Singapore gets in - principle approval to host F1 night race

"Singapore will host the first Formula One night race next year.

The sport's governing body, FIA, has given the in-principle approval to Singapore to host the September 28 race under the floodlights.

Lighting trials have been conducted overseas to assess if a night race could be staged in Singapore.

Singapore had earlier said that a night race will be unique, different and allow the Singapore event to reach out to television audiences in Asia, Europe and the US.

And Singapore would proceed with a night race only if the safety and operational requirements of all parties including the FIA, FOA and Formula 1 teams were fully met."

Read the full article at LexisNexis.

Popular band makes surprise visits to two schoolsChannel NewsAsia

"Screaming fans were seen at St Joseph's Convent when popular American teen band, The Click Five, paid a surprise visit to the school on Tuesday morning as part of a MediaCorp Radio contest for the most number of The Click Five fans in school.

The students were expecting the band's autographed merchandise, but got a big surprise when band members turned up in person instead.

Clara Li, a Secondary Four student at St Joseph's Convent, said: "This is the first time I'm seeing them. It was quite a shock to see them because I thought it was just 'The Muttons' who would come and give us the stuff. I'm really happy that they are here."

Read full article at Factiva.com

Singapore to invest $246 mln in tourism over 3 yrs

"The Singapore government is investing about S$360 million ($246 million) to train workers in the tourism sector over the next three years as the city-state heads towards receiving a record number of visitors this year.

The Singapore Tourism Board and the Singapore Workforce Development Agency said in a joint statement on Thursday that 60,000 tourism jobs will be created and 74,000 workers trained by 2010 under the investment to meet an expected rise in demand for labour in the sector."

Read the full article at Factiva.com

Singapore Airlines' superjumbo A380 completes maiden voyage to Sydney

"The world's biggest jumbo jet landed safely in Sydney on Thursday, ending its first commercial flight from Singapore.

The Singapore Airlines' Airbus A380 superjumbo [ARBU.UL] emerged from low-lying cloud to touch down on time on a damp Sydney afternoon, completing its flight from Singapore's Changi Airport.

The aircraft will return to Singapore on Friday."

Read the full article at Factiva.com

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Maybe You Never Cry Again
A True Story
Edition: Abridged
by Bernie Mac
©2003 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. Since then, he has become one of the greatest comedians of our time. Now, this amazing comedian delves deep down inside to retell the poignant story of his childhood and the people who helped shape him into the comedian, and the strong and self-reliant man he is today.

When Bernie Mac was just sixteen years old, he lost his beloved mother to breast cancer. While he grew up, she was a tough but loving teacher of life lessons and "Mac-isms" that would carry him through many hardships. These lessons gave him an inner strength that led him to choose hope over despair, and to follow his dream of becoming a comedian.

Bernie Mac recounts his slow rise to stardom, from doing stand-up at a church dinner at age eight, to performing in amateur open-mike nights to make ends meet, to eventually entertaining huge audiences on stage and in film and television. He also shares the secrets to life, and to comedy, that he learned along the way.

Ceck out this ebook at Overdrive.

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Ran out of nursery rhymes to entertain your children with?

Check out this audio eBook in Overdrive. You could even burn the rhymes on a CD during the lending period, and play it anywhere, anytime (PS. For personal use only).

Title: 50 Favourite Nursery Rhymes
Edition: Unabridged
Publisher: BBC Audiobooks

Description: 50 favourite nursery rhymes, contains lots of the most common nursery rhymes and all those you may have forgotten!

Posted by digitalk team at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The National Library Board (NLB) and PUB have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a collection on water management resources, as well as to promote public education on water issues.

NLB and PUB hope that the move, which allows greater accessibility to local materials on water, will help contribute towards new cutting-edge developments in water technology.

A bibliography was also unveiled on Thursday.

It consists of the latest resources on PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters Programme and other water-related topics.

A two-week public exhibition on the ABC Waters Programme is being at the National Library from 11-28 October."

DIrect Link:
"NLB, PUB sign MOU to build collection of water management resources." Channel NewsAsia, Mediacorp News Pte Ltd. 11 October 2007.

Posted by digitalk team at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is where we put on our waterproof wear, slip on some goggles and an air tank ready to splash, swim, dive and frolic in that most fundamental of elements - water.

Water is at the core of our being. What do we do with it? What would we do without it? And why we don't do more to make it last? Will we be able to sustain it or will we be in the situation of the Ancient Mariner "water everywhere, and not a drop to drink"?

