Biorefresher: A Pink's "Secret Garden" 2nd teaser + defending Jonker Walk

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A Cube Entertainment released 2nd video teaser for Secret Garden! Let us cheer for A Pink.


Their comeback has also been teased on KBS Music Bank.

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Surprise surprise! The High Court judge Datuk V. T. Singham (the one who presided over the case of Kugan's death in police custody) tendered his resignation today, a year before his term is up.

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The community defended Jonker Walk in Malacca even though the Malaccan State Government has reversed the decision to close hawker stalls and open the street to traffic. Groups belonging to MCA and DAP took part in the rally.

Bioinstagrams: Mid Valley in Haze + Sign & LED Exhibition

Every Friday, I shall update you all with Instagram picks of the week taken from my own collection.


Visited Sign and LED Exhibition at PWTC on Saturday 22 June 2013. Exhibitors were mostly LED and plotter sellers targeting the advertising industry.


This was an invite to attend UberMen DJ competition at Zouk KL. Thanks @povyteng.


Snapped Mid Valley City surrounded by haze before dinner at Himawari Restaurant inside Japanese Club of KL.


Changed my smartphone wallpaper to A Pink. Can't wait for their comeback. You can download the wallpaper here.

Secret - Yoohoo

Secret released another piece YooHoo, part of the mini album Letter from Secret! The music video is light, fun and cute. Back in the beginning of the year, I was saddened by the news of Secret's car accident and subsequent recovery. Having braced through the setback, they're back with joy! I like this music video, because it's performed by none other than Secret!

The mini album has three more tracks Daddy Long Legs, Only U and B.O.Y. (Because of You)
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Verse 1
I only saw you as a friend
I only thought you were cute
Don’t know why, I don’t know why
But I am getting attracted to you

When you comforted me when I was struggling
When you listened to my stories
Maybe you, I’m loving you
My heart moved little by little

How, how, how should I tell you?
Do you hear me that I’m fallin’ in love
It’s only you in my head, I keep missing you

Chorus
I guess I love you, yoo-hoo
I only see you, yoo-hoo
I want to meet you as a lover and not a friend
Please look at me, yoo-hoo
I can’t take it anymore, yoo-hoo
More than yesterday, more than today, I will love you tomorrow, oh my love
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
I just wanna be your love

Verse 2
In order to look good for you
I bought clothes and went on a diet
Yes I do, oh yes I do
Do you know my heart?

What if I lose you?
What if you don’t like me?
Maybe you, I’m loving you
I have so many thoughts, I can’t fall asleep

How, how, how should I tell you?
Do you hear me that I’m fallin’ in love
It’s only you in my head, I keep missing you

Chorus
I guess I love you, yoo-hoo
I only see you, yoo-hoo
I want to meet you as a lover and not a friend
Please look at me, yoo-hoo
I can’t take it anymore, yoo-hoo
More than yesterday, more than today, I will love you tomorrow, oh my love

Bridge
I want to hold your hand
And walk on this street with you together
It’s only you, really, now I want to tell you
I mean it, really, please know my heart
I want to always protect you
By your side

Chorus
I guess I love you, yoo-hoo
I only see you, yoo-hoo
I want to meet you as a lover and not a friend
Please look at me, yoo-hoo
I can’t take it anymore, yoo-hoo
More than yesterday, more than today, I will love you tomorrow, oh my love
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah
Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

Biorefresher: A Fu reveals "Unlimited Freedom" 无限度自由 MV + Hailstorm in Singapore

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Taiwanese soloist A Fu revealed her music video for "Unlimited Freedom" 无限度自由 today! It's part of her album Sky Island 天空岛. She'll reveal MVs for two more tracks, More and More Loving 越来越爱 and Angel 天使.

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Singapore was hit by hailstorm after the haze! Hails do not pose health hazard but make sure you run indoors or wear a helmet if you need to go out.

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• Indelible ink used during 13th General Election in Malaysia turned out not only to be delible, but edible?! Election Commission explained they were food dyes. Are you effing kidding me?
• Kugan's (the young Indian man died in police custody) family won lawsuit against Malaysian government. High Court judge ruled that former Inspector General of Police was responsible.
• Ong Kian Ming and Zairil Khir Johari (both DAP MPs) questions two Malaysian ministers for holding bogus degrees.

Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine 2012 for induced pluripotent stem cells

Who wins the award?



From left: John Gurdon, Shinya Yamanaka. Image taken from Nobelprize.org

The Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the year 2012 is jointly awarded to John B. Gurdon of University of Cambridge and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University.

What is it awarded for?

The citation of the award was "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent".

In 1962, working with frog eggs, John Gurdon discovered that nuclei of somatic cells contained all required information to develop into a mature organism. In a classic experiment, he replaced an immature nucleus from a frog egg with a nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. The modified egg cell develops into a normal tadpole.

More than 40 years later, Shinya Yamanaka showed that intact, mature cells can be turned into stem cells by introducing a few genes. These stem cells are able to develop into all cell types of the body.


Image taken from Nobelprize.org

What is the impact of the discovery?

All of us begins our life in the womb as a single cell. From this cell known as zygote, it keeps dividing and give rise to over 300 cell types in the body. This single cell develops into organs found in pregnacy (including the embryo), known as totipotency. Pluripotency is the ability to become all cell types except the placenta and amniotic sac.

We have traditionally thought that differentiation into mature cells is irreversible. The former discovery challenged this understanding, showing that the genetic program for cell differentiation is not lost as the organism develops but retained throughout the organism's lifetime. The latter discovery took one step further, showing genetic programs required to maintain the pluripotent state of stem cells.

The discoveries resolved the ethical controversy of working with embryonic stem cells and also opens up new avenues to treating diseases using the approach of regenerative medicine, including:

• Creating reprogrammed pluripotent stem cells to treat blood cancer
• Inducing cell division of nerve cells to treat paralysis
• Creating "disease in a dish" model to study diseases from a developmental biology approach

Related links:
Press Release
Advanced Information (if you understand biology)

Girl's Day - Don't Forget Me

I missed the days when Girl's Day consisted of five members. Was saddened to hear Jihae's departure from the group for other commitments. After that, the remaining members regrouped as a four member group to bring us "Don't Forget Me".

The girls were transitioning into mature concepts as maknae Hyeri passes into adulthood. I knew them as a young and nascent group since Hug Me Once, now transformed into sexy ladies!

Spot Sojin's ant waist in the MV!

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Verse 1
I hoped that you would hold my hand
When I saw your lips, my heart pounded
My diary was filled with stories of you every day
When doodling with my friends, I wrote your name
(name name)

Chorus
I don’t want to forget that feeling, your eyes
I take out the memories of you from inside my heart when night comes
(I’ll remember u)

Don’t forget me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby
Come to me and hug me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby

Rap
I remember when you said I’ll forget you when time passes
But I am still remembering you now

Verse 2
You looked so good in your uniform
Some part of you always looked like an adult
That’s why I liked you in school
It was my secret that I couldn’t tell anyone else

Chorus
I don’t want to forget that feeling, your eyes
I take out the memories of you from inside my heart when night comes
(I’ll remember u)

Don’t forget me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby
Come to me and hug me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby

Bridge
Ooh I miss you, I need you, I want you
Ooh I miss you, I need you, I want you

I couldn’t tell you how I felt back then because I was so shy
I want you too now oooh uh
You, you

Chorus
I don’t want to forget that feeling, your eyes
I take out the memories of you from inside my heart when night comes
(I’ll remember u)

Don’t forget me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby
Come to me and hug me, you are my baby
You’re Mine You’re Mine You’re My baby

Biorefresher: Girl's Day's "Female President" + A Pink's "Secret Garden" teaser + M'sian Parliament reconvenes

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Girl's Day has released their music video for Female President!Themed on feminism, I watch to my delight as team members Sojin, Yura, Minah and Hyeri transform into mature ladies that also comes with authority.

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A Pink teased us with a comeback! They're appealing to you with their innocent charms. Let us look forward to "Secret Garden".

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The Malaysian Parliament reconvened (reopened) after the 13th General Election. Elected MPs took oath of office, Pandikar Amin re-elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives and an emergency motion tabled to discuss haze.

