MN Idol 2009

This year my school had the MN Idol 2009 in Putra Ballroom on 24 April 2009 morning from 8am - 12.30 pm. I enjoyed myself walking around talking to students, and taking photos and enjoying the music. Though we only have 200++ students, we do have untapped talents here... I'm impressed with the dance category (both groups were excellent, but I prefer Jazz fusion and originality of choreography). The band performances were great... Well, umm... Most of them, but the winner wasn't exactly as expected. Well, what can we do? It was voting system, as per American Idol. So basically who has more money, more influential to the crowd wins.

This year the categories included solo, group, instrumental solo, dance, and band. I didn't manage to take all of it, but these are some of them...

THE PERFORMANCES...

Clinton Liew's Solo Performance

Ripped Label Band Performance

Broken A & D Strings Band Performance

The Wonder Boys Dance Performance

The Beat Chess Band Performance

The Beat Sync Group Performance

The Chiz Family before the judges

The dance groups when announcing results

THE WINNERS and the kidz...

Backstage with the Wonder Boys (Winner for Dance Category)

Ng Shu Ci (Winner for Instrumental Solo). She played Canon in D. Lovely performance!

The Ferrero Rocher (Nazzeef and Fiona) - Winner for Group Category

The Talesweaver with Ms. Chong and myself (they didn't win the group category, but their willingness to participate amazed us all!)

THE LOVELY TEACHERS...

Ms. Chong and me

Ms. Zane and me

(L to R: Cik Siti, Pn. Noraineh, me, Pn. Marrlina, Ms. Wency)

That's it so far... Will update more later on. God bless & Pax et Bonum!

Osteoporosis - How I'm Linked to It?

Tonight I'd like to bring to your attention about OSTEOPOROSIS, big word, isn't it? I just found out recently that my dad's second sister, who is my aunt, has osteoporosis and she broke her ankle some time back. As a rather junior member of the extended family of my generation, I'm rather concerned about genetic inheritance of certain diseases. (I'm a graduate in Biotech, naturally I know about all these inheritance stuffs... also there was an article in Dec '08 issue of Readers' Digest about inherited diseases!) All these while I know about osteoporosis, a disease that infects many women above 40 years old by "giving" them fragile, porous bones. In other words, this disease causes gradual loss of bone mineral density... Here's an excerpt I "ctrl+c" from Wikipedia...

Osteoporosis is a disease of bone that leads to an increased risk of fracture. In osteoporosis the bone mineral density (BMD) is reduced, bone microarchitecture is disrupted, and the amount and variety of non-collagenous proteins in bone is altered. Osteoporosis is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) in women as a bone mineral density 2.5 standard deviations below peak bone mass (20-year-old healthy female average) as measured by DXA; the term "established osteoporosis" includes the presence of a fragility fracture.^[1] Osteoporosis is most common in women after menopause, when it is called postmenopausal osteoporosis, but may also develop in men, and may occur in anyone in the presence of particular hormonal disorders and other chronic diseases or as a result of medications, specifically glucocorticoids, when the disease is called steroid- or glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (SIOP or GIOP). Given its influence on the risk of fragility fracture, osteoporosis may significantly affect life expectancy and quality of life.

Osteoporosis can be prevented with lifestyle changes and sometimes medication; in people with osteoporosis, treatment may involve both. Lifestyle change includes preventing falls and exercise; medication includes calcium, vitamin D, bisphosphonates and several others. Fall-prevention advice includes exercise to tone deambulatory muscles, proprioception-improvement exercises; equilibrium therapies may be included. Exercise with its anabolic effect, may at the same time stop or reverse osteoporosis.

