A collection of post on Science with a Malaysian focus
In 2003 the average score of Malaysian students in in the Trends in International Maths and Science Study 510 (slightly above the global average). In 2007, that number slumped to 471, below the global average. Then in Oct 2007, we sent a man to space. With the idea that it would “instill the interest of young Malaysians to explore new areas of science and technology ” Surely our...
There’s been a lot of talk lately on Malaysia sending a second Angkasawan into space. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be getting our moneys worth, the Angkasawan program has done nothing to stop the slide in our Scientific literacy in Malaysia, in fact, if the graph above is anything to go by it’s actually made the it worse. One of the key reasons always cited to support the...
Taken from the newly minted Education Blueprint: Malaysia places great importance on education as a means of becoming a developed nation to meet the challenges and demands of a STEM driven economy, by 2020. Accordingly, the Malaysian government instituted the 60:40 Science/Technical: Arts (60:40) Policy in education in 1967 and started implementing it in 1970. The policy refers to the Ministry’s...
The Star today reported that the entire state of Sabah had its electricity supply ‘crippled’. I used inverted commas because the article goes on to say that the reduction was as much as 200mW. Now, any school child in a reasonably good school is going to tell you 200mW is nothing. 200mW actually translates to just 200 milli-watts, or 0.2 Watts. That’s less than 1 Watt!! You see...
There’s something terribly wrong, when a politician can’t get his million, billions and trillions correct. This Malaysian Insider story has quoted my favorite bigot as saying: [box icon=”chat”] “Right now, the GNI of Bumiputeras is RM56 million. So to achieve RM900 billion by 2020, the government must provide funds worth RM1.4 trillion to Bumiputeras,” he said...
Vaccination deniers – KILL CHILDREN – Bill Gates.
Here’s a quick question–do you have a ‘original’ version of Windows running on your PC or is it pirated? If you’re like me, then obviously you’ve learnt long ago to only use original versions of software–especially when it’s the operating system of your PC. Of course, I wasn’t always like this, back in my university days, I couldn’t...
I pity TheStar, it gets whacked from both sides of the political spectrum, one for being too pro-government, and for not being pro-government enough. However, my sympathy has its limits when I saw what is undoubtedly the single stupidest article in any newspaper titled “Spicy food can trigger aggression” Now sure, the wonderful world of science sometimes throws us a surprise every now...
Great video from the guys at Numberphile talking about illegal numbers. It always amazes to think that your money in the bank isn’t protected by steel doors or guards with guns anymore–it’s protected by numbers. (more specifically it’s protected by one VERY VERY large number). The encryption key that is responsible for keeping your sensitive bank details secret, is nothing...
A lot of people ask why Malaysian has fallen behind countries like Korea, Taiwan or Singapore in terms of our economic development. The answer most politicians give is corruption–but there’s hardly any data to suggest that’s a big issue–at most corruption can account for the ‘loss of income’. There’s no guarantee that the money we saved by eliminating...