Pandikar Amin polled 133 against Kadir Sulaiman's 89 because MPs were compelled to sign on the ballot (if you get what I mean). What did our MPs said about reconvening Parliament in haze?

1st day of 13th Parliament today held under haze, symbolic of widespread questioning of legitimacy of Najib as PM of minority government.
— Lim Kit Siang (@limkitsiang) June 24, 2013

Although the haze today is bad, our spirits are up at the swearing in ceremony at the Parliament http://t.co/bjOL4BUMIU
— KarpalSingh (@KarpalSinghDAP) June 24, 2013

In the Haze

Woke up to burnt smell and smoky air. Everywhere was shrouded in haze! API reading was 102 at 7 am in Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.

Check out this hilarious video by smashpop #IntheHaze

Haze in Malaysia? I DONT BELIEVE! from smashpop

On a more serious note, emergency has been declared in Muar having reached an air pollution index (API) of 750. API above 300 is unhealthy, whereas a state of emergency will be declared in an area when readings exceeds 500.

Politician Lim Kit Siang called out to our Minister of Environment, S. Palanivel for sleeping on the job since his department's API readings cannot be reported on a reasonable time frame. It took two hours for readings to appear on the Department of Environment's website *facepalm*. Why can't Malaysia reports API hourly? Technology is available to automate things and get things done. If Singapore can do it, why Malaysia tak boleh?

[UPDATE] Monash University Open Day


I just came back from open day at Monash University.

I went specifically to see my prospective doctoral advisor for a research project. I have homework to do! It will be reading published papers and coming up with a research proposal. After that, I went for campus tour.

An Open House at Titi

It was Chinese New Year! I balik kampung to Titi, Negeri Sembilan to see friends and relatives.

On Chor 4, Lim Guan Eng made a visit to this humble village of Titi. With an impending General Election around the corner, every political party was greeting "Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xuan Piao Na Lai", means they are canvassing for votes! What a way to celebrate CNY. #onlyinMalaysia :)


Villagers filled the streets for open house.


Organiser treated us to a dinner!


Listening meekly to speeches made by DAP leaders. Lim Guan Eng was humourous on stage, talking about Psy in Penang, toll-free North-South Expressway, attracting and retaining talent and more.

Anthony Loke offered himself to run for Chennah state seat; Lim Guan Eng approved his request on stage! He was willing to take the risk since Chennah has been a MCA fortress.

The open house drew an attendance of 2000.

Instagram introduces 15 second video recording!

What's happening to Instagram lately? Guess not, Instagram has just introduced video recording! You can now post and view videos up to 15 seconds in the app. Videos can be paused and joined together as desired.

From Instagram blog:

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce Video on Instagram and bring you another way to share your stories. When you go to take a photo on Instagram, you’ll now see a movie camera icon. Tap it to enter video mode, where you can take up to fifteen seconds of video through the Instagram camera.

You’ll also find that we’ve added thirteen filters built specifically for video so you can keep sharing beautiful content on Instagram. When you post a video, you’ll also be able to select your favorite scene from what you’ve recorded as your cover image so your videos are beautiful even when they’re not playing.

That's right, the set of filters you can use for videos are not the same as those for photos.

As stated in the blog entry, you retain your intellectual property rights over your videos, just like your photos.

Instagram has also included a feature named Cinema to stabilise video recording, so that your video appears beautiful and professional.



Instagram with 15 second video requires version 4.0 of the app, so please head to Apple App Store or Google Play to download it now.

Guan Eng is angry!

Quotes from the video:
"UMNO causes hardship to the people"
"Things can be done early, but why (UMNO) is doing it now?!"

The video above shows that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was angry and dissatisfied over progresses made to make Jalan Malicaster trafficable. Repair works were carried out on the Menara UMNO building without safety measures in place such as nets. Oh, how can they do that? So Penang authorities are not going to reopen Jalan Malicaster until UMNO has finished the repair works.

Tragedy struck when a large block of concrete (part of lighting arrestor) fallen off from the Menara UMNO building and hit a car on Jalan Malicaster. The accident was caught on police CCTV:


Based on calculations, the concrete block has a weight of 12 metric tonnes minimum. Its fall generated a force of 1100 kiloNewtons and a speed of 133 km/h on impact. That's equivalent to seven fully loaded buses hitting on the car from a height of 70 meters.