(For more info, please click here --> Osteoporosis)

What's my precaution to prevent myself being a victim of this disease that kills silently? So they said, intake of high calcium products, e.g. milk, helps to delay the onset of osteoporosis. As I had been slightly disturbed about it and noticed that I suffered minor backache after dance practice yesterday (yes, aren't you surprised, teddy & phoebe??), I've decided to do something about my lifestyle, on the food consumption part. Firstly, try to eat at home as much as possible although I still think cooking for one person is such a hassle, but I'll try myself to accommodate. Secondly, to do more exercises and lose a few kgs to reduce the burden of my heart and skeleton. Thirdly, the purchase of this:

LOL! I bought the 19-50 "version" of Anlene in Servay Likas on my way back from Yvonne Teo's house. We had fun working out on her dance mats. Thanks Von dearie!

Oh! It's 10pm already... I wanna watch TV... Since when I become a TV Buff? Always had been, just never wanted to be a TV Addict (I'm so prone to it, duhz!). Oh No! Tomorrow has dance practice at night... Can't join caroling... "To go or not to go, that is the question..." (Copy-meow-ed from Hamlet)

Till then... Merry "advance" Christmas!!!

I'm Back! =)

After two weeks of break from everything in KK, I'm back once again on 13th evening via Airasia. Surprisingly the flight was ok, nothing special except the announcement by the pilot somewhere an hour prior to landing woke me up from my neck-aching sleep! The outcome: Inability to sleep early after a huge supper at my favourite "mee bab*" shop in Lintas with Felix, Von Teo and Ah Boon. Smooth landing, I'd say - Thumbs up for the Captain!

So what have I been doing since 1 Dec 2008?

01/12/08

• Checked all my mails, clearing everything and packing in the morning.
• Had dinner with Mel in airport (thanks for the treat, gal!^__^)
  
• In the air for 2.25 hours and touched down safely around 11.30pm, went for supper with parents.

02/12/08

• Arrived home at 2 something in the morning. Introduction to Kiki and played with him for a moment. Realized he's not-so-chihuahua. (Update: I just checked online and 80% confirmed that he's a min pin/chi mix (miniature pinscher + chihuahua mix).
• Slept late and woke up to the sound of my aunty from Kuantan with her grandchildren (age 8, 10 and 14).

03/12/08

• Visited Batu Pahat (Including the Pantai Minyak Beku and Perigi Batu Pahat).
• Petted humongous "dragon fish" in some temple in BP.

04/12/08

• Visited organic farm (near entrance only) nearby my hometown.
• Went to Pontian to visit my uncle then headed to Kukup for a wonderful seafood meal after strolling on the tiny "roads" in between houses on water. Saw magrove swamp... and wonder why people just don't like to take good care of the ocean environment~

05/12/08

• Met up with my ex-classmate (form 1-6) who was to be married on 07/12/08 to get my invitation card. Had a chat with her and visited our ex-classmate's parents to enquire something. I was rather freaked out by the time we wanted to leave... but thank God everything was alright.
• Stayed at home at night... Just lazing around... and lots of GOOD FOOD!

06/12/08

• Met up with some form 6 ex-classmates at Heidi's to crap a while... Then left for Kluang Parade to lepak for about 45 minutes before sending everybody home and attended mass in St. Louis.
• Was rather panic when found out it was a BM Mass... Kinda weird because I rarely attend BM mass and it was once of those times when I didn't have my daily readings (The Light) with me... When I realized I do know some of the mass parts sung I was really happy... Thanks for my KBHK friends... :P
• Right after mass I went over to Bee Yean's house for a night of crapping and catching up with ex-classmates. One of them I didn't meet since 1999 after SPM (that was like 9 years ago)
• Arrived home with "white-attire" crisis because Byean wanted us to wear white attire in the morning of her wedding... Managed to solve the crisis, thanks for Mommy dear! :D
  

07/12/08

• Woke up about 6.30am... Practically dragged myself off the comfy tilam because I was totally exhausted the night before...
• Was ready and arrived at Byean's house about 7.30am. Had breakfast with bride and others...
• The groom and his team of "brothers" arrived at 9.50am (approx.), 20 mins later than the agreed time of 9.30am...
• We, the "sisters", had some fun before allowing the groom to enter the house, including the request of shouting "I love you" to Byean (she was at 1st floor), pole dancing, singing the 1st song he sang to her and some "tips" for us.
• Then we went over to groom's house, continued feasting and crapping. LOL!
• Evening came and we went for dinner reception... The food was great... Catching up was fun. I met one of my ex-classmate who shifted away after form 2. Wow! My age is catching up I guess!

