaneously. The main idea is to increase your heart beat rate.

Caption: diagnosing high blood pressure

However, these are the foods you must avoid (if you are in the state of high blood pressure):

1. Reduce salt consumption: originally, salt increases the level of blood pressure. Therefore, GP will usually suggest to reduce the consumption of salt. This is one of the suggestion: use herbs and spices to flavour your food instead of using salt.
Foods that contain salt are bread, cheese, ham, bacon, processed meat (e.g. canned meat), biscuits, cereals, cakes, pastry and soy sauce. Also, try not to consume processed foods (click HERE to read). Processed food include ice cream, chocolate etc.

2. Reduce caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, sugar, carbohydrates (DO NOT consume too much rice since rice produces sugar and increases sugar level. Else, please do more exercises such as gym, yoga, jogging etc. to reduce the sugar level), dairy products, fried foods and saturated fats. Try not consuming any margarines, mayonaise and junk foods as these will increase total cholestrol and negatively impact your cardio-vascular health. Olive oil is a better substitution.

The Revolution of Weapons

2009-11-21T07:51:00.001-08:00

The earliest evidence of human using spears as weapon near Germany, sometime around 400,000 BC. That is why we believe that spear is probably the earliest weapon for our most primitive ancestors. As time passes, we travelled into the stone age (called Kalashnikov Era, sometime around 40,000 - 25,000 BC) when human uses stone-made weapons to fight. For example, human uses stone darts to kill deers within 40 metre range. The very initial evidence of stone-made weapons were found in north Africa but spreading out around the world latter. Boomerangs were crafted around 23,000 BC by the Australians, but were widely used in Europe. The earliest boomerang was made by mammoth tusk, found in a Poland cave. Besides that, the boomerang will not return to the owner when thrown!

Caption: the ancient Greek's balista

The first arrowhead was found in 20,000 BC. This is a new evidence suggesting that the ancient civilization uses bow and arrows as weapon for fight. The first arrowheads was invented, and crafted with stone, around 60,000 years ago. However, an Archaeological Science Journal written in 2005 stated that projectile weapons were not used before 50,000 years ago. Human started using horses in their war around 5,000 BC. That era was also known as the Bronze Age when human crafted bronze daggers and swords to fight. In early 500 BC, the China civilization developed rock ball that could sling as far as 125 metres per ball. The same weapon had been used by ancient Greek around the same time, the balista was used as a seige weapon. Balista is a scaled-up crossbow.

Caption: the matchlock (known as musket)

Gunpowder was used in China in 800 BC. The development of gunpowder has lead to the creation of primitive fire weapons such as guns, bombs, fire arrows etc. under the Song Dynasty (in 960 to 1279). Those are new technologies, partly driven by aggressive neighbours (i.e. Jin Dynasty) in the north. The fire weapons has developed rapidly when the Egyptian soldiers uses fire canons for battle in 1260. They are the first who uses fire canons! Projectile weapons have been developed continously in 1415 when English soldiers decimate the French army with longbows in the Battle of Agincourt. The Battle of Agincourt was an English victory against a larger French army in the Hundred Years' War starting on 25th October 1415. The first matchlock was developed since the Ming's Dynasty (in year 1368 - 1644). The matchlock is a handheld weapon known as the musket.

Caption: shrapnel shells

Rocket launchers were used in long-ranged wars in 1750 to 1800. Rockets have become a permanent fixture on battlefields. However, it is quite outdated nowadays. In 1775, the first submarine was used by the Americans in wars. The british armies uses the technology developed by the Chinese earlier, sharpening the technology by producing shrapnel shells. These shells are special. They contain large number of bullets released at high velocities on detonation in the first war. The Americans manipulated the technology by merging all existing fire weapons, inventing guns in 1836. Guns remained popular until today since it could be reloaded quicker than any other fire weapons. The first machine gun was developed in 1851, and a fully automatic machine gun in 1884. The machine guns can fire continuous bullets and could wipe off enemies in the matter of seconds. At the same time, armors were developed. The first bullet proof vest was developed in 1893. The vest was developed with heavy metal plates. A gun silencer was latter developed in 1909. The purpose is to fire bullets without noise!

Caption: ray gun

The first tank was developed in 1914. It helps the British armies pretty much in the first war. Later, in 1942, the first nuclear bomb has been developed in the United States, and was successfully tested in New Mexico in 1945. The nuclear bomb was dropped in both states in Japanese cities (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), effectively ending the second world war. In 1952, the United States has developed a more powerful bomb than the one dropped in the two Japanese cities. It was a hydrogen bomb that uses x-ray that trigger nuclear reaction, similar to the power that take place inside the sun. The first ray gun was developed in 1953, and was built in the Columbia university. The ray gun is a special weapon which uses the radiation beam, producing similar beam as the microwave. The ray gun technology was enhanced to laser beams in 1960. It produces a beam of red lights.

Caption: taser

The first torpedo was produced by the Soviet union since 1960. It can travel 500 kilometre an hour. Taser was developed in 1974, a non-lethal weapon which produces electrical stun that has the capability of turning a person into unconcious mode. In 2001, the United States Military developed a weapon which produces microwave beams that produces sensation intense heat that will forcefully drive human away when getting near to it. Due to safety reason, the weapon is specially designed to use only by the police. The development of weapon is continuous. A high-energy laser namely the Pulsed Energy Projectile (PEP). This weapon can knock you off your feet!

The latest weapon was designated to produce high energy laser from aircraft in 2008. This weapon has the potential of producing series of mid-air explosion by blasting high-powered lasers. Similar to existing laser weapons, this weapon utilises the microwave beam from mid-air. It uses microwaves to heat the surface of the skin, creating a painful sensation without burning that strongly motivates the target to flee. However, currently, the beam could only reach 2 metres and not further. Therefore, this is still an incomplete project. The latest technology is to create ultimate soldiers with neuroscience. I believe this has something that deals with inserting electromagnets digitally into soldiers mind to increase their ability in war! However, this is still a topic of future research.

A Little Update

2009-11-19T07:19:00.001-08:00

Finally returned home again. Though I have not completed what I suppose to complete in the UK, however, quite happy to return home for sister's wedding. We are planning for some trip soon. Yay! Oh yah, another happy thing before 2010; We bought a new car! I get to drive a new car around this time!

Caption: myself and the Mazda RX-8 (click on photo to enlarge)

I guess i will be a little busy to update more blog post until after Christmas.

Tip of the Day

2009-11-18T16:04:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Why do birds (including chickens) crow every morning? The birds will start shouting for half an hour after sunrise everyday. The reason is not because they were stimulated by the sunlights, but due to biological responses. This means that even if the birds are locked in a dark room without lights will still crow every morning.

Gadget: Sense Camera

2009-11-16T16:41:00.001-08:00

Recent development by the Microsoft team, the Sense Camera, has recently been developed. According to what I know about the camera, it was designed to capture photographs passively while it was worn. In other words, the camera will capture photographs automatically upon wearing it. This camera does not has a display. This makes it weird. How could it be possible for a digital camera to have no display at all?