The force was so great that not even a body part of the dead victim was found, only unrecognizable, severely damaged car parts were recovered. A 7 meter deep hole was dug to salvage the car as well as the body, but further digging was hindered due to risk of complications. In other words, the victim will be buried underneath, the tragedy site will be his grave.

May the victim rest in peace.

BioInstagrams: Buddha's finger + Dara.com and more!

Mom and dad wanted to buy pieces of furniture but I was way tired like a flaccid cucumber. The shopkeeper pointed me to this Buddha's hand to rest!


I was really curious about the contents of Dara.com for ages so I grabbed this. There are tons of photos inside, featuring young girls clad in hijab fashion, quality of the photos is superb. Also one of the cheapest magazine in the market.


It was the day before polling day, so I was there at the Pakatan Rakyat finale rally live at Stadium MBPJ, Kelana Jaya. A Pakatan-DAP supporter myself, I bought this T-shirt that has a PAS logo for it to be meaningful to a Chinese like myself.


Was walking down a pavement near Tesco Extra in Mutiara Damansara and suddenly spotted a moving fly carcass! Turned out to be ants moving this large fly as a team. With teamwork, we can achieve anything too!

Biorefresher: Fanta Time MV + Girl's Day "Female President" comeback

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A Pink's Eunji has been filming a video for Fanta drink, so I wondered how it will turn out. I was in for a treat of bizzare, lively and colourful music video featuring the entire A Pink, Lee Kwang Soo and Teen Top's Niel!

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Girl's Day will be back with a repackaged full length album on the 24th of June! The concept will be a mix of sexy and cool. I can't wait for their showcase of charisma using the idea of running for a presidency. What's more, are you ready for the girl group rush?

Back to God

Hello peeps. Now I'm into my sixth month home since I finished my Bachelor's degree with Honours from Australia. I've never been home for this long, the holidays I had only provided short escapades. Seriously, I miss home.

Melbourne was an opportunity for God to be with me, to teach me His ways, to know of His awesome master plan for me. I needed to freedom to get to know God better for my own good, away from all interferences. God has set up a faraway place to nurture my heart, so He has chosen a city Down Under for the purpose.

Why did I buy into Christianity in the first place?

I remembered I was so touched by a sermon during religious emphasis week in high school. The pastor was reenacting the scene of crucifixion vividly, telling me how people were demanding the death of Jesus at the top of their voices. I was touched about Jesus' amazing love at the cross; he was willing to sacrifice his life for my sins, so I raised my hand during the alter call. That counted as accepting Jesus Christ into my heart. However, I didn't attend church services back then, knowing that my family would disapprove.

It was not until I heard Pastor Samantha Evans' sermon on insecurity that I rededicated my life to Jesus with the freedom to attend church activities.

Then I had discipleship with a church mate, Frankie Heng Wai Kit, to dwell deeper into the Word of God. It was a wonderful opportunity to be instructed in the way of Christianity that changed my life for the better. I liked that he has chosen Bible passages that were not popular for a public sermon, but meaningful chapters that served as warnings so as to not stumble in my life.

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When I touched down in Malaysia, I went back to family life like usual. There's a shrine for a local god in my family's factory, which my maternal uncle asked me to offer joss sticks on it, but I've refused to have anything to do with it. I continue to offer joss sticks to the ancestral tablets (out of my love and respect for my family), but I refused to have anything to do with Buddhist statues and earth-god tablets.

I didn't attend a church in Malaysia until late May 2013. I felt comfortable on spending Sundays in any way I wanted but I've decided that enough is enough for being away from the nourishment of God. I prayed about the emptiness, Jesus answered me that I ought to represent Him in my household.

Hearing that The Acts Church was opening a branch in Cheras, I attended its inaugural service. I could sing the worship songs with my eyes closed, knowing that they were composed by Planetshakers Church, which I had been calling it home for the past four years.

In the new visitor's form that they asked me to fill, I named Pastor Kenneth Chin as the person who introduced me to church. He founded Acts Church, but he wasn't in the service and do not know me in person. How is this so? I am leaving the guessing game to readers like you.

Finally, I'm calling a home church in my home country.