These are key questions which our digital resources are well placed to answer giving our patrons the scientific, sociological and straightforward sources to understand this vital area.

Spanning: eBooks on aquariums, water science and water therapy; eDatabases covering climate change, water supply and management, water education resources and Handel Water Music! NLB has an ocean of resources, authoritative, up-to-date and searchable! "

with

Water has been around forever ... it is in us and around us and there is nothing we do that doesn't in some way use water. But our use of water and how much we take its existence for granted is becoming a global problem.

In Texas (1), one of the drier states in the US they have to work out how best to serve the burgeoning growth of 24 cities and drew up an ambitious plan in November 2006. The bulk of the planning was done by regional planning groups that were created to plan for the responsible use of the diverse water resources in 16 of the state's distinct regions.

In contrast, China has never been short of water - witness the recent floods but they also have to think carefully about how to make the resource work efficiently. The featured paper (2) starts by analyzing the progressing course and problems of water resources management in river basins in China and abroad, looks at the practical problems of water resources management and systematically generates the model, organization structure and technical framework of integrated management of river basins that meet Chinese conditions.

Irrigation is, of course, a key use of water Irrigation but studies show that it will continue to lose water to competing sectors making the productivity of irrigation systems (3) an important part of the human future. Similarly, reservoirs are a key component of the water management chain and careful operation (4) can yield many benefits not least drinking water (5).

Of course the use of water for human amusement will always be a factor in the use of water whether fresh and salt, and the keeping of aquaria ranks high in the list of soothing hobbies.

DIRECT LINKS
with
1. Texas Turns on the Tap. Find More Like This by Kevin Kluge
from Planning; Jun2007, Vol. 73 Issue 6, p30-35, 6p in EBSCOHost

2. Integrated management of water resources in river basins in China.
by Zeng, Wei-Hua
Aquatic ecosystem health & management Volume:9 Issue: 3; p. 327 n EBSCOHost

3. Irrigation reliability and the productivity of water: A proposed methodology using evapotranspiration mapping
Journal: Irrigation and Drainage Systems Issue Volume 19, Numbers 3-4 / November, 2005 from SpringerLink

4. The Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - A unique use of tunnel space for both traffic and flood water
Christopher J.Bambridge, ; Lee Seng Hoor, Proceedings - Rapid Excavation and Tunneling Conference
p.485-494
from Compendex & INSPEC

5. 2006-2011 World Outlook for Bottled Water. by Philip M.Parker,
2006-2011 World Outlook for Bottled Water p.1-186
from Business Source Complete

6. “Saltwater Aquariums Make a Great Hobby” ebook from Overdrive

without

-
Not matter how we manage our water resources, the one thing we are now sure of is we have to cope with is doing without or, at least, making the absolute best with a finite resource. As has been shown recently in Australia - drought can have far-reaching effects on land and livelihood,thus the urgency of water ecycling schemes in the continent (1). But even in Asia which can't be said to have a similar drought problem there is still a need to recognise that scarcity may face the region whether through water misuse of rapid growth in population(2).

Nowhere is the population/water misuse more acute than in the burgeoning cities of Chinese where the growth of the last 10 years has had a profound effect on water, land, livelihood and lives (3). The key word is "sustainability" whether this is of existing resources or in finding new sources of water (4)

DIRECT LINKS
without
(1) “Australia's Largest Water Recycling Scheme” Clean Air & Environmental Quality
01/11/2006. Vol.40,Iss.4;p.18-19
from EBSCHost Academic Search Premier

(2) “Managing scarce water resources in Asia: The nature of the problem and can remote sensing help?”
Wim G.M Bastiaanssen, .; Nagaraja Rao Harshadeep, .
Irrigation and Drainage Systems November, 2005. Vol.19,Iss.3-4;p.269-284
from Compendex & INSPEC

(3) “Water conservation, a big task for [Chinese] cities” Beijing Review; Beijing
Jun 21, 1993. Vol.36,Iss.25;p.7
from ProQuest Asian Business and Reference

(4) “Land, Water and Development: Sustainable Management of River Basin Systems” ebook
from eBrary

where & when

As mentioned above the management and careful use of water is a worldwide concern. Unsurprisingly crises related to water are not new. Back in the day when agriculture was just getting on its feet, there were several conflicts which were sparked by acess to water (1). This looks set to continue as the "resource wars" expand from oil to water (2) and this is particularly critical in the Middle East notably relating to the peoples who depend on the Euphrates and the Jordan rivers.