Caption: Sense Camera

According to the Microsoft development team suggests that this camera is not an ordinary camera. I think the main purpose of this camera is to assist disabled users or people variouse disease such as the Alzheimer's disease (lack of memory) - this camera will definitely help them with their daily life. All they need to do is to comfortably wear the camera around their neck. Since the camera is light, I assume wearer should not have a problem wearing it.

Caption: SenseCam

The lens of the camera was maximised so it could couple every possible thing in front. Simply speaking, the lens of the camera was able to completely capture everything in the wearer's view! I am definitely sure that an ordiginary digital camera would not able to do something like that. The camera comes with many different and useful features. These include many different sensors monitored by a microprocessor, i.e. light sensor (maybe similar to solar power where the camera will turn on automatically when detect some light?), a passive infrared detector based on body heat, temperature sensor and a multiple-axis accelerometer. It says "Any sensor readings will automatically trigger a photograph to be taken". This is really amazing.

Caption: a photograph taken by the Sense Camera

From my justification, significant changes in light level or the detection of body heat will trigger the camera to snap a photo. I think the user may also elect the camera to operate on a timer. This means that the user can adjust the timer to capture a photograph every 5 minutes automatically. According to the Microsoft team, the latest software of the camera will be able to detect the position of the camera. Anyway, I think this function is supported in the Iphone 3GS. Therefore, they should operate the same way.

Caption: highlight of the camera

Okay, this is interesting. Although the camera only supports VGA mode (640 x 480 pixels), it can store 30, 000 images. However, as written in their research paper, stated that "Most users seem happy with the relatively low-resolution images". How could it be possible? Anyway, you can also read the research paper here (click here for Paper 1 and Paper 2).

The prototype version of a product is always a little dull. The quality should not attract their customer. However, the second version should look much better, in term of quality.

Tip of the Day

2009-11-10T15:18:00.001-08:00

Do you know:

Why leaves turn brown in colour during autumn? Tree's will go through a process called the photosynthesis with which they capture the energy of sunlkight whilst converting them into chemical energy (foods for the trees). Therefore, the leaves are usually green in colour. However, as autumn approaches, the membrane between the tree branches and the leaf stems will decline the flow of nutritients into the leaf due to the shortening of hours (daylight) and falling in temperature. These interference causes the green colour leaf to fade to yellow.

Sleep Deprivation

2009-10-25T15:52:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, I was wondering the consequences of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is a form of psychological torture produces due to the lack of sleep. In other words, how will the sleepnessless affect our body?

Caption: sleep

I have been reading some articles concerned the stress issue. There is one Behavioral and Brain Sciences journal stated that the sleep deprivation effect is considered as a serious type of stress to human. If so, those people who have little sleep every night are trying to put themselves at risk.

Caption: beta-amyloid protien

There is a group of neuro scientist reported that the lack of sleep will cause the development of toxic plaques in the brain area. It seems that stress effects will put our brain at risk by increasing the toxic level. But, how? In fact, it all happens when this thing called the beta-amyloid protein in our brain react by increasing the toxic level. For your information, the beta-amyloid protein is sticky. The plaques will form when the beta-amyloid proteins accumulate together. When the toxics are built in our brain, it will start killing the nerve cells (or neurons). This is why the lack of sleep will help toxic plaques to develop in the brain, accelerating the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer is not a curable disease. It produces a degeneration effect in our brain, particularly at our memory. As written in one of my previous post (click HERE), the effect of the Alzheimer disease will usually take place when a person starts aging (getting older) since the neurons in our brain will subsequently reduce every year by year, and when a person do not use their brain well. The lack of critical thinking (or if we do not use our brain for critical thinking from time to time) will usually lead to the Alzheimer disease. Evidences from Brain Sciences journals stated that these toxic will start building up very quickly when a person stay awake for more than 20 hours.

Caption: the effects of the Alzheimer disease (click to enlarge image)

The image above depicts the results a person's brain when suffered from the Alzheimer disease. The hippocampus which controls the long-term memory is shrinked, severely impairing a persons memory function. This is also a reason of the collapse of memory in a person with the Alzheimer disease.

There are various methods used to reduce the formation of toxics in our brain. First, a group of scientist has successfully examined that this drug called the "Almorexant" will help to lower the amount of plaque-forming protein. However, the Almorexant drug is usually used to cure the insomnia disease, and I do not think you can buy this drug without doctor's prescription. Insomnia means unable to sleep. Second, perhaps the most common way to reduce the formation of plaques, that is to sleep longer everyday. This method is useful to limit the formation of toxic in our brain, or perhaps will block it entirely.

Caption: brain regions affected by sleep deprivation (click to enlarge)

Anyway, we could not stop the formation of toxics entirely since the beta-amyloid protein will be produced automatically in our brain as soon as we are awake! There is a group of neuro scientist from the Cambridge University in UK indicated to not consume pills when we have the Alzheimer disease. It is probably not an advisable approach to mitigate the effects of Alzheimer. Instead, they suggest to do plenty of exercises. Exercising is an effective and natural way to keep our body to induce a better sleep. Of course, the building of proteins (toxic) in our body is not only caused by the lack of sleep. They believe that other biological factors will speed up the process. Some biological factors include (1) the foods we consume (2) the weather, e.g. cold, warm etc. (3) mental stability, e.g. brain injuries and (4) infections from various diseases.

Caption: comparison of the brain of a normal and alzheimer patient

Overall, I think the most effective approach to reduce the formation of plaques is to sleep more and properly. There evidences from different medical journals, reported that a person should sleep around 10 PM - 4 AM, or from 11 PM to 5 AM since that is the time our body will repair abnormal cells in our body.

Pregnancy

2009-10-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

This post was intentionally dedicated for two friends.

In this post, I will highlight some facts of nutritions with which pregnancy womens should consume during their pregnancy period. Of course, I will try to cover some restricted foods during this period. Please consult a GP (or doctor) for further nutriton and advices during pregnancy period.

Caption: pregnancy

Caption: pregnancy stage

Anyway, I have read some medical books of pregnancy, and those books suggest some facts for fertility. If you want to increase your chances of getting pregnant, you must consume more vitamins and minerals. The book stated this: "Take a good-quality multivitamin suppliment, and combined it with a wholesome diet". The book also suggest that fat is essential for fertility. It says that women need body fats in order to ovulate (a term used to describe the formation of egg in her ovary in which a baby can be formed). Women whose BMI (Body Mass Index) is 20.7 or below will have an infertile chance of 50%. This means they have difficulties in giving birth. Do not worry if your BMI is below 20.7 because you still the other 50% fertility chance. The ideal BMI level a women should have is between 23 and 24, for conception. This was what written in the paper. Therefore, please do not go underweight (and over weight). Anyway, here is a BMI calculator (click HERE). You need to key in your height (in centimetre) and weight (in pounds) to perform the calculation.

