You are your own...

I'm so tired right now, after three successive church services at Planetshakers, each featuring its own speaker. I was in church from morning till night! That was not all, in the wee hours I went to my UL mates' house to mount a birthday surprise.

Let's have a short update! My message for you today, is to bring the best out of you. I am and you are are such powerful words to ourselves, they can encourage us to be the best person we can be, at the same time they can bring curse to a person when we're not careful.

There're so many things we are called to be! Let's see...

For Christians:

You are your own priest.

You are called to be king.

You are your own prophet.

For the rest of us:

You are your own model.

You are your own aesthetician.

You are your own scholar.

You are your own athlete.
You are your own manager.

Hope these bring new revelation to yourself!

Australian Synchrotron tour Part 1

On 19 May 2010 I was so priviliged to join a tour to the Australian Synchrotron organised by Australia and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, in short ANZAAS.

What is a synchrotron? First, I'd tell you, it's a particle accelerator, where you move a thing you can't see with your eye to very high speed. Now, what's the point of moving this 'thing' to very high speed? It's to harvest intense beam of light given off when the 'thing' moves at high speed. You can use the intense beam of light for various purposes. Because of this it's also named synchrotron light source.

This facility is a billion dollar investment of Australia in an intellectual capital so you can see how Australia is taking R&D seriously.


Thanks ANZAAS!


Peter Kemeny, Chairperson of ANZAAS Victoria. Also emcee of the day.

First we were welcomed by Head of Science, Professor Ian Gentle. He gave a lecture on the synchrotron, its principles and applications. Then, a graduate student gave her talk on mathematical models and optimization of synchrotron. I'm so impressed.

Next is the much awaited tour of the facility! First, don't forget about safety briefing!


Dean Morries briefing visitors on safety.

The synchrotron is not online, so there's no concern about radiation. Moreover, the facility has not been on two weeks prior to our visit.

Our adventure has begun!



I had the privilege to see what's inside, but I don't exactly know what these facilities are for. So let pictures do the talking!






That's Prof Ian in the middle.












Computers are your best buddies in science.






This microscope is powered by synchrotron light so you get image of better quality.






What a joke! This cutie has been residing in one of the lab for long.

So we're done with applications of synchrotron. In Part 2 we're going into the tunnels where the secret of synchrotron lies. Stay tuned!



Technorati tags: Australian Synchrotron, particle accelerator, Monash University, ANZAAS, Clayton, light source

The Australian Synchrotron from perspectives

What does Australian Synchrotron, a premier scientific facility that drives much of our understanding of the world, means to everybody?

The facility, as seen by different people.


The root of the concept!




















The same as inventor. Apparently they've been taught about cyclotron but not synchrotron.


Haha! That's so funny.

What does a research facility mean to you?

Coming up next, is my exciting trip to the Australian Synchrotron! Be excited!

Technorati tags: Australian Synchrotron, particle accelerator, particle physics, Monash University, Clayton, ANZAAS

Tagged

Instructions:

1.) Copy tag to your own notes and start modifying it.
2.) Omit existing answers.
3.) Write your answers and tag as many as you want.

Rules:

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real. Nothing made up. If the person before you had the same initial, you MUST have different answers, strictly NO carbon copy in that case. You cannot use any words twice. You cannot use your name for the boy and girl's name questions.

Questions and Answers:

1.) What is your name: Chai Boon Kheng
2.) A four letter word: Crap
3.) A boy's name: Charlie
4.) A girl's name: Charlotte
5.) An occupation: Caregiver
6.) A color: Cerulean
7.) Something you wear: Cap
8.) A food: Caramel
9.) Something found in the bathroom: Cover
10.) A country: Croatia
11.) A reason for being late: Catching up!
12.) Something you shout: C'mon!
13.) A movie title: Cyrus
14.) Something you drink: Coffee
15.) A musical group: Caught in the act
16.) An animal: Cat
17.) A street name: Collins Street, Melbourne
18.) A type of car: Camry
19.) An internet site/blogsite: http://consumer-alerts-product-recalls.suite101.com/
20.) A song: Chasing Pavements
21.) A President's name: Chester A. Arthur
22.) A cartoon character: Cartman from South Park
23.) Name of School: Chung Ling High School
24.) A sport: Cricket
25.) A Latin word: clausum fregit means trepassing (the) land

Having done my part, I tag: Irene Law, Vince, Lee Jo-yee, Wong Zun San

I hope all of you have the time to do this tag!

I am alive!

I just finished my microbiology and biochemistry paper for semester 1. There's a long gap before my last paper! In the next few days I'll write up things I've been up to before my uni exam.







Stay tuned for EVEN GREATER!

Molecular spectacular

Semester exam is next week indeed! I still have a lot to post, and a lot to share. Now my focus is on my first two papers, microbiology and biochemistry, posts coming up ok?

I need to do a tag. That'll be done after my first two papers!

I downloaded Pymol as suggested by my lecturer, got my hands dirty with it and created this:



This is a heme found in oxygen binding proteins. Isn't that spectacular?

Technorati tags: heme, hemoglobin, myoglobin, porphyrin, protein, biochemistry, molecular biology

Molecular playground

I was searching for images of molecular look alikes. The one taught in my biochemistry course, is this:


Image taken from Biomolecular Machines Laboratory

Both of these molecules are found during translation stage of protein synthesis at the ribosome. On the left is a protein-amino acid-tRNA complex. The protein that attaches at the top of tRNA is what I called a molecular usher that accompany a tRNA with an amino acid to the ribosome. On the right is a pure protein that looks like the complex on the left. The similarities are striking!

There's a journal article on macromolecular mimicry if you have a science background.

I stumbled upon 3dchem while searching for a hemoglobin model. It features a molecular viewer and I got hooked! I played around with the molecule and created this:



I created a ribbon diagram with heme groups shown in stick diagram. Here I emphasise the heme groups in the hemoglobin molecule.

Playing around with stuff you learn makes learning more fun!

Technorati tags: biochemistry, molecular biology, Elongation Factor Tu, Elongation Factor G, EF-Tu, EF-G, tRNA, Hemoglobin