In Bangladesh their problem, as all are aware is too often too much water either from the mountains or the sea but in a bitter twist of fate much of the groundwater is contaminated by arsenic (3). The attempts to restore the live-giving water is a real challenge topeople and government alike. Similarly, on the other side of the world, The Great Lakes, which certainly live up to their name, are also facing serious issues about the impact of industry on their purity and a huge project is in place to resore them to their former glory (4).

As far as ocean management is concerned, Indonesia has in recent years taken a good, hard look at the governance of their immediate oceans with interesting results (5).

DIRECT LINKS
where & when
(1) “Water Wars of Old …in Sumeria” Science & Spirit; Washington
Jul/Aug 2007. Vol.18,Iss.3;p.34
from ProQuest

(2) “The World in 2027. ….water wars will have supplanted oil wars “ Tim Jones
British Journal of Administrative Management
Iss.58;
from Business Source Complete

(3) “Arsenic Contamination of Groundwater in Bangladesh” Ali, M. Ashraf; Ali, M. Ashraf.
International Review for Environmental Strategies Vol.6,Iss.2;p.329-360
Source: Business Source Complete

(4) “Restoration of the Great Lakes" an ebook from eBrary

(5) “Resource Issues and Ocean Governance in Asia Pacific: An Indonesian Perspective ” Dewi Fortuna Anwar,
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International & Strategic Affairs (Vol.28,Iss.3);p.466-489
from EBSCHost Academic Search Premier

waste

The waste of water or the use of waste water however are crucial to our harnessing the scarce resources avaialble to us. As has been previously mentioned, recycling, while not universal, has clearly much more supporters in that last ten years perhaps due to the growth of the "green" movement and the concerns surrounding "global warming."

Making use of waste water instead of pure water for routine tasks (1) is now fairly established in most modern cities. However the use of land, particularly for farming and livestock rearing, can have short as well as long term effects on the overall water quality of a country (2).

So need to place the emphasis on clean water can never be overestimated (3) and again policy and management(4) need to go hand-in-hand such that this precious natural resource is there for succeeding generations to use, thrive on and revel in.

DIRECT LINKS
(1) “Recycling of poor quality urban wastewater by drip irrigation systems ” by A. Capra; B. Scicolone.
Journal of Cleaner Production Vol.15,Iss.16;p.1529-1534
from Compendex & INSPEC

(2) “Impact of waste from concentrated animal feeding operations on water quality ” JoAnn Burkholder;Bob Libra; Peter Weyer; Susan Heathcote; Dana Kolpin; Peter S. Thorne ; Michael Wichman
Environmental Health Perspectives Vol.115,Iss.2;p.308-312
from EBSCOHost Academic Search Premier

(3) "Clean Water for the World - The Challenge, The Opportunity; "Without water you can not have life"
Business Wire; New York Mar 13, 2006. p.1
from ABI/INFORM

(4) “Groundwater in Urban Development: Assessing Management Needs and Formulating Policy Strategies”
Stephen S. D Foster, .; Lawrence, Adrian; Morris, Brian. World Bank Technical Paper from NetLibrary

wonders

There is so much beauty in water and as humans we recognise and celebrate this in so many ways whether it is through extreme sports (1) or going into the hard-to-reach parts of our planet to experience the rawness of nature before cities and modern transport (2). We all take plesure in the ocean but seldome realise that its beauty and power is fragile thus initiatives which focus on the ocean's fecund variety (3) will benefit us all whether we walk by the shore or dive into the deeps.

Whether it is the Pacific, the Indian (4) or the Atlantic Oceans; our seas, our lakes or our rivers, we must strive to become responsible stewards of scarcity. If as has been suggested the earth can be seen as a single organism
(5)

DIRECT LINKS
wonder
(1) "Find your Flow: We've zeroed in on the best blue-ribbon river trips in North America - from remote rapids to meandering flatwater - for getting wet, wild, and recharged." by Grayson Schaffer
Outside p.105-110; 112; 114
from SPORTDiscus with Full Text

(2) “Surviving white water below Papua New Guinea's jungle ” by Neil Shea
National Geographic Vol.210, Iss.3; p.94-109
from EBSCOHost Academic Search Premier

(3) “Fertilizing Oceans, Saving The Earth” Fortune 09/07/2007. Vol.156,Iss.1;p.B-4-B-5
from EBSCOHost Masterfile Premier

(4) “The Indian Ocean in World History ” from our eBook Collections in Overdrive

(5) Saving Gaia
New Scientist. London: Sep 29-Oct 5, 2007. Vol. 195, Iss. 2623; pg. 4, 1 pgs
from Proquest

"Flood and fun" Image courtesy of OnAsia

Posted by digi.talk team at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when it is given."
- Deepak Chopra, author

Posted by digitalk team at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fancy reading about adventures? Explore our eBook collection for a dosage of them then.