Caption: fetus

The BMI calculator is also useful, acting as a health calculator. According to the National Health Service (NHS):

For female

You are underweight if your BMI is below 19.1 (the lower the greater risk)
You are normal if your BMI is between 19.1 - 25.8
You are marginal overweight if your BMI is between 25.8 - 27.3
You are overweight if your BMI is between 27.3 - 32.3
You are severely overweight if your BMI is between 32.3 - 44.8
You are at high-risk if your BMI is beyond 44.8

For male

You are underweight if your BMI is below 20.7 (the lower the greater risk)
You are normal if your BMI is between 20.7- 26.4
You are marginal overweight if your BMI is between 26.4 - 27.8
You are overweight if your BMI is between 27.8 - 31.1
You are severely overweight if your BMI is between 31.1 - 45.4
You are at high-risk if your BMI is beyond 45.4

Caption: twin fetus

I am sure there are some minor issues related to pregnancy which we have understand already, that is the twin babies. If your (and your partner's) family tree do not have of any twins or triplets, then you will never have a twin baby. Please avoid giving birth in late 30s and 40s because that will subsequently increase the risk of breast cancer by 50 per cent.

Caption: pregnancy and water

I am aware that a mother should drink plenty of water during their pregnancy period since water is extremely important for their reproductive system, and is a natural remedy for many diseases. The usual recommendation is to drink at least 2 litres (around 8 glasses) of water a day. Vegetable and fruit juices are recommended. Please AVOID taking coffee (caffeine contained in coffee will increase the risk of conceive), alcohols and soft drinks as much as possible during the pregnancy period since these drinks are not good for your baby. Alcohol is not recommended for the father too since the alcohol-effect will have a probability in killing the number of sperms, subsequently reduces the fertility rate in the women. Besides that, consuming alcohol causes dehydration, leading to nutritient loss. Please also avoid smoking and drugs. Those are negative habbits for a pregnant mother.

An existing medical journal stated that mothers should AVOID taking large amount of vitamin A since too much vitamin A can be poisonous for your liver, particularly during pregnancy period. However, you can continue to eat green and orange-coloured vegetables / fruits (i.e. carrot, oranges). Emotional health is also impotant for fertility. Human, of course, are able to conceive during stress period, but this may result in several difficulties. There are evidences from previous research papers from the Harvard University Behavioral Medicine Centre, stated that too burden (or too much stress) will stop ovulation, and not able to ceonceive.

This are some rumors heard from some elder adults. They suggest to avoid consuming watermelon. According to them, watermelon might generate some negetive effects to the fetus, e.g. abortion. Please do not do heavy exercises (i.e. jumping, rolling on the floor, running etc.) during your pregnancy period. It may also cause abortion. In any cases, you definitely need to buy some new shoes during this period, guess to avoid slipping.

Caption: some fruits during pregnancy period

During pregnancy period, the mother should consume fresh fruits and vegetables. Before and during pregnancy period, the women should aim for 8 servings everyday. This include grains (i.e. brown rice, buckwheat, high-quality protien from organic turkey or chicken, some nuts, tofu, fish) and supply of good fats (i.e. sunflower and pumpkin seed, primerose oil and fish oils). Essential fats (i.e. avacados, nuts and oily fish) are necessary for the reproductive system in your body and is crucial for healthy hormone functioning.

Caption: food pyramid

There are a spectrum of essential minerals needed for a mother during her pregnancy period. First, she need iron, calcium, magnesium, folic acid, selenium, manganese, essential fats, zinc, probiotic bacteria and prebiotic bacteria. These are the main mineral components needed during the nine months. In addition, she need to consume foods which contains vitamin A, C, E, and some of the vitamin Bs (B complex components). Vitamin A is necessary during pregnancy period, but try not overdose. The below are examples of foods that produces such mineral and vitamins:

Folic acid: green beans, spinash, asparagus, brown rice, banana
Iron: eggs, fish, dark green-coloured vegetables, seaweeds, prunes
Calcium: seaweeds, natural yogurt, organic fish, broccoli, nuts.
Selenium: salmon, tuna, broccoli, garlic.
Zinc: seafoods, whole grains, dried fruits.
Manganese: seaweeds, nuts, whole grains.
Magnesium: dark green-coloured vegetables, nuts, vegetables, brown rice.
Essential Fatty-Acids: avacado, olive oil, nuts, fish.
B complex vitamins: brown rice, avacado, lentils, eggs, seaweeds.
Vitamin A (betacarotene): carrots, tomatoes, cabbage, spinash, broccoli.
Vitamin C: raw fruits (i.e. oranges and kiwi), any berries, broccoli, red pepper.
Vitamin E: olives, avacado, nuts.
Probiotic Bacteria: yoghurt, miso.
Prebiotic bacteria: banana.

Caption: the food chart

Of course, there are other foods (and fruits) suggested to increase the chances of fertility. Here are some examples: Avacados, almonds, figs, berries (e.g. strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries), pomegranates, brown rice, oats, seaweed, sprouted clover and sunflower, turtle beans.

Caption: breast-feeding

Breast-feeding. What is good about breast feeding? Because every mammal produces different quantity and type of nutritions (i.e. protiens, fats, minerals, vitamins etc.) in their milk, therefore, the most suitable milk for human baby is the milk from their mother. A medical book written that human milk contains at least 100 different compounds not found in formula (strongly required for the baby's brain development), which means there are never a better substitution of milk than the human milk for babies. The American Journal of Public Health reported that breastfed babies usually suffered 30 per cent reduction in illness in the first six months. Overall, human milk is good for babies for (1) reduces diarrhoea (2) colds (3) ear infections (4) vomitting and (5) fever. I am not sure of this, but rumors suggest that breastfeeding will tighten the mother-children relationship. Breast feeding is also essential for the mother to release necessary hormones whilst burning extra calories (reducing fats) and reduces mood swing or depression. I have ever read an article, stated that breast feeding reduces the risk of breast cancer. If your baby reject your milk (e.g. screaming), it means the mother is out of balance in her liver or probably causes indigestion. Please visit a GP if that ever happens. The process of breast feeding usually take place for only 6 months.

As a summary, women during their pregnancy period should consume:

1. Five portions of fresh fruits and vegetables daily. Stirfying and steaming are two recommended methods suggested when cooking the vegetables. Please drink freshly pressed vegetable juices.

2. You need plenty of complex carbohydrates (i.e. sweet potato, barley, green lentils, carrots, cauliflower, banana apples, berries, papaya, pears). You also need soluble fibres that you may get from green-coloured vegetables to prevent constipation (a very common problem during pregnancy).

3. This is probably the most essential advice. Please drink plenty of water. Expert suggests pregnant women to drink at least 8 glasses of filtered water everyday to maintain their hydration levels.

4. Consume more protien foods during pregnancy in your meal everyday. This includes: tofu, organic white meat, fish (make sure its organic fish), eggs, beas, and peas.

5. Consume essential fatty acids such as omega-3 fats. They are extremely important in pregnancy especially for your baby's brain and eye (vision) development.

