Medicine from crop waste
Reading Time: 2 minutesTohoku University researchers are optimising methods to produce useful compounds from biomass A TEAM of researchers have identified a one-step process to easily convert a plant-based sugar into a chemical compound, which can then be used to manufacture other substances, including a natural pharmaceutical used to treat conditions such as congenital heart disease and erectile […]
Courting business partners and playing cupid
Reading Time: 4 minutesMalaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) talks about a trait that it is good at – forging business partnership for companies under their wings. Here Dr Zainul Fadziruddin Zainuddin, Director, Office of CEO shares his thoughts with The Petri Dish’s Shamira Shamsuddin. Define partnership in business. Business operation between two or more individuals who share management […]
Mouse pups with same-sex parents born in China using stem cells and gene editing
Reading Time: 2 minutesRESEARCHERS at the Chinese Academy of Sciences were able to produce healthy mice with two mothers that went on to have normal offspring of their own. Mice from two dads were also born but only survived for a couple of days. The work, presented October 11 in the journal Stem Cell, looks at what makes it so challenging for animals of the same sex […]
Oil firm fuels STEM education in Terengganu
Reading Time: 2 minutesKUALA TERENGGANU: Exxon-Mobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc. (EMEPMI) continued its support for education programmes in Terengganu by backing the annual state-level competitions – Terengganu-ExxonMobil-Mathematics Innovation Challenge (TExMIC) and Spark Your Creativity Challenge (SYCC). The final competition and prize-giving ceremony for both programmes were officiated by Terengganu Menteri Besar Dr Ahmad Samsuri Mokhtar. Both competitions were started with the aim to encourage Terengganu students to pursue […]
Why can’t owls roll their eyes?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTHE OWL is known as nocturnal birds. Owls are birds of prey and they have a sharp beak as well as sharp claws in order to catch and eat their prey. Owls can be very small like the five-inch elf owl, or pretty big like the two-foot tall great grey owl. Whether large or small, they all look stocky with large heads and soft feathers. Owls […]
What is dactyloscopy?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteHAVE YOU EVER TIP-TOED into your sibling’s room to peek into something? You probably left behind evidence of your secret visit. A fingerprint expert could likely find fingerprints and match them to the unique prints at the end of your fingers. Analysis and classification of patterns observed in an individual’s prints are called dactyloscopy. Every living person […]
How do foetuses breathe in the womb?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAS HUMANS, breathing is essential for our wellbeing and without breathing, we can die. Most importantly, developing babies need oxygen during the early phase of pregnancy. But a baby would not take its first breath until after birth. This means that babies do not truly breathe in the womb. Instead, babies rely on their mother’s breathing to receive oxygen to their […]
How many nerve cells are there in the brain?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTHE HUMAN BRAIN has often been viewed as an outstanding organ among mammalian brains and is the most cognitively able. It is endowed with an overdeveloped cerebral cortex that represents over 80 per cent of brain mass, and purportedly containing 100 billion neurons and 10 times more glial cells. A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits […]
How hot is lightning?
Reading Time: < 1 minuteTHE MOST DESTRUCTIVE FORCE of nature is lightning. In simple terms, lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge caused by imbalanced between storm clouds and the ground which occurs during thunderstorm. We have heard before that a direct hit from a lightning strike can start forest fires or can kill a person. Lightning is the movement of electrical charges and does not have a temperature. However, resistance to […]
MPOB: Oil palm a more viable cash crop
Reading Time: 2 minutesKUALA LUMPUR: Being the most widely used and traded cash crop in the world and yet the most controversial, palm oil is here to stay. Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) Director General Datuk Ahmad Kushairi Din said this at the recently concluded 14th International Symposium on Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology (ISBAB 2018) in Kuala Lumpur […]