Here are some of the many in the collection:

Spider-Man: The Adventures of Spider-Man
By Michael Teitelbaum
From NLB Overdrive Collection

Adventures of a Psychic
By Sylvia Browne
From NLB Overdrive Collection

Adventures of a Scottish Heiress
By Cathy Maxwell
From NLB Overdrive Collection

The Adventures of Gerard
By Arthur Conan Doyle
From NLB Overdrive Collection

Adventures of Pinocchio
By C. Collodi
From NLB Overdrive Collection

The Adventures of Robin Hood
By Howard Pyle
From NLB Overdrive Collection

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
By Mark Twain & Pat Bottino
From NLB Overdrive Collection

The Complete Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
By L. Frank Baum
From NLB Overdrive Collection

Posted by digitalk team at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Image taken from Library PressDisplay

Good news for your Viagra-using hamster: On his next trip to overseas, he'll bounce back from jet lag faster than his unmedicated friends. Will we, humans, be able to benefit from this discovery soon too? (3)

Guess we could only join in and sing to the tune of Doris Day’s “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps” for now.

Scientists have discovered that Viagra helped the hamsters they studied, overcome jet lag. This discovery earned them one of the ten awards given, at the 17th Annual Ig Nobel (The name is supposedly a play on the word ignoble and the name "Nobel" after Alfred Nobel, according to Wikipedia) Awards ceremony this year. (1)

The team at Quilmes National University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, came up with the jet-lag study, which found that hamsters given the anti-impotence drug needed 50 percent less time to recover from a six-hour time zone change. They didn't fly rodents to Paris, incidentally -- they just turned the lights off and on at different times. (3)

The Ig Nobel Awards ceremony is famously known for highlighting bizarre discoveries in the field of Science, and this year was no exception. Apart from hamsters taking center stage were others such as the extraction of vanilla flavouring from the unthinkable, cow dung. Other strange discoveries also included the examination of side effects from sword swallowing and whether rats can discriminate between Japanese and Dutch spoken backwards.

Image from OnAsia

The awards, a parody of the prestigious Nobel Prizes, were announced during a raucous ceremony at Harvard University in Massachusetts. The Ig Nobels have often targeted what are perceived to be wasteful projects and some scientists have complained that the satirical awards unfairly tarnish legitimate research. However, many researchers have welcomed the chance to talk about their work. Nuria Sebastian-Galles, one of the Barcelona team of scientists, of the findings, aptly commented that the awards "bring out the freak inside most scientists." (1)

These annual prizes are awarded by science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
Past winners have included the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, the inventor of an alarm clock that runs and hides and a researcher who reported the first known case of homosexual necrophiliac behavior in the mallard duck. (1)

Research highlighted by this year's awards ranged from a study of how sheets wrinkle and how the word "the" causes headaches for indexes to why humans can't stop eating when presented with an apparently endless bowl of soup.

The prestigious peace prize was given to a US Air Force laboratory for researching what the committee dubbed the "gay bomb" -- a chemical weapon that would make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other. (1)

The winners were permitted just 60 seconds to give their acceptance speeches, on pain of interruption by an eight-year-old girl, who traditionally signals the time limit by repeatedly shouting, "Please stop, I'm bored." Seven of the 10 winners this year paid their own way to accept their awards, which were handed out by six real Nobel Laureates. (1)

Some of this year’s winners (2):

"Chemistry" -- Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin, or vanilla fragrance and flavoring, from cow dung.

"Linguistics" -- Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, of Universitat de Barcelona -- for a study showing rats sometimes fail to distinguish between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.

"Peace Prize" -- The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon, the so-called "gay bomb," that "will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other".

"Biology" -- Dr. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for their census of all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi that share our beds at night.

"Economics" -- Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device in 2001 that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them, known as the "net trapping system for capturing a robber immediately."

References:
(1) “Hamsters on Viagra take centre stage at Ig Nobel awards.” Agence France-Presse, 4 October 2007. Database Source: Factiva.com
(2) “Gay bomb, cow dung study among Ig Nobel winners.” Reuters News, 4 October 2007. Database Source: Factiva.com
(3) “Ig Nobel Prizes a Mouthful of Fun.” Associated Press Newswires, 5 October 2007. Database Sources: Factiva.com

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