Don't let them be history

Malaysia Wildlife Conservation
Support The Camapign

I didn't realise that I can get all touche after I read articles on Malaysian wildlife getting extinct, or illegal poachers hunt and brutally skinning tigers for their testicles and skin, or China people (as in Stephen Chow's God of Cookery) cooking bear paws, or in clubbing sea lions in europe, etc. Sometimes I don't think I am able to stomach shark-fin soup after reading about suffering-finless-sharks being thrown back to the sea. Animals do have feelings too, you know. I believe deforestration (for palm oil?) has endangered our wildlife which btw looks cute to me! (in zoos and pics). Don't you think those tapir and rhino look cute and chubby!? Okay, sorry...lame...

Back to reality:

If you think wildlife in Malaysia deserves a chance, please blog about them and tell internet users (just about everyone!) how you feel, and how wildlife changed your life. Please support the campaign (click on the banner). If you don't want to support the wildlife campaign, you can support the illegal poacher. I think they have a blog somewhere for you to support their illegal hunting activities :P

If you remember my friend whom I met in Starbucks in the previous post "A Scientist Near You?", he's from WWF Malaysia (was a save-our-snails champion) and is campaigning for rhinos and tigers in Malaysia :P. Oh, no, no, no,...not the wrestling organisation.

My fungus showing the LOVE

Even my icky, green muscadine fungus is showing me the 'LOVVVE':
P/S: Don't laugh!!! It is a rare instance for a fungus to know it's Xmas next week)

"Merry Christmas everyone!! Have a blessed year ahead."

Love,
Ivy
No-bell prize winner: for producing rare green-lovely-fungi on Xmas.

A scientist near you?

If you read the book "How Starbucks Saved My Live", you will be surprised how some insignificant, everyday, routine, daily activities can change you into a better person. I could relate to that story, all the more, it happened in Starbucks right in the heart of PJ. My X'mas mood plus my daily dose of caffeine requires me to be in Starbucks at least once a week. No doubt by this time of the year, I yearn dearfully for my Toffee Nut Latte and the need to collect 17 stickers before mid-Jan to get my cute little 2008 diary.

So there I was on a Sunday afternoon after visiting an aikido friend in hospital for a fractured collar bone, ordering my ToffeeNut Latte and then filling up some Sudoku numbers. With my Prof.'s reminder haunting me (he haunts me daily by saying: read at least one journal a day), I took out two scientific journals and started reading (well, it was just browsing and flipping those pages). Not even a minute passed, I almost doze off. But I was kept awake by a really cute guy in front of me and it's definitely not science at work.

All of a sudden, the guy beside me with a laptop pat my back and asked if he could join me at my table. I thought: "Hey, you've got your own table, don't take mine! And you're not that cute!" And I blurted out rudely: "Err...yes, anything?!"

He was a Singaporean, started working a month ago with our WWF saving tigers in Malaysian jungles. He claimed he has been in Malaysia for a couple of years doing research near Ipoh, Kelantan, Pahang checking out on snails. He's a snails expert :) He couldn't help but noticed that I was reading scientific journals. Ohhh come on, what are the chances of you meeting a guy who loves biology and .....err.....have an inclination towards snails!!! (weirdo) And yes, he passed me few of his papers, published in high impact-factor journals. And of course (sob!), I have none to pass to him. Malunya! Now I can see why NUS is such a great university, he's just a master student for 2 years, and has published 4 papers (four!!!) in high impact-factor journals.

The rest of the day (and night) was history..... I had a great time, and it's been a long time since I had some nice intellectual, scientific chat with anyone. Especially when someone is interested in your field too. Did he change my life (like the story in the book)? Indeed it has, because from today onwards I swear to publish at least one paper in a high impact-factor citation-indexed journal. What a great motivator.

P/S: I should go to Starbucks more and read journals there...you will never know a scientist is just right beside you.