David Ng

Posts by: David Ng

Massive earthquake hits Japan.

By David Ng On March 11, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In >archive

- A powerful tsunami has swept across a large area of northern Japan causing major damage, flooding towns and sweeping away buildings. It was triggered by a 8.9-magnitude earthquake

- Police say up to 300 bodies have been found [...]

Continue Reading →

UBC’s Way too Asian

By David Ng On February 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In >archive, >humour, cultural criticism

Finally had a chance to check this video out (bouncing around the internets from Tetsuro’s TEDxTerrytalks video), and it’s pretty funny.

If you’re not sure what this is all about, it was essentially a response to MacLean’s controversial “Too Asian” piece in their university issue. As the youtube blurb reads:

As [...]

Continue Reading →

The Three Course Connection Dinner!

By David Ng On February 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In >education, >ubc'er, Art, science

Anisa says:

Does it feel like Science, Arts and Commerce at UBC are completely segregated disciplines to the point that the students from each faculty seemed to have diverged into different species? Well, a great way to dramatically shrink that gap would be to check out the Three Course Connection (3CC) Dinner that is set [...]

Continue Reading →

A conference on counter intuition?

By David Ng On February 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In >archive, conferences, global, science

Lisa says:

One of the main objectives of modern science is to improve the welfare of society. We strive to accomplish this by various means: disease research and prevention, technological advancements to enhance lifestyle quality, epidemiological studies investigating cultural nutritional differences, etc. In turn, increasing our knowledge base gives us the opportunity to contribute to [...]

Continue Reading →

Looking for some help with the Phylomon project

By David Ng On January 25, 2011 · 1 Comment · In >archive, >creative, >education, Cool Stuff, environment

Not sure if you remember this, but I’ve been happily watching a little web project of mine grow over time. It’s known as the Phylo project, and basically is a crowdsourcing initiative to create biodiversity trading cards a la Pokemon style ethos.

So far, it’s been steadily humming along, but I’d like [...]

Continue Reading →

Through Whose Eyes? A forum on representation.

By David Ng On January 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In >archive

Tess Baker says:

“Never sacrifice a good story for the truth.” Good advice, usually. But what about when the story is someone else’s story?

Engineers Without Borders is constantly trying to connect Canadians to Africans’ realities, to their stories. Usually, that means bringing individuals’ stories back to Canada, telling these stories in whatever way we [...]

Continue Reading →

Yes, you too can get yourself the NUCLEAR WAR card game…

By David Ng On January 6, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In global

…AND expansion sets!

Seriously, you can still buy it for $29.95. Better yet, there’s a number of extras you can get including (from wiki):

Nuclear Escalation (1983) Adds deterrents and defensive capabilities, space platforms, the “glow-in-the-dark nuclear death die”, and more. Nuclear Proliferation (1992) Each player now represents a different country with [...]

Continue Reading →

DNA fingerprint data for ASIC200 class.

By David Ng On April 19, 2010 · 1 Comment · In >archive, ASIC200

Details can be found here. It’s like quite a few didn’t get a good read on their sample, but, oh well, that isn’t necessarily a strange thing when doing experiments.

Continue Reading →

As I write this, you have only 24 hours to vote (choosing your new SUB building)

By David Ng On April 14, 2010 · 2 Comments · In >archive, >ubc'er, opportunity, students politics

This is, of course, being held at the worst possible time, but there is a vote afoot which will help the AMS narrow down the field of architects vying for the SUB project. This vote is due by tomorrow (Thursday, April 15th) at 10:00pm.

What do you need to do? Well maybe watching the [...]

Continue Reading →

DNA fingerprinting or (altogether now) the Polymerase Chain Reaction! (ASIC200 stuff)

By David Ng On April 5, 2010 · 2 Comments · In >archive, ASIC200, genetics

(This material will not be on final exam – lab commentary info can be found here)

First, a primer on the polymerase chain reaction (the lecture I would have liked to give in the lab if I had time).

The polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, is a powerful genetic technique that allows researchers to [...]

Continue Reading →

Hey look at that! I’m on YouTube (and I’m not doing a silly dance!)

By David Ng On March 30, 2010 · 2 Comments · In >archive, >education, conferences

In this video, I’m actually speaking (as oppose to dancing silly), since it looks like TEDx has released the mini talks we gave on our experiences hosting a TEDx conference.

Anyway, it only confirms my theory that most people on TV have huge heads (this is data gathered from interacting with the odd TV [...]

Continue Reading →

Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions (TEDtalk)

By David Ng On March 25, 2010 · 2 Comments · In >archive, cultural criticism, ethics, philosophy, science

One of the more compelling talks at this years TED conference. Quite powerful, definitely interesting for discussion, and certainly worth a look.

Continue Reading →

The PHYLO(MON) project: Information Meeting Numero Uno (March 25th)

By David Ng On March 18, 2010 · 1 Comment · In >archive, >creative, >education, biodiversity, science, technology

O.K.

We’re just about ready to launch this thing, so it’s high time, I had a proper chance to talk about it. So… If you are in any way curious about what an amalgamation of biodiversity and Pokemon might look like, then do please see if you have an hour to spare so I [...]

Continue Reading →

UBC MIX Program! (Sounds like a dating service, but not really)

By David Ng On March 18, 2010 · 7 Comments · In >archive, >education, >ubc'er, Terry Wish, opportunity

Just a little heads up that the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund has kindly green lighted funding for Geoff’s TEDxTt2008 Wish. Which, in case, you don’t recall, was all about figuring out how to get students of different disciplines to interact more in their classes.

In grant speak, this means that:

[...]

Continue Reading →

Phylomon project update!

By David Ng On March 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment · In >archive, >creative, >education, biodiversity, science

This is straight from the main page. As well, the first UBC phylomon info meeting will be held on March 25th, 4:30pm at the Michael Smith Building (details here):

Things are humming along! We have over 100 images submitted, 30 or so queued up for card production, and over 40 [...]

Continue Reading →

So… What did you think of the olympics? …

By David Ng On March 3, 2010 · 4 Comments · In >archive, >commentary, >ubc'er

Continue Reading →

Climate Change: From as Many Angles as You Can Imagine (March 11/12, Liu Centre for Global Issues)

By David Ng On March 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment · In >archive, >ubc'er, Cool Stuff, climate change, conferences, speakers

Rebekah says:

Hey Terry Readers!

Take a moment and think about the title of this latest climate action conference: No Other World (NOW!). By now we’ve all heard the climate spiel; that we’re headed for disaster if we don’t drastically change our lifestyles within a few years. We have scientists, (some) politicians, heck even [...]

Continue Reading →

Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds (a great video from a great lady)

By David Ng On February 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment · In >archive, >education

Seems like TED.com is releasing videos on my list of favourites. Sit back and enjoy!

As an aside, I’m curious what she thinks of this vaccine nonsense – as someone who relishes in the details, she would have been a great spokesperson in setting the Jenny McCarthys of the world straight.

Continue Reading →