08/12/08

• My aunty and her family left for Seremban after lunch. So left us at home with Kiki... Kinda bored but was acclimatizing fast with Kiki running everywhere at home. He's just too adorable!

08-11/12/08

• Life is good - just at home, waking up late, eating, watching tv, playing with puppy. I even bathed Kiki (without prior knowledge of bathing a puppy)!
• We even brought Kiki for a walk (I was holding him like a baby though) around my neighbourhood. Duhz! He trembles whenever he leaves his "comfort zone" lah!

12/12/08

• Finally decided to get out of my nutshell and meet up with Byean and Tyan Huey for a drink. I had so many types of food in a day... including super spicy thai tom yam, takoyaki, pau, fried kueh tiau, etc... Not forgetting the ice-cream in the morning!
• Tyan Huey brought her adorable baby daughter out with her when she met us up. She's so beautiful... just slightly loud... as babies are always! LOL! :D
• Arrived home in time to watch "The Little Nyonya" on Channel 8 (Mediacorp, SG) then continued on and on... LOL.
• Slept late again...

13/12/08

• Woke up late, still managed to give Kiki a bath before I bathed.
• Dickson came over at 3pm and off we went to airport. Arrived there about 4plus, had a drink and entered departure hall at 5.20pm.
• Everything went smoothly and touched down at 11plus.

14/12/08

• Woke up 10plus, washed bed sheets and blankets. Was informed by dance classmate of additional dance practice so decided to attend it, after informing my dance partner (thank God he said yes!).
• Had my most "challenging" two hours in dance school because of my poor memory on the steps (thank you, Samantha and Phoebe for revising with me and being so patient with me...)
  
• Went back for a shower and headed for mass in St. Simon, then to SHC for choir practice... Oh gosh! Christmas is coming... How would my Christmas be this year? Last year I spent it with a much-cherished companion and some other friends... I think we went to Bishop's Open House after Christmas morning mass. After that I forgot what we did, maybe just crapping at home... I pondered about that on my way back from SHC... I wonder why. Oh well, reconciliation will not come that easily because of the deep hurts we've inflicted on each other. At least for me at this moment, whatever said and done hurt me and I'm still recuperating from it. To him everything might come easily, cheerful and happy-go-lucky now... Haha! Good for him sincerely! Hope he still remembers our happy times instead of condemning me in his own ways because of ............................ Even if he doesn't, I can only wait for God's timing for His will to unfold. I just know His way is the best way... No explanation required on this statement. Just believe He'll make it right. Haha! I'm learning not to doubt... Seriously. I got serious warning during my quiet time on the mountain...
  
• Painted my nails with Elianto's Party Nail Color (Champagne Gold) after removing the "shimmering purple". For the first time in history I'm keeping long nails, painting them and having fun trying to type with long nails (got stuck in between keys a few times and kept having the accident of pressing caps lock when i pressed shift).
  

15/12/08

• Updating blog...
• Schedule including meeting up my principal in school, Dot Leong in her office for lunch, Von Teo at her house for afternoon exercise. LOL! I gotta spend time with the Lord before anything! :D

I'll upload pics later on la... My schedule is packed with activities and pre-school reopening work to do and I've to find time to compress them...

Till then... Pax et Bonum.

Amazement of these Ph.D people

"There was once upon a time when a girl wanted so much to study medicine. As she continued growing, she dreamed of becoming a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D). Alas! Until this day, none of the two was realized. Now, she's so amazed by these Ph.D people, not only their talents and skills in research, but also their creativity."

