Gaki N Me If you love to talk about the world, love Asian idols, this is the place.

This year's International Math Olympiad would be held in Hanoi, Vietnam July 19-30, 2007.  Many local papers are already writing up on the team of high school students they are sending.  If you take a look at this chart, you would see that the US does not do too poorly in getting awards, compared to Russia, Hungary, Germany and China.  But today, the top mathematicians are not the Russians. It's the Vietnamese. All along there have been Vietnamese professors from all over the world submitting papers to journals but recently, there has been an amazing number of top notch papers from Vietnam itself that floored the entire world.  Mathematicians from all over the world are sending personnel into Vietnam to understand what is happening. China which is still in rote stage doesn't come close to the Vietnamese in creativity. This came from a math professor colleague at my husband's college and this professor himself is top notch and work with top notch Japanese professors in Japan. Perhaps Professor Hoang Tuy has set the pace for the world and his countrymen are following his footsteps. 

Vietnam’s mathematical superstar

Yesterday I read an article from the Wall Street Journal With Corn Prices Rising, Pigs Switch to Fatty Snacks about how the price of corn feed has doubled and therefore many farmers who try to keep the cost of feedding their pigs down, uses trail mix, candy bars, cheese curls, taters, and some pigs even fight over chocolate. This might sound funny but I'm wondering what would the effect be on humans who eat them after 6 months. The Jews and Islamics plus other religious groups do not eat pork in general because their religion tells them that it is a dirty animal that eats feces of any living creature, even those that are farm raised. Ahem... And so if you plan to have pork tonight, perhaps you should read these two articles first: 1, 2

Here's an extra article in case the WSJ one goes offline.

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In the US last year, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a vaccine that fight against 5 strains of the human papillomaviruses (HPV) that causes cervical cancer. This vaccine is for girls between 9-26 years old and 3 doses in 6 months have to been applied preferably in pre-sexually active girls, the younger the better because the neck of the cervix is thickened once they become sexually active.  It has been only tested for two years.  Last week, Texas has mandated it as law for girls to receive this shot entering 6th grade in 2008.  Twenty other states have this bill drafted ready to go.  

"The vaccine, Gardasil, blocks infection by two types of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which account for about 70% of cervical cancer cases.

Gardasil also blocks infection by two other HPV types that cause about 90% of genital warts cases. Spread by skin-to-skin contact, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the USA. More than 90% of cases clear up on their own, but persistent infection with certain HPV types causes virtually all cervical cancers. "

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I was reading the Japanese news Emergency task force set up after death of more chickens from bird flu which reported the death of 39 chickens in Okayama region and the Governor of Miyazaki Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru visited the Agricultural Minister in Tokyo and gave him a plate of sauteed chicken to reassure him that is was safe. Ah! I hope the Minister didn't eat it.  If the chicken were infected, he may be infected too even if it is cooked.

At the moment, there is no conclusive evidence that cooked chicken products (meat, egg yolks, egg white) would infect humans but there is not conclusive evidence that it may not either. Scientists found that the bird flu virus were found in people who were not handling the birds (feeding, killing, defeathering, processing) carried the virus in their intestines although majority of the case were respiratory and throat infection.  Read this site for details.  I don't want to eat chicken anymore!  If you read this article about how unhygienic our chicken as food had to go through before it gets to our table, perhaps you too might think twice before eating it.

Well, since I was surfing for gypsy music, I happen on these delightful clips. Yang Xue Fei 楊雪霏 is supposedly the most promising classical guitarist at the moment from China.  Let's listen to her Romance D'amour piece here. 


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While researching on cloned food, it has occured to me that Americans are really against bio-engineering of all kinds.  While they may accept bio-engineered crops introduced into their food, but if it comes to animals that move and make sound, the majority of them are against it.  Recently a San Francisco company has sold a cloned cat for a rich old lady for US$50,000 to replace the one that died.  Yep, only rich people could afford it and this company would try to produce five more this year. To date, many of the cats survived less than 30 days.  


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A couple of days ago,we embarked on yet another lecture laden seafood dinner of how by the time our kids grow up, there wouldn't be any seafood left, so said the father. And my husband insisted that very soon food producers would culture and grow slabs of fish, seafood, meat in vats without the essentials that define them as animals. So of course, finally, a worthwhile topic to look into for my family. Food supply, cloning and related subjects ... And after a couple days, here are the findings. 


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This morning I read this news about this 28 Korean student winning a robot design contest because she "designed an intelligent robot, Hamie, which uses sight, hearing and touch to express intimacy while interacting with humans and fellow robots. "

KAIST Student Wins International Robot Design Contest
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In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its diagnostic list of mental disorders, despite substantial protest. For twenty years, the scientists and professionals continued to wonder if that was the right move.  Many still wanted to prove that homosexuals were mentally ill until 1992.

In 1991 the absolute equality of homosexuality and heterosexuality was strongly defended in a paper called "The Empirical Basis for the Demise of the Mental Illness Model" (Gonsiorek, 1991). But not until 1992 was homosexuality dropped from the psychiatric manual used by other nations--the International Classification of Diseases (King and Bartlett, 1999).... 

http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Gender/Site/depression/mental_problems.htm

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Today, I have to jot down a few phrases for myself for translation purposes and I'll list them here for my easy reference.

十億  (sup yik) 1,000,000,000  one billion

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This robot called Domo has "muscles" or motors called elastic actuators embedded in its fingers, wrists, arms and neck—sense how hard it’s gripping an object.  Read more here. 

 

For the longest time, in my very parochial Catholic education, and later a Christian faith, I have accepted the doctrine that homosexuality is a sin, it's unnatural and therefore not to be tolerated.
 

When some of the states in the US started to legalize same gender marriage, I was quite taken aback.  But recently, something in me changed.
 

One day, I happened to stumble on a Chinese story by a Buddhist and it goes along the following lines though I could not find it again to paste it here.

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The other day while I was writing about whales, I forgot to mention that some conservationists are against countries which put explosives at the end of the harpoon to quicken the death of whales.  Today's article is not about whales, but fish.  I remember a few years ago, I watched a documentary on the Philippines about how sea horses were becoming extinct because of cyanide fishing.  The fisherman put cyanide into the water and within a short time, the fish are stunned, immobilized and netted.

In seawater sodium cyanide breaks down into sodium and cyanide ions. In humans, the latter blocks the oxygen-transporting protein haemoglobin; the haemoglobin in fish is closely related to that of humans, and can combine with oxygen even faster. 
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A fellow xangan whoseyourdaddy2 has posted a very thoughtful comment on my posting Asians vs Whites vs Blacks. I invite all of you to read it. 
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I was reading this article about  computer chips the size of rice grain being injected in workers in US (as a data card system) here 

Two Workers Have Tracking Chips Implanted Into Them
Proposal to Implant Tracking Chips in Immigrants

and parents tracking their kids with cell phone technology that could tell where they are, what food they ordered, how fast they drive. 

More Parents Going High-Tech to Track Kids

when I bumped into this article.  

It Has Come to This: Computer Orders Restaurant Workers Around

Computers order workers around to maximize productivity.  And before I knew it, I got on to this very intriguing writer who predicts that robots could take over our economic system, throwing many of us out of work.

It is definitely likely the way he describes it in Manna.  After you read a couple of his stories of robotic nations and robots in 2015, make sure you read the FAQ section.  But if you are religious, don't read his article on God. He doesn't believe there has ever been a God.