Rigel Kent

Darwin did something very important for us some 150 years ago, when he published his "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. This famous book, as you might already know, is about evolution. However, contrary to popular belief, Darwin is the not the originator of the concept of evolution. Darwin's grandfather, for example, had also a similar idea. The contribution of Darwin is that he conceived a logical notion to explain the mechanism of evolution. Darwin's explanation is quite simple indeed: the evolutionary mechanism is by natural selection. The important thing to highlight here is that evolution is not a theory, it is an observable fact. For example, that human and other lifeforms living on earth is an observable fact. To explain this fact, we may invoke the Jewish notion that we are created by Elohim using only dust of the ground. The Chinese also have a similar notion for the origin of humankind, they postulated that we are created from soil by a goddess named Nǚwā ...

Usually, people with "Dr" in front of their names are treated with respect in our society. They are better remunerated and can talk louder. So, naturally a lot of people want themselves to be called doctors. Nonetheless, only a few groups of people may put the title "Dr" in front of their name. First, we have the medical doctor. Medical doctor receives rigorious undergraduate training in the field of medicine at the university/hospital for at least 5 years. At the end of their training, they are awarded a bachelor degree . Mahathir Mohamad, for example, is a medical doctor trained in "University of Malaya", Singapore. Second, we have the doctor of higher degree. The most common doctor of higher degree is the doctor of philosophy (or Ph.D). To be awarded a higher degree doctorate, the candidate, who already equipped with a basic degree, will usually do research on one particular subject and spend 3 to 4 years on it, usually guided by one or more academic ...

The biological aspect of human gametic cells is very interesting. At birth, a baby girl has only a fixed amount of eggs (maybe around one million) in her body. When she reached a certain age, we will see that her breasts will begin to grow bigger, and a little genie residing in her ovary will say to these one million eggs: "ok, I shall now start to send you to meet your boyfriends". Each month, the genie will pick a few thousands eggs and give them whatever training that is necessary. At the end of the training, the eggs will need to take what is known as the atresia examination. And the egg who score the highest mark will get the chance to embark on a romantic journey. The rest of the eggs are not sent back to the reservoir, but they are destroyed. From that point onwards, about 13 eggs are ovulated each year from the egg reservoir until the woman reached what is known as menopause. So, for her whole lifetime, a human female will only release about 400 eggs. The number of t...

在瑞士舉行的「 國際發明、新技術、新產品展覽會 」是一年一度的國際盛事。 它是所有國際發明展里，檔次最高，也是规模最大的一个。每年的四月份，會有六七萬人次的發明家、工業家、投資者、代理商、遊客等聚集在日內瓦城裡的这個發明展里。 自一九七三年開始，日内瓦發明展一共办了三十三届，而今年的第三十四届發明展將會在四月五號开展，为期五天。在这期间，参展者会展出許多让我們生活得更方便的新奇科技發明。 摩尔斯克先生和他的安全套自动佩戴器 比方说，在去年，塞内加尔的发明家摩尔斯克就炫耀了他的安全套自动佩戴器，台湾的林建豐也展示了他的「魔戒情套」安全套电动套环装置。比较严肃一点的作品有台湾人陈永欣所设计的电梯脱困设备，当然还有马来亚大学校长雅谷教授与其夫人斯里努蕾丝娣里教授的 金牌口疮膏药贴 ，兩項都是獲得金獎的發明。 在去年，一共有约一百五十个馬來西亞参展单位，占了总参展人数的百分之二十。这相信也是历年派往日内瓦参展人数最多的一次。在很大程度上，这个数据展示了我国重视发明和创造的人才培养，这是件好事。 当然，参展的人数多了，得奖的机率也会相对地提高。就以特别金奖为例，大会去年共颁发了五十份特别金奖，俄罗斯、韩国、伊朗、罗马尼亚及西班牙各拿了三份，台湾及瑞士各拿了四份。马来西亚则领了六份特别奖，是全场第二名。第一名是法国，他们很不给脸地拿了九份特别奖。我不知道法国的参展团有多少人，但按概率来算，马来西亚这三十巴仙的特别奖得奖比例是合乎逻辑的。 也在去年，馬來亞大學史无前例的囊获了三十三面奖牌，其中有十九面金牌，十一面银牌，以及三面铜牌。在我们的六个特别奖里，就有一半是属于马来亚大学的参展代表的，这当然也大概跟马来亚大学参展团的规模有关。 能够在国际展览会里得奖是一件让人振奋的事。但是，其中的经济考量却往往没有得到它应有的重视。一个人在这四五天的费用，包括往返机票、展位费、住宿费，保守估计就得用上马币一两万左右。整体来算，我國就花掉了马币两三百万。 如果把这里面所能引出的商机计算在内，这两三百万当然不是大数目，我们是绝对付得起的。问题是，这些展览品到底能不能被实际地用来造出更多的钞票。如果不能的话，雅谷校長的舉動就等同於用几万块来买一块奖牌。花這樣的錢來買一个虛榮，實在他媽的很不應該。 今年日内瓦发明展的报名早在二月中就...

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings is a ranking system developed in the UK. I can still vividly remember the inaugural position of University of Malaya (UM) when the list was published in 2004 because I was in the campus. The result was very widely publicized and the celebratory banners were all over the place in the campus. These reactions meant that the Vice Chancellor of the school, Professor Datuk Dr Hashim Yaacob , gave a lot of fucks on this ranking system. He was taking the ranking very seriously and was using it as an absolute measure of the performance of his university. However, when the 2005 list was announced, Dr Hashim was stunned and didn't actually know how to explain the result. Since the new result was not on Dr. Hashim's side, his attitude towards to THE ranking is reversed, and he switched to the don't-give-a-fuck mode. The answer is actually very simple, THE made a mistake in 2004. As suggested by Education ...