Yeah... It was really an amazement to actually find myself searching and continue being amazed by the choreographs and the movements they made... These skills, talents and creativities... All are from God to God for His People. And yeah... WE are His People... I, in particular, love "A Molecular Dance in the Blood" by Prof. Vince LiCata, made easy to understand the whole concept of the tetramer in RBC (the hemoglobins), and also the modern dance choreographed and danced by the scientist Dr. Miriam Sach herself about cerebral activation patterns. Besides that, the other two categories (graduate student and popular choice) also performed excellently. The Physics Tango by Landry was great... I can't imagine how a person could coordinate so well their movements. Do notice that the male dancer would put his foot and changed the whole dance pattern while the female dance seemed to float smoothly passed all these. I bet they had practised for ages in order to shoot this vidz. The lovely sunshine and plum fairy in Sue Lynn Lau's vidz depicts her hypothesis of Vitamin D affecting beta cells in liver in secretion of insulin. All these stuffs, so scientific, yet so beautiful... I guess that's the real beauty of science for the benefit of mankind.

Here's the full article as taken from Biotechniques, a scientific journal which I still subscribe till now. To view the original article, please click here.

New York, NY, Nov. 20—The winners of the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest have been announced.

A panel of nine judges has selected a winner in each of the four categories from the entries posted on YouTube. The dances were judged on creativity in expressing the scientific essence of their theses through dance.

Each winner will be paired with a professional choreographer who will create a four-part dance based on one of the Ph.D.'s published peer-reviewed research papers. The four dances will be performed at the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The winners are, by category:

* Graduate Student: Sue Lynn Lau from Garvan Institute of Medical Research/University of Sydney, Australia, for the interpretation of her advisor's paper “The role of vitamin D in beta cell function”

* Post-Doc: Miriam Sach, post-doctoral researcher, University of California, San Diego, “Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis”

* Professor: Vince LiCata, professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, “Resolving pathways of functional coupling in human hemoglobin using quantitative low temperature isoelectric focusing of asymmetric mutant hybrids”

* Popular Choice: Markita Landry, graduate student, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, “Single molecule measurements of protelomerase TelK-DNA complexes”

The contest was open to anyone who had received or was pursuing a Ph.D. in any scientific field or science-related fields, and challenged Ph.D.s to communicate their research through body movements.

“In my view, song and dance should be an integral part of culture,” said Lau, 2009 Dance Your Ph.D. winner, in a press release from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. “Its how people communicated in the past, how oral traditions were handed down. Somehow we seem to have lost that participative aspect to music in our society.”

According to the organizers, last years inaugural Dance Your Ph.D. contest was very successful, and researchers from around the world were eager to compete in this years contest.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Post-Doc category - Miriam Sach)

Ph.D.: Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography.

The findings of this thesis demonstrate that regular and irregular verbs are processed in the same neural network as opposed to separate cortical areas for regular and irregular verb inflection.

This piece is subdivided into 3 sections:
1.) Introduction of regular verbs,
2.) Introduction of irregular verbs,
3.) Common neural network of regular and irregular verb inflection.

1.) Regular verbs are represented by the walking at the very beginning of this piece.
The walking is simple, straight forward and without irregularities. It is accompanied by the sound of crackling fire a metaphor for the firing neurons.

2.) In contrast, irregular verbs are represented by a huge variety of different movements: jumps, slides, turns, rolls, level changes. Irregularities are also displayed musically by using syncopes and off-beat emphasis in percussion as well as further changes in instruments.

3.) The sound of the falling rain is a cleansing moment with no movements to introduce the final section of the dance: the common neural network of regular and irregular verb processing. It is the first time that symmetrical movements occur to emphasize the common network for both verb forms. In addition, both regular and irregular movements are shown to elucidate the presence of both entities in this network.

Overall, fiber connections in the brain representing the connections between regular and irregular verbs are shown by wavy arm movements.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Professor category - Vince LiCata)

Human hemoglobin, in your blood cells, displays precise changes in internal cooperativity in response to exactly how the first two oxygens bind to it.