6. Consume more calcium foods, such as natural yoghurt, dark-green vegetables, sea vegetables, tofu, almonds. Try AVOID high-volume calcium saturated dairy products such as whole milk, cream and full-fat cheese. Vitamin D is necessary for proper calcium absorption, but you can get this vitamin from the sunlight. So, make sure you go outdoor everyday for sunlight absorbtion (for vitamin D).

7. Consume some foods with iron. One source of high-iron food is red meat (i.e. beef). However, there are many alternatives for vegetarians or vegans, such as beans, lentils, chickpeas, eggs, dark green-coloured vegetables, raisins, prune juice etc. However, to increase your iron absorption, please consume food rich in vitamin C at the same time.

8. Consume folic acid foods, such as sprouts, brocolli, asparagus, peas and brown rice. You should consume 'some' healthy snacks to keep your sugar level balanced. Here are some examples: stewed fruits, dried fruits with nuts and seeds, oat cakes, yoghurt and olive.

Here is the summary of what pregnant womens should avoid in order to not harm their unborn baby:

1. Avoid consuming foods that may contain bacteria called listeria, such as cheese.

2. Avoid raw or partial cooked eggs as they may cause food poisoning. Also avoid foods made using eggs such as mayonnaise, salad dresing and ice creams.

3. Avoid uncooked meats. Also avoid liver products such as fish liver oils since they are excessively high in vitamin A.

4. Avoid certain fishes such as shark and sword fish. DO NOT consume more than two portions of oily fish (i.e. tuna, sardines) a week. The reason is because fish contain toxic metal that will harm your baby.

5. Avoid alcohol, coffee and cigarettes.

6. Avoid consuming peanuts if the babies siblings or parents have allergies to nuts.

7. Avoid fried and unhealthy foods that is too-fat, contain too much sugar, white rice, pasta, white bread, white pasta, and salt.

Tip of the Day

2009-10-16T16:49:00.001-07:00

Do you know:

Originally, chocolate will increase the excitement level in a person. This means that eating chocolate continuously will make us feel happy. There are also evidences stated that consuming chocolates is beneficial for our heart. This was indicated by existing research. However, a recent research published in the British Journal of Psychiatry confirmed that consuming chocolate for a period of time (i.e. 5 years) will increase the percentage of depression! Their research also suggest that consuming whole food (i.e. green vegetables, fruits and fish) will lower the risk of depression 26 per cent. Therefore, try not eating too much chocolate and processed foods (e.g. cocktail sausage) to reduce the risk of depression.

Some Research at Cambridge

2009-10-04T14:43:00.001-07:00

I seriously think this is probably the 100th time going to Cambridge for research purpose, and really weird, I think this is probably the first time taking so many photographs around that place. Anyway, I am extremely happy although I could not complete one of the experiment this time.

Here are some photos taken. I will post the remaining on facebook. By the way, please click on the photographs to enlarge the size.

Caption: Churchill College, Cambridge

There are 31 colleges in Cambridge. Every college has different name. Every colleges will offer different courses. Coincidently, Churchill college deals with psychology and information sciences. This is also why I will only attend seminars, workshops and conducting some research work at Churchill college and not other colleges.

Caption: myself and the Mathematical Bridge at Queens College

Having a very tention and tedious feeling when I ever thought of going back to school for studies again, lol. Maybe I have been studying for a very long time now.

Caption: myself outside the Wolfson Foyer at Churchill College

Caption: myself in the Jack Colville Hall

Took some photographs with Ting-Ting.

Caption: myself and Ting-Ting infront of Churchill

Sometimes, I was wondering, why are they giving me some dairies when I don't usually use a dairy? Lol. Maybe I could use it as a present for my siblings when I return home soon?

Caption: the 2009 - 2010 Cambridge University diary

Caption: content of the diary

I showed Ting-Ting around Churchill college and met some of the professors. We chatted with some laughters. They are extremely nice people. They also believed that Ting-Ting is capable and should consider doing a PhD because she should have no problem handling it based on the way she think and speak. However, definitely not at Churchill college, maybe at Fitzwilliam college or Trinity college Cambridge. I was wondering, hows Trinity college? How's their lecturers? Anyway, I will try persuade her to apply for a PhD research position at Cambridge after graduating her postgraduate, although funding a PhD research is a serious matter for most people. It is very costly! Hopefully a collegue or professor would be able to recommend her a scholarship by then.

Anyway, here are some really beautiful images of bridges taken. Now, the history of the Mathematical bridge may sound a little suspicious to you, when people claimed that the bridge was initially built without nails - but people could actually stand on the bridge without nails! That was so amazing. The bridge was formed based on some mathematical calculations where a myth says that the Cambridge students and research fellows dissembled the bridge sometime in the 17th century and could not resemble it again!

Caption: Mathematical bridge at Queens College

Caption: Trinity Bridge near Claire and Trinity College

Here are some photos taken in Sheffield. Hmm, Sheffield is a really very boring place. This explains why I have not been to this town after staying in UK for almost a decade.

Caption: somewhere in Sheffield Town

Caption: the wheel of Sheffield

Caption: in Sheffield Town

Part 3: Some Facts of Our Inner Brain

2009-10-03T19:54:00.001-07:00

Human brain contained 10 power of (12) neuron (also known as brain cells). This means that a person's brain should contain approximately 1 trillion neurons (1, 000, 000, 000, 000 neurons). In this post, i will explain every single thing in a very simple form because those scientific terms will usually make us feel sleepy when reading. Anyway, humans are able to think because neurons are passing information from one to another at a very significant speed. The neuron will pass information from one to another through tiny wires, and we called them as fibre. There is a mathematical calculation for this, stating that the transmission between information for the fibre length of 60.8 millimeter will consume approximately 1 second. However, the maximum length of fibre between neuron is 1.1 mm. Based on calculation, the actual transmission speed between 2 neurons are 0.0183 second, an extremely significant speed of transmission. This is why human could think so quickly.

Caption: the human brain

The cells in our brain is known as the brain nerve cells. We could also find other nerve cells all over our body - called the body cells. The only difference between nerve cells and body cells is that nerve cells will die due to aging while body cells will not die. Instead, body cells will regenerate automatically depending on different factors (i.e. food that we consume, medicines that we apply etc.). That is why if we cut our finger, it will recover automatically, in the matter of time. However, when the brain nerve cells die, they will not regenerate anymore.

Caption: structure of our body cell

Neurons will die slowly when human starts aging (the amount of neuron will be reduced every year). If this is the case, when we reached to a certain age when most of the brain cells are dead, then we should be infected by the alzeimer disease (alzeimer is a state where a person's mental capacity decreases - simply unable to use our brain memories anymore - i.e. using the short-term, long-term and episodic memory). However, there are evidences stating that using our brain in critical thinking should help to recover from the alzeimer disease. That is why elder adults were asked to perform critical thinking involving mathematical calculations (i.e. playing mahjong) because doing these activities will help stimulating the brain, and prevent brain cells from dying quicker. Anyway, playing mahjong or poker will only exercise the brain so the brain cells will decrease slower. However, those activities should bypass the central executive easily. In other words, those tasks are not significant enough to produce critical thinking. As practice increases, the processing in our brain will jump to the state of automaticity and will not require brain processing from the central executive anymore. Therefore, those task (i.e. playing mahjong) will somehow become useless and were unable to prevent the alzeimer disease.

