The Synapse Connections of a lifetime

Instead of exporting palm oil, we might one day start exporting our cili padi.

Apparently the capsaicin (the chemical that give chilli the hot taste) contained in cili can be used to reduce post operative pains by exploiting the numbing effect it has on nerves, the TRPV 1 receptors to be exact. This effectively leads to reduced use of pain killers and opiates.

Full story here

This is a very clever move that may well revolutionize medicine in a few years to come.

For the past week I've seen many happy moms with their new and cute babies. For them, every vomit, nausea, frequency, heartburn, frequent visits to the doctors and the many troubles of carrying 11kgs around are rewarded by the first cries of their baby and the first cuddles.

Today though, I was tagging along with Dr. Newton and we had to follow up on a mother who just gave birth to a baby. Unlike most of the other babies, this baby is one of the two babies on average that gave birth with a limb malformation:

The baby didn't have a left hand.

The session was quiet saddening. We can see the mother slowly coming into tears while her mother wipes them away from the side of the bed. Dr. Newton were quite empathic, slowly giving her the time she needs to digest the situation and understand what's going to happen for the baby next. She clearly explained things that needs to be done and what's the prospects are for the baby.

The thing I realised about the mother is how some guilt seems to seep into their mind. We read in books that often parents will wonder if what they do during the pregnancy caused the problem. Everyone needs to blame someone, or something for any mishaps. How did it happen? What could we have done? Questions that are difficult to answer for us.

I guess all we can do is to do our best to be understanding.

Thanks for reading :)

Beginning, Growths and Development is by FAR 100 times better than Society and Health! Just gone over Obstetrics and Gynecology and now we're moving on to Paediatrics. Handling babies are really cool, but it's really scary though. The mom says she can easily tell if we ever had kids just by looking at how we're handling the babies.. The baby feel really fragile, I'm so scared i'll break something or injure the baby somehow.. haha!

Babies are cute! I know everyone knows that but they are so so cute.. :P The nicest thing to do is to do the grasp reflex, coz the baby will grab your finger if you stroke the palms, hehe!

BUT, when babies cry, it really sucks.. You can't palpate the abdomen, you can't hear the lungs and the heart you can't do much! Not to mention the poo.. haha! Scary black stuff.. :P

Had to travel a lot for this though.. It's really far away from Uni, even further than Sutherland Hospital.. It sucks..

Anyway, more to come, thanks for reading!

It's pretty easy to make fake UFO videos now but this one looks pretty convincing.

Two weeks ago i dropped my camera during the trip to Newcastle. Now it's sitting on the shelf waiting to be buried.

The day after that, my laptop died. While playing a game called cnc3, the enemy launched a nuclear bomb in my base. The explosion looked something like this:



Then suddenly, a few seconds after the bomb went off, the screen suddenly flashed and weird random gibberish stuff comes up. I was like, "wtf?".

The gibberish stuff was also in windows. Even after restarting, it's still there! In fact, it's in the BIOS loading screen!

The nod nuke blew up my graphics card..

That cost me AU$266.60...

It's funny how I realised how dependent i am to my computer.. I'm so dependent it's pathetic.. I actually hang out downstairs at the computer room of IH more because of this.. :P Found a random side shooter game and it had became my staple for 2 weeks.. lol!

Oh well, the Muslims fast for their Ramadan, I fast by giving up my computer..

Found something else to occupy my time during this period of 'starvation' though. Never in my life I would imagine having to read a novel to pass my time.. it was interesting though, instead of going an anime episode by episode, I was reading chapter by chapter.. There is entertainment other than the computer! (i am such a nerd :P)

Nevertheless, a few days ago Dell decided to do me good by sending the graphics card over. Guess what, the package originated from Bayan Lepas, Penang.. That's the building I can see from my house! That Dell building that were there since I dunno when that I never cared about.. haha!

Anyway, I was excited of course. So i called Dell tech support to get instructions on how to install the graphics card..

It goes roughly something like this:

Me: Hi! I just received a graphics card that i've ordered a few days ago. I need instructions on how to install it.

Dell technician: the part that you need to install is very complicated. We need to send someone to fix it for you.

Me: How much will that cost?

Dell technician: AU$185 (or something like that)

Me: WTF!(silently :P) Can you just send me the instructions for it so that I can do it myself?

Dell technician: No, the installation is VERY complicated. You need an ENGINEER to do it for you.

Me: err.. Ok.. I'll think about it.. bye

I felt really cheated.. I mean why the hell do you need to charge more than 100 bucks just to install something? That's like half the cost of my graphics card.. So I went to Dell support website to take a look. Guess what? I found a manual.. I has step by step guide on how to install the stuff..

Got a friend to help me out and we managed to install it in 1 hour. Does that make me a computer engineer? :P

Oh well.. life goes on back to usual.. :P

Thanks for reading :)