This video depicts, in dance, the study: "Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids"

Hemoglobin is a 4-subunit protein (a tetramer) that binds and transports oxygen. Individual alpha-subunits and beta-subunits come together to form almost inseparable dimers (boy-girl pairs with matching eye-goggle and gloves in the dance). How dimer-1 interacts with dimer-2 in the whole protein, however, depends on the exact combination of bound oxygens (white balls). If one dimer gets 2 oxygens to itself, cooperativity is reduced and it does not interact well with the other dimer. If both dimers get at least 1 oxygen, they cooperate with each other, and usually bind 2 more oxygen molecules (for a total of 4). In normal hemoglobin, the two dimers are identical. Hemoglobin tetramers with two differing types of dimers are called "asymmetric mutant hybrids" (hence the different colored goggles and gloves on each "dance-mer"). "Low temperature isoelectric focusing" is a method that freezes (literally) and takes a snapshot of the dimer-dimer interactions at different times.

2009 Dance Your Ph.D. Winner (Graduate Student - Sue Lynn Lau)

PhD title: The role of Vitamin D in beta-cell function.

Graduate student: Sue Lynn Lau

Performers: Members of the Diabetes & Transcription Factors Lab Group

Synopsis: Every PhD begins in the dark, but it takes only a few bright sparks to kindle the flame of discovery...

The crucial role of sunlight exposure as the most important source of vitamin D in humans is highlighted. Vitamin D is newly recognised to be involved in the function of many organ systems, including the beta cells of the endocrine pancreas. These cells make insulin in response to glucose stimulation.

Initially, the beta cells are in an unstimulated state, with minimal activity. At the arrival of the sugar plum fairy (symbolising glucose), the cells are able to sense the presence of glucose through the enzyme glucokinase. When glucose enters the cells through glut 2 transporters (marshmallow feeding), it is metabolised to produce the energy molecule, ATP. Through a number of steps, this leads to a rise in positive charge inside the cell, which ultimately triggers the export of insulin-storing granules by a process known as exocytosis (depicted here by the blowing of bubbles). Normal insulin secretion requires the coordinated function of beta cells via intercellular connections and communications as they work in concert.

We are investigating whether vitamin D has an effect in improving beta-cell function and increasing insulin secretion... are they "walking on sunshine"??

2009 Dance Your Ph.D Winner (Popular Choice Winner - Markita Landry)

I copied this from Youtube page. Personally, I think this is super duper cool~ Dance Your Ph.D~ ^^ I'll update more when I get back from Bundu Tuhan~~


Our official entry for the 2009 AAAS Science Dance Contest.

Title of PhD thesis: Single Molecule Measurements of Protelomerase TelK-DNA Complexes

Name:Markita Landry

University:University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Dancers: Florin Bora and Markita Landry

Expected year of completion: 2009 and 2011, respectively.
My Ph.D. work involves the use of a relatively new technology called optical trapping. Using focused laser beams, (1064 nm = infrared beam = red dress) can trap dielectric particles (we use grey/black microspheres = black shirt). The laser holds the beads in place, but it is ultimately the motion of the beads that allow us to take our measurements, and that must be followed extremely precisely (in our case, our resolution is 3.4 angstroms, which is a very small length scale). This precision with regards to following the motion of the beads was my motivation for expressing the theory of optical trapping through tango, which is a dance that is heavily dependent on the ability of the follower to follow the steps that are led. These steps are non-deterministic and are made up by the leader on a real-time basis, so the follower never knows what to expect, and must always be acutely aware of their partners motions to follow correctly.

For my Ph.D. work, I am using optical tweezers to study protein-DNA interactions on a very small scale. I am studying a prokaryotic version of Telomerase, Protelomerase TelK. Telomerases are an active field of study due to their major role in protecting cells against premature aging. However, hyperactive telomerases are also involved in various forms of cancer. Our goal is to characterize the mechanism by which TelK forms DNA hairpins in its DNA substrate, and how the kinetics and binding modes of this mechanism vary with applied tension.