Caption: Broadbent (1971) upper-lower mechanism stress theory

Because a person's brain is way too complicated to explain every components contained in the brain, neurologists and cognitive psychologist can only predict some parts with theories and structures. Cognitive psychologists argued that single mechanism should be too simplistic when defining many brain processes. Therefore, they do believe that there are 2 levels in a brain. What happen is, the central brain is the upper mechanism in the theory above. The upper mechanism is important since it monitor the overall progress of our brain, particularly when dealing with stress. When we perceive an information (i.e. sound that we listen), the sound will be sent to the lower mechanism, and if dealing with any stress related activities, that particular sound will be sent to the upper mechanism for further monitoring. Usually, our performance will not be reduced when doing anything, except if we were drunk or in fatigue condition. According to this cognitive psychology theory, sleepy or noisy environment will not affect human performance at all. So, people, do not use sleepy as a reason when you were unable to complete a task :)

Caption: the hippocampus

Somewhere in the middle section of the brain, called the Hippocampus. It is an extremely important component (major component) of our brain that deals with the long-term memory and navigation. People will suffer from the alzeimer disease when the surface of their hippocampus is damaged. The hippocampus is a component in the central executive system of our brain. When linking to the theory above, the hippocampus should be somewhere in the upper mechanism (a part of the central executive).

Caption: structure of a neuron and fibres

If anyone have watched the Mr. Brain (a japanese series), then this section is going to be exciting. According to Mr. Brain, our brain need carbohydrate to increase the brain's processing speed. Well, it can be true that our brain require carbohydrate, but not the way he explained. He said the more carbohydrate we consume, the more efficient our brain would be. It is simply not true, since to date, the only thing that will increase brain processing speed is injection that supply MGso4 to a person's body. Other possibility is by consuming certain fish since some fish contained some element that will exchange the food into MGso4. It has the ablity to boost the speed of processing in our brain. Similar to the theory of a car, needing petrol in order to move. The same theory of applying glucose into our brain to make it function. In other words, our brain can only function with glucose. It is a fact that that our brain can only accept glucose through the blood stream (blood veins) as neurons do not have the capacity to store glucose.

Caption: an indepth structure of neuron and fibre

A rough calculation of critical work processing with our brain is, usually will not exceed 50 minutes. This means we need to rest our brain after working for 50 minutes when handling critical processing (i.e. hard tasks or stress). Experts suggest to take 10 minutes break to refresh our brain. Every 10 minutes break should allow us to use our brain for the next 50 minutes again. The most effective brain resting method is to sleep. Only sleeping will rest the brain well. However, there are other suggestions from different experts, that is to do some leisure activities. Some examples are eating, laughing, watching movies, playing video games, walking around, exercising. Banana is a good source that will help in relaxation since the MGso4 (MGso4 is a chemical combination of magnesium and sulfate) contained in banana provide natural way to calm a person's mind. It also provide sufficient carbohydrate, transforming it to glucose for all body parts in a person, especially the brain. Therefore, consuming carbohydrate is equal to consuming glucose since carbohydrate will be transformed to glucose.

However, too much glucose in a person's body will lead to the diabetes disease. That is an extremely serious disease. Originally, a person's body sugar level should be around 4.5 to 6.3 unit/millilitre. Exceeding 5.5 unit is considered as reaching the first stage of diabetes, and the patient will usually be monitored with medication. However, if the blood level in a person's body is below 4.5 unit, then usually, doctors will suggest the patient to drink some water with glucose in it. This approach will help to raise their sugar level to normal again.

Anyway, you may also wish to read more about human brain by clicking the following links: Part 1 and Part 2

HIV Vaccine: A New Hope

2009-09-29T22:23:00.001-07:00

Could you believe, for more than 26 years (since 1984), since the HIV disease (also known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus) was discovered, identified as the AIDS virus had spread around the globe, causing everyone to feel extremely worried when having sexual activities with different partners. AIDS was known as the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, an extremely fatal disease of the immune system with which transmitted through blood products especially by sexual contact or contaminated needles.

Caption: The structure of a HIV virus

Today, there is this very first vaccine that has proven to help protecting people from the HIV disease. It is the RV144 HIV vaccine tested on 16, 000 volunteers in Thailand. There is a quote stating as: "Is this the beginning of the end of HIV/AIDS?". Well, it seems that way to me. Although previously, these scientists tested with many volunteers in 2003 and 2007 using a similar kind of so called 'HIV vaccine', but it failed. If so, do you think this RV144 vaccine will work out in 2009? The answer is "probably" since it require many vaccines (not only this one) againsts the HIV virus.

Caption: a representation of the HIV virus

Does this mean that people should start getting excited about it? Although the reduction of HIV risk is not significant, only around 31%, the test was made mainly for males. This is not the case that made scientists loosing their hope. What really caused the scientists to lose hope is that the possibility that the vaccine will never work! Why is that? The mutation of the HIV virus is a continuous process. This means that even the vaccine is injected in a person's body, that person may subsequently be vaccinated only at that time (early stage). The HIV virus may mutate again without them noticing again, or probably multiply its amount and damaging the immune system. On the other hand, HIV virus usually attack white cells which has a function to protect the immune system from invaded by different diseases. Previously, scientists produces the STEP vaccine trial, hoping to work againsts the HIV virus. Though, the STEP vaccine trial only help our body by generating extra white blood cells for HIV virus to infect, making the situation worst.

Caption: a structure of the HIV vaccine

They conducted some experiments with the new vaccine with 8000+ volunteers. The result have proven that 51 volunteers of 8000+ was infected. The new HIV vaccine is extremely powerful, especially when combined with additional protections such as with condom. Investigators of the new HIV vaccine is still analysing the samples from volunteers, and hope to reveal a further outcome. This vaccine was produced through a combination of (1) Alvac: a harmless form of virus, and (2) Aidsvax: a type of protein found in the surface of the HIV. The hope is that the immune system in our body produces more white blood cells that recognises the viral proteins whilst self-producing antibodies to fight againsts the HIV virus in combat. The overall concept of this vaccine is to produce a barrier, protecting the white blood cells from invaded by any HIV viruses. At the very least, the new HIV vaccine is safe to use, and will not produce any side effects.

A Romantic Piece (II)

2009-09-29T22:22:00.001-07:00

Ting-Ting send me a music she played with her absolute pitch, I think a couple of days ago, and I have decided to share it out to everyone who read this blog at this time.

Please enjoy the music.

Caption: 中島美嘉 Mika　Nakashima - ～愛してる (aishiteru)

Sound Risk with Earphones

2009-09-29T22:12:00.001-07:00

Do you like listening to MP3 songs with an earphone? I remember purhcasing a Sony MP3player and complained that the sound volume is too low, and finally found some solution to 'unlock' the sound level because I think the sound is simply too low. In fact, by doing that, I am actually trying to put my ear at risk! This was confirmed by new research in the US.

