XRoads

Wow...

I just finished watching a really touching, eye-opening, and rather disturbing documentary on SBS, entitled Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis.

The documentary examined the highly-controversial experiment on nature vs. nurture, conducted by renowned sexologist Dr. John Money, in which a young boy who lost his penis in a botched circumcision was raised as a girl to test the hypothesis that nurture, not nature, influenced gender perceptions. The experiment unfortunately went tragically wrong, with the subject eventually committing suicide after years of depression.

I'm actually quite shocked that despite the subject's claims that he and his twin brother were photographed naked and against their wishes by Dr. Money during the study, Dr. Money has never been criminally investigated for what could have constituted a very serious crime (paedophilia). He even went on to become a professor in paediatrics.

In addition, Dr. Money has never been charged for research misconduct, despite leading people into believing that his experiment had been successful long after the results had indicated otherwise. Isn't this comparatively similar to the case of disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk?

All in all, I rate this documentary highly as it serves as a cautionary tale of what may happen when researchers fall in love with a beautiful theory and decide to ignore the so-called ugly facts in pursuit of personal fame and glory.

Unbelievable...


After nearly 10 years of teeny... boppy... (icky...) gossipy... stuff, like erm:

• How to say if i went her to be my gf
• woe is the prettiest in pcghs f3???
  
• Who likes Baju Melayu ?
• Any1 got this people contect?
• ang ai ling so ugly
  

(mind the Engrish) Penang's infamous Original Kay Po Corner is actually still alive and kicking.

It's funny huh, how some things just never change...

In the first case of its kind to reach the courts, British breast cancer patient Ann Marie Rogers, 54, has won a key legal victory in her fight for the drug Herceptin, after an appeals court ruled that her primary care trust (PCT) had acted illegally in refusing to fund the potentially life-saving treatment for her.

The main problem lay in the fact that Herceptin is an expensive treatment (costing £20,000 per patient per year). In addition, despite studies showing that Herceptin is effective in treating early-stage HER2 breast cancer (which Mrs. Rogers has), Herceptin is only licensed for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Thus, early-stage HER2 breast cancer patients like Mrs. Rogers are only considered for treatment by their PCTs in exceptional circumstances (even after their doctors have prescribed the drug for them), for which there is arguably no rational basis for distinguishment.

That's where the controversy comes in - who's to say that patient A is more deserving of a potentially life-saving treatment than patient B, given that both patients fall under the same category? And in the first place, is it medically- and morally-ethical to withhold an expensive yet potentially life-saving treatment from a patient who simply can't afford it?

The ruling in Mrs. Rogers' favour could thus have broad implications for hundreds of other women in the same situation, potentially leading to fairer and more equal patient access to expensive treatments recommended by their doctors.

Microsoft has created its own ad-free academic search engine, Windows Live Academic, to rival that of Google's (Google Scholar).

Like Google Scholar, Windows Live Academic allows researchers to search the contents of academic journals to find abstracts and, in some cases, full text articles from the publishers' sites. It also features a split-screen for previewing the contents of a particular result.

However, unlike Google Scholar, Windows Live Academic doesn't yet have a feature for seeing which articles cite a particular document.


Verdict: Google Scholar > Windows Live Academic (for the moment at least)

As a contact lens wearer, I've been using CIBA Vision's AOSept hydrogen peroxide-based disinfecting system for over a year now. Though it's slightly pricier than the typical cleaning solution, I find it to be cleaner and more effective.

Since late last year however, it's become increasingly difficult to find the product in Melbourne pharmacies - most pharmacies don't even sell it anymore!

I've been told that the reason for this is that CIBA Vision has actually stopped shipping its AOSept products to Australia. Why though? I have completely no idea.

It's especially strange given that Bausch & Lomb's ReNu contact lens cleaning solution has recently been implicated in more fungal eye infections in the United States, since being first implicated in a series of similar infections across Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei, and Malaysia) early this year.

At a time when I need it most, I'm left pondering, "Arghhh... where have all the AOSepts gone??"

The Melbourne International Flower Show is being held at the Royal Exhibition Building (REB) and Carlton Gardens from 5 April - 9 April. I was sorta dragged to accompany my girlfriend to yesterday's session. As it was, it actually turned out to be quite interesting.

Here're a few of the highlights from the show (excluding the many, many flowers that were obviously on display).

First up, my attention was drawn to the high handles on this bike (was wondering how difficult it must be to cycle one of these).


Anyway, next up - inside REB. Believe it or not, this is actually where we sit for our uni exams.


Notice the odd-looking figure near the bottom-right corner of the pic below.


It was one of the bizarre entries in the fashion design competition held inside REB.


(In case you're wondering what those green blobs are, they're watermelons)

Here're a few of the other entries...





...which I thought, were just weird in general.

I guess the same could be said of these fruits (aptly named cow's udder).


I was told that they belong to the same family as tomatoes and capsicums (Solanum), and are also known as the nipple fruit, titty fruit, and apple of sodom.

Apart from its use as a decorative ornament, the plant apparently has a few medicinal properties, while the juice of the fruit has some detergent activity and can be used for washing clothes (aye, learning new stuff everyday).

As we exited the exhibition, this advertisement struck me:


You can't beat a bunch of Aussies? urgh..... no comment on that one.

Uni fees are continuing to rise steeply here, with nearly all Australian unis raising their course fees by the maximum allowable 25% under the government cap.

At this rate, studying Medicine in Australia, for example, could cost an international student newcomer up to AU$60,000 a year by 2007!

In addition, the newcomer may be subjected to annual fee increases of roughly 7% for the duration of his/her course.

Are these really necessary?

According to this article, unis believe that keeping their fees low would:

1. send the government the wrong message (that they did not need more money).
   
   and
   


2. lead to perceptions of lower quality.

But would it really? I mean:

1. (a) education and research have always been viewed as priority areas of investment by the government, so why should they suddenly stop or limit their funding just because Australian unis don't increase their fees by around 25%?
   
   (b) increasing the fees to such ridiculous amounts would send the government the same message (that they do not need more money because they're getting heaps of it from students instead).
   
   (c) how much more money do the unis need anyway, given that most of the academic staff's salaries are covered by the extravagant fees paid by international students, while the majority of uni research is funded by government or affiliated grants?
   
   AND...
   
   
2. surely the quality of a uni is not judged by the cost of its courses, but rather its longstanding reputation.
   

So, is the widespread increase in uni fees based mainly on sheer necessity or rather, simply by the phenomenon my ex-Chemistry teacher, Mr. George, coins the kiasu effect (i.e. the domino effect)? You judge...

Nah, not really... but I guess The Star just decided to do it again anyway - i.e. combine 2 completely irrelevant stories, under one rather catchy headline, Artiste caught for alleged adultery with lecturer's wife.

(Hmm... what happened to Short Is Good?)


I would imagine that on this instance though, our honourable Health Minister Datuk Chua Soi Lek wouldn't have been particularly thrilled at having his name tied to an adultery story on national tabloids.

One ordinary chicken egg - RM0.30

One egg-straordinary "hor pau tan" - RM5.00

Savouring its taste - Priceless


Find out here what's the deal with the RM5 egg on the left.