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Last week I was arguing with my Dutchie buddy on the use of the English word ‘bastard’. Either he was being mischievous or he really meant it; he called a girl bastard but the girl argued that bastard could only refer to boys and not girls. My Dutchie buddy didn’t believe her. I understand that bastard originally means someone born outside a legitimate marriage, and although it was clear from dictionaries that the word could refer to a child of either sex, but I have always thought that it originally only meant a illegitimate son. In order to prove my point, I quickly looked up German and Dutch dictionaries online, then told my Dutchie buddy: the German word Bastard and Dutch bastaard are both masculine nouns, and if those words can indeed refer to both genders, they should have been of neuter gender like the word Kind (which means child in both German and Dutch). My Dutchie buddy wasn’t convinced, so I sought to look up an etymology dictionary for the origin of ‘bastard’. It turned ou...

The latest issue of the scientific journal Nature has a report on ‘ smart mice ’ that have certain genetic manipulation to enhance some brain functions. Compared to normal ones, these manipulated mice show better performance in a variety of standard tests. For example, it takes fewer trials for them to find the floating platform when swimming in a body of water (the water maze), or they are able to find their way through a more complicated labyrinth in a shorter time. However these advantages do come with some trade-offs. The mice that perform better in a complicated labyrinth perform less well in a simpler labyrinth than normal mice, and one of the manipulated genes in another type of smart mice is often involved in cancer development. (If you cannot read the article online, please ask me for a pdf copy.) Of course the scientists hope to learn something from the mice to advance treatments for neurological disorders or enhance mental functions. But before they can reach meaningful and ...

A day where so many runners have broken their personal bests must have been a record in itself, except it’s one that the organisers would not be particularly proud of. Many runners in the Melbourne marathon yesterday found that they have finished their courses faster than expected, but it was all because the actual distances of the 5 km and 10 km runs were shorter than what they should have been. The organisers admitted there was a problem but would not revealed how much difference there was between the advertised and actual distances; they have only denied that the difference was as much as 20%. Here’s the news report that says it all. Close enough is good enough – this should be the new motto for future Melbourne marathons. P.S. (18/10) - The organisers have finally revealed what the actual distances were for the 5 km and 10 km courses. One has to wonder how sloppy those people have been. 做事「提早達標」有誰不想，體育運動不斷打破往積也是很多人的目標。昨天舉行的墨爾本馬拉松，這些目標很多人都實現了，但他們也知道自己開心得太早。 原來五公里和十公里賽事，主辦單位承認實際距離比...

The host city for the 2016 Olympic Games has been announced. Chicago bowed out after the first round of voting for the host city as it received the fewest votes. One of Hong Kong’s news broadcasts reported that the sudden appearance of the US president Obama at the IOC meeting was expected to lift Chicago’s chances, but the defeat showed that the US would not have its way all the time on the foreign affairs scene. Not only would this weaken Obama’s reputation on the world stage, it would also undermine his standing in domestic politics. I couldn’t understand how people could make such an exaggeration on Obama’s effect on the voting and on the consequences of the defeat. I tended to think it was just another of those conspiracies against Obama by his political enemies. 2016年奧運主辦城市已經揭盅，申辦城市之一的城市芝加哥在第一輪投票輪選時已出局，無線新聞報導時說，有人事前預言美國總統奧巴馬臨時決定現身拉票會有助芝加哥勝出，但這次落敗也顯示奧巴馬在外交上並非有絕對影響力，事事不一定順境，還可能影響其在美國國內的管治威信云云。 我聽罷也覺可笑，事前把奧巴馬說成是神一樣，事敗後也把其後果無限放大，真不曉得是不是奧巴馬政敵的陰謀論也。 * * * The same news broadcast also r...