Caption: listening to music with an earphone

This is a relatively important issue related to health risk. A recent research from Europe (EU) had proven that approximately 5 to 10 per cent of the population who uses a personal music player with earphone is encountering such risk because they mainly set the volume of the player too high. I understand setting higher volume in an MP3 player will provide sound fidelity, increasing our enjoyment when listening to music. That is very normal, and should apply to myself when using a personal music player. The maximum volume of my MP3 player is 30, and usually, I will set it at 27, high enough to provide satisfaction to myself, especially when walking in a noisy street.

Caption: an example of a personal music player (or MP3)

Actually, what is considered as a very high volume? Around late 1950, Donald Broadbent, a cognitive psychologist who are specialize at sound analyses suggests that the sound level of 90 db and above (similar to litre for measuring water, instead, db or decibel is a measuring term for sound) is considered as noise. Cognitive psychologists reported that the noise produced by many people when applausing in a concert hall is equal to 90 db. Beyond that is considered as noise. The differences between sound and noise is that noise will not only affect our sound perception, producing health risk, but will deliberately affect our stress level (making us very stressful). A much more important effects produces by noise is causing social isolation to that person, and leading people to withdraw from family, work and friends. This was proven by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf in UK. Since we are using earphone/headphone, the surround sound will propagate around our inner ear. That is why listening to music with an earphone/headphone at a moderate volume will easily reach 90 db.

Caption: audiences applausing, reaching 90 db noise

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that setting the volume of our music player too high may even cause permanent damage to our ear. We should encounter permanent damage to our ear if we listen to the music with an earphone for more than 1 hour a day, and probably revealing the result in the next 5 years. The final solution given for people who love listening to loud music with an earphone is to NOT listen to the music for more than 5 hours a week. There is this proposed rules in the Europe, stating that the cellphone or MP3 players should have an indication (i.e. a warning message) prompted to the user when exceeding a 'too-high' volume. But, is that useful? For instance, it was stated that split attention will still occur when we were driving (with our eye) and listening to our cellphone (with our ear) at a time. Even the govenment in many countries have indicated that a penalty will be given to reckless drivers like that, but will anyone bother? The answer is no!

Caption: reckless driver listening to cellphones when driving

Therefore, a suggestion was provided to all personal music player manufacturer, that is to set the default volume to (below average) 80 db, and warn users to not listen to the music for more than 40 hours a week (maximum of 5.7 hours a day). Anyway, I still assume that 90 db is really loud, but easily reachable with an earphone (or even listening to music with earphone, with mobile phones) even at a moderate volume level. However, if the volume is too low, then I think we will probably not get attracted to the personal music player. So, you should decide yourself to either not enjoying the music or put your ear at risk!

Ancient Egyptian Mummies

2009-09-29T22:03:00.001-07:00

I am sure most of us are curious how mummy was preserved. In fact, to date, no one would be able to explain how mummies were preserved. The nearest explanation is what I have seen in one of the information board in the British museum. When the Egyptian was dead, this group of ancient surgeons will ' make a hole ' on the pelvic bone, big enough for their hand to reach into the deceased body, extracting every part of their organ one by one - washing with water (not sure what they going to do with the organs though), placing some mud and other materials such as the ''bitumen'' to preserve their body. I think this is the right way to preserve a body, forming a mummy. Bitumen is a mixture of organic liquid that are highly viscous, black in colour, a sticky material, and entirely soluble in carbon disulfide. It is composed primarily with condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Caption: an Eqyptian mummy

Caption: a well-preserved Eqyptian mummy

Caption: a mummy with the pelvic bone removed, in the British museum

It has been approximately 200 years, since pathologies have no clue of how the ancient Egyptians die. A famous ancient Egyptian, namely Irtyersenu (aged 50) from the necropolis of Thebes in 600 BC was initially diagnosed to die due to ovarian cancer (cancer in her ovary). In fact, the DNA test today had revealed that she died due to tuberculosis (TB). TB is an extremely fatal disease or infection by the mycobacterium bacteria that usually attack the human lung, but may also affect the central nervous system, the lymphatic system, the circulatory system, the genitourinary system, the gastrointestinal system, bones, joints, and / or even the skin. The first vaccine was developed in France, sometime around 1905. Before that, TB is an extremely hazadous disease that will bring immediate death to people who suffered from it.

Caption: mummy sketch by Augustus Granville

The 1825 puzzle has reached to a conclusion today when a group of pathologies from the UCL college in London found the DNA and cell wall molecules of the mummy, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis in the lung, gall bladder and bone samples. It seems that tuberculosis was widespread in ancient Egypt, causes a significant death during that time. Although the mystery of how mummy's death was revealed, but no one could explain how the disease was preserved until today, because no one understands it. This was published in a Biological Science Journal on September 2009.

Handwritting

2009-09-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

I found this extremely interesting article, referring to human's handwritting. According to the article that i read, it says different handwritting will have different explanation, specifically in human behaviour, specifically their attitude and personality. I was quite reluctant to trust all these initially, until I tried comparing the handwritting below with a friend of mine. They have so similar handwritting, and upon analyses, it seems that their characteristics are so similar!

There is one example given by this expert who analyses human's handwritting.

Caption: Handwritting (click to enlarge)

According to the expert, the handwritting above is indicating that the writter is a tension person. This expert analyses the writter's handwritting by looking at the angle and the baseline of the handwritting, along with the narrow and spacing of each letter and / or words.

Attitude: The writer's attempt to maintain a vertical slant reflects his effort to adopt a detached or impersonal attitude, positively characterized by independence and restraint, but negatively by self-centeredness and rigidity. This aloof and impartial demeanor, reinforced by wide spacing between lines, reveals someone resisting the influence of both outside forces and inner emotions, preferring to rely on reason. His is an artificial or escapist attitude, including suppression of emotion rather than absence of emotion.

Emotion: The writer's emotional susceptibility is found in both the fluctuating middle zone size and baseline. It shows that the writter encountered emotional pressure for which there is no release. Equally, the diminished and sometimes near threaded middle zone, small compared to upper and lower zones, showing that he is an insignificant but defensive person. It also represents his weak self-image. Offsetting upper zone dominance is the long, pressured lower zone, but sometimes with full loops denoting a strong sexual drive, sometimes blunt ended denoting frustration of that drive. Preoccupation with instinctual forces is reinforced by middle zone letters and terminals which drop into the lower zone.

Interest: The considerable difference in length between words over the middle zone portrays the writer's never resting ambitions, interests and goals at the outer limits of his ability to achieve. This causes restlessness and dissatisfaction with his life. The handwriting has poor impulse rhythm further suggests the writer is uncomfortable with his inner nature. The writer's energy is primarily funneled into the area of his demanding conscience, represented by the dominating in the upper zone, as well as middle zone angularity and contraction of middle zone letters, particularly of ovals. His ambitions and beliefs control his life. However, upper zone covering strokes and middle zone vowel covering strokes point to the existence of the writer's hypocrisy in these areas of life.

Personality: The high form level, angularity and regularity in arrangement and pressure reveal that the writer possesses good intelligence, hard working qualities etc., the perseverance necessary for success in his chosen occupation. He is sometimes stubborn to face the obstacles or adversity.

Work Life: In his work life, the small angular writing, together with careful punctuation and precise i-dots, portray the writer's good concentration, his hard working and responsible qualities, one who does not shun the drudgery of detail. Connected writing reflects his consistency of thought and a single-minded person. He sometimes will tackle problems at hand in a direct and practical way, and is unhampered by sentimentality or ties to the past, as shown by lack of flourishes in every letters written. He is purposeful and disciplined as expressed in the overall regularity in his writing.

Behaviour: His social behavior is outwardly friendly or at least impartial, shown by small garlands together with verticality, mask a dogmatic viewpoint, as revealed by baseline angularity and some downward terminals. His detached demeanor is reinforced by wide interlinear and interword spacing. The tall upper zone depict that he is ambitiou, tagged along with arrogance. In addition, the tall upper zone speaks of scholarly and philosophical pursuits, and the idealist who expects perfectionist standards of himself.

Relationship: The compressed quality of the writing, along with largely missing or down reaching (some counterstrokes) terminals, show that in close, as well as casual relationships, but definitely selfish and ungenerous. Closed or retraced ovals and narrow interletter spacing reflect limited sharing of his true feelings. The ovals suggest occasional explosions of verbal temper because of emotional tension and sometimes, frustration. The horizontal pressure express his authoritative nature and the imposition of his will on others. These characteristics combined with precise, strong i-dots, many directly over the i, indicate he is emphatic in what he usually says and does. The potential for cruelty is evident in the blunt endings of many downstrokes or counterstrokes. Left tendencies balancing right tendencies testify to a personality divided and held in tension between introverted and extroverted qualities. Such tendencies, together with narrow letters and moderately quick writing, describe the cautious and inhibited individual, pulled equally between the inner forces of his nature and outer forces of his environment.

Overall: The writters opposing forces of idealism and conscience versus frustrated instinctual drives. The battle between the two results in an overcontrolled personality, uncomfortable with himself, paying the price for bottling up his emotions and natural instincts with possible unpredictable eruptions of emotion.

HTC: Windows Mobile

2009-09-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

HTC launched one latest mobile, which many people called it as the Windows phone. Why is it a Windows phone? Because the HTC (model: HD2) mobile utilises the Microsoft Window's technology (version 6.5). Very similar to the iPhone, or perhaps contained better feature and graphical options compared to the iPhone, this mobile also offer extraordinary outlook, at least to me.

Caption: HTC HD2 mobile (Windows phone)

Caption: touch-sensitive screen

Caption: multi-view of the mobile

I think the outlook of the phone is also very similar to the iPhone. By the way, please click on the images to enlarge the size.

Caption: Microsoft Office - mobile version

This mobile utilises the Microsoft Windows operating system, which means we may now work on presentation slides (Microsoft Powerpoint), writting essays (Microsoft Words) and conducting statistical analysis (Microsoft Excel) anywhere we want, saving the work into the mobile and whilst transfering the files through the USB from the mobile, directly to our computers when necessary.

Caption: Windows Live Messanger (MSN)

Caption: message alert

Caption: mobile Windows media player

Caption: mobile Internet Explorer

Besides that, what really fancy me is the graphical applications. The applications such as the Windows media player is so similar to the one that I use everyday to listen to music, with my computer.

Caption: the back of the phone

The 5.0 Megapixel camera phone with a 4.3 inch touch-based display was revealed to be on sale sometime around November 2009, with a price of £550.00 or contract based (I assume £30.00 per month in a 18 months contract). The dimension of this phone is 120.5 x 67 x 11 mm and its weight is 157g. From what I read, this machine contained a miniUSB hub, for easier file transfer. Besides that, the standby time the battery of this phone is 20.5 days, extremely useful for people who travel very often.

I heard this mobile contained much more applications than the iPhone. Anyway, I believe this is the current strongest competitor for iPhone. Since the price for both iPhone and the HTC HD2 is so similar, which mobile will you go for? You decide.

Why Eating Vegetables?

2009-09-17T08:39:00.001-07:00

This post has become a topic since 400 BC the Greek physician Hippocrates when he wrote something like: "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food". This is because during the ancient times, when physicians can only predict that consuming food will help to cure our illness and regenerating our body in better shape. They do not know what nutritions are! However, this became a relatively simple question today, with which a 10 year-old kids should be able to explain it to you: because vegetable is a good source of vitamins and will make us healthier. But why is consuming vegetable making our life healthier? We definitely need some more concrete evidence rather than just saying it is beneficial for human.

Caption: fruits and vegetables

There are strong evidences stating that vegetables are good source of dietry fibre. Remember, fibre can only be found in plants (and sometimes in some fibre suppliments). Some examples are pectin, beta-glucans, hemicellulose, cellulose, lignin, fructans, and gums. All these components are important in human nutrition. They are sometimes recognised as soluble fibre.

Okay, this section is important. I think it is also important to explain in a little detail here. There are 2 types of fibre (1) insoluble fibre and (2) soluble fibre. Insoluble fibre are fibre foods that we consume but cannot be digested. So insoluble fibre that we consume will have one function, that is to pass through the bowel (bowel is referred to the long tube in the body of a person where food moves during digestion), helping other foods and waste to be digested easier. Some examples of insoluble fibre products are brown rice, wholegrain bread/biscuit, cereal, fruits and vegetables. Since insoluble fibre also helps to stop constipation, consuming insoluble fibre will make us feel full easily so we will most likely not eating much food after consuming them. On the other hand, soluble fibre refers to dissolvable in water, but cannot be digested. Soluble fibres may help reducing the amount of cholestrol in our blood. Instead, it absorbs water from our body to form as gelatinous substances that passes through our body. Some examples of soluble fibre products are oat and beans. We should also not forget to consume plenty of water after eating foods enriched with fibre, else we might encounter trouble going to the washroom and/or feeling not well in the stomach area.

Besides that, consuming plenty of soluble fibres will help preventing colon cancer (cancer in the large intestine that serves to remove water from digested food, and allowing waste materials (such as stool) to move through it to leave our body), heart disease and diabetes, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) - eating only vegetables should save around 26 million people in 2005. This was also proven by the 'Journal of the American Medical Association' in 2006. Additional evidence supporting this fact is that 49, 000 females wee used as a subject in some experiment, had proven that consuming vegetables frequently reduces the risks of breast cancer, colon cancer and heart disease.

Caption: what is vegetable?

Other than that, scientists have proven that meats are sometimes important for our body. For example, some of the components of vitamin B could only be found in pork. This means that the vitamin B complex suppliment will only provide most B vitamins that a person's body require, and not all. You may also read more about vitamin B here (click HERE). Anyway, please choose the correct meat to eat if you are meat eaters. In any cases, we should strongly restrict ourselves from eating cud chewing animals since it was proven worst meat compared grain/grass-fed animals. Some examples of cud chewing animals are goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, water buffalo, deer, camels and antelope. Cud chewing means a portion of food that returns from the stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time. I read it from New Scientist once, stating that eating kangaroos are way much better than eating chicken and/or pork!

There is also a statement where was stated by the WHO that the chronic disease is expected to account for 75% of all deaths worldwide by the mid of 21st century. Chronic disease is referred to some diseases that are long lasting or recurrent. Some examples of chronic diseases are heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory and diabetes. So, consuming vegetables daily will definitely overcome these problems.

Caption: meats

There is another good reason to consume vegetables and fruits rather than meat. Apart from being healthy, eating vegetables are definitely better for the environment. Therefore, the National Cancer Institute and American Diabetes Association recommended us to consume at least 20 – 35 grams of high fibre foods everyday. The united states department of agriculture (USDA) also suggests a dietry guideline of 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday. A minimum of 1.5 whole grain food serving everyday is recommended for babies of around 3 years old. The recommended figure of 3 to 6 whole grain serving is recommended for people of age 9 and above. An example of 1 serving of fruits/vegetables is consuming a glass of 100% fruit or vegetable juice.

Caption: fruits and vegetables

Here is a simple figure provided by the USDA in 2005, rougly describe the dietry foods a person should consume, and the fibre contained in the food:

100grams of conflakes is to 29.33 grams of fibre
100grams of cooked beans / seeds without salt is to 10.49 grams of fibre
100 grams of wheat flour / whole grain is to 12.17 grams of fibre
100 grams of dried dates is to 7.98 grams of fibre
100 grams of candies / sweet chocolates is to 5.89 grams of fibre
100 grams of tomato products without salt is to 4.50 grams of fibre

100 grams of soyabean without salt is to 5.99 grams of fibre

You may also prefer reading different but clearer and more detailed dieting portions here (click HERE).

09 / 09 / 09

2009-09-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

I should have post this earlier on the day itself. I just received the photo's today and uploading it on the blog immediately with the intention of sharing such happy news with everyone, especially for some relatives who have not received the news yet. My sister is getting married, and both of them (my sister and brother-in-law) had officially registered on the 09th of September, 2009. Of course, I am extremely excited with this since this is the first time witnessing a registration ceremony, though only through some pictures.

Actually, why is the number '9' so important for chinese people and not other numbers, i.e. 5? Because of this, I have read some articles related to chinese cultures to understand it better. It says that the 9 is a mythical number, representing the symbol of the nine dragons linked to the era of the Emperor's in China. Besides that, number 9 is a homophone that represents the 'everlasting' term in weddings.

I could not elaborate further since I did not attend their registration ceremony. Anyway, here are some photos taken on that day.

Caption: sis and Roy (i)

Caption: sis and Roy (ii)

Caption: swearing session?

Caption: their registration certificate

I also heard many people registered on that day because 09-09-09 is a special date for remembrance. In fact, the registration date does matter for some couples. If so, you should consider getting married on October 10th, 2010 (10-10-10) or November 11, 2011 (11-11-11).

Science and Technologies for Surgery

2009-09-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

Firstly, appologies to people whom i have deleted from my friend list on facebook. I am not sure why having too many friends in one account (i.e. exceeding 500) will subsequently delay the loading time and / or perhaps not allowing you to load the main page at all. Appologies! Anyway, facebook support suggest me to reduce the number of friends and re-add them again. Weird! I even have some friends who have their account exceeding 1000 friends, and facebook just work fine for them. Anyeay, I re-added some of my friends and if I still have not added anyone, please add me again: tlhung@hotmail.co.uk. Thank you :)

Okay, this is extremely important, especially to parents who loves beating their kids. There was this research, explaining that the children's IQ of age 2 to 4 who regularly receive spanking from their parents, dropped significantly over the next 4 years, compared to kids who were not spanked. Another recent brain-imaging study found that children who received regular punishment had less brain grey (neurons) compared with other kids. This means that different constrain factors such as stress, anxiety, or fear will affect the development of brain development. So, do not beat your children. There are many ways of teaching them to behave well, rather than spanking :)

Caption: termal monitor, similar shape to capsule camera in the 1990's

It seems that the world is evolving significantly. I recalled watching a documentary in 1990's, showing the evolution of technology in surgery in the coming decade (now). Scientists are utilising the fusion of technologies, between sciences and enginnering, turning technologies in a more significant shape. They merged a cctv into a capsule to monitor our internal body. It travels through the throat, all the way to the digestive tract, providing sufficient capture for surgeons to analyse. The capsule will be digested, and finally extracted from our body. However, the price is too costly for most patients to use in surgery.

Caption: camera capsule

It was pretty impressive that the capsule theory was re-used again. This capsule will swim from our mouth, all the way through the digestive tract. In fact, the machine was designed to mainly explore the human digestive system.

Caption: spring camera (or monitor)

The next new development is a machine designed similar to the look of a robotic spring, creeping along our digestive tract. According to the research, this robot carries a camera and has the ability to provide alternative and traditional endoscopy. The machine developed by CRIM Lab in Italy (company website: HERE) was believed to be able to examine essential body parts, including the internal gullet, stomach and duodenum (mainly for damage or ulcers).

Caption: range diagnosis

I think with this technology, patients health could probably be more secure when they were able to communicate with their GP in a long distant (but the range is not specified). This means the doctor could look after their patient through this camera and screen. But, whats the difference between a webcam and this machine then? This robot is connected to stethoscopes, otoscopes and ultrasound scanners, providing sufficient help to both the doctor and patient.

Caption: human machine

You might have watched some movies, saying that this lady has problem carrying her husband to the hospital. I think this is how they get the idea, and building up this special human machine. The name of this robot is RI-MAN, developed at the RIKEN Bio-Mimetic Control Research Center in Nagoya, Japan. This robot is special because it could lift anyone of all weight, specifically with the intention of taking over the tasks human carers do for the elderly or infirm. A part from soft and providing safe exterior, this machine has touch sensors on both its arms and torso that will allow it to carefully life and carry a person within the hospital.

Caption: prostate machine

I think this machine was designed to assist surgeons to handle accurately, with minimal effort in removing prostate. Prostate is referred to an enlarged organ in male human (or any other mamals), situated near to the penis, which produces a liquid that mixes with and carries sperm. Prostate is dangerous, mainly when it has successfully turned into the prostate cancer. With this machine, the surgeons only need to measure the size of the prostate while this machine will cut it automatically.

Caption: resembling robot

This machine was intended to carry surgical procedures inside our body. A person can swallow 15 of these resembling robots. When they swallow these robots one by one (up to 15) into their body, the robot will detect and travel to the site in our body, then assemble together to form a larger device, and perform internal operation.

Caption: blood sucking device

This machine was developed by two PhD students dealing cybernatic sculptors in the Imperial College, UK. It was designed to collect blood samples.

I believe all the above inventions are still a prototype now. I also suspect that they are going to produce the real machine similar to these prototypes in the near future.