During the last few weeks, the stem cell scandal not only has raised numerous speculations about what had happened in Dr. Hwang Woo Suk’s lab, but also has caused much agony among Korean science community.

The scandal is indeed a big deal. Thousands of reports on Dr. Hwang’s case are floating around in the Google. Thus, I will summarize three key points briefly.

First, is there an ethical lapse if Dr. Hwang knowingly used his junior researchers’ eggs? The consensus is that this behavior is inappropriate, to say the least.

Second, did Dr. Hwang fabricate data for the stunning paper published in the June 17 issue of Science? Again, it seems that the paper did miss some information about several stem cell lines, as accused by Roh Sung Il and the Seoul National University.

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Yesterday evening, my son and I played a “what if…” game when I was cooking dinner. We created lots of jokes using rhymes. Here are a couple funny ones:

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What if you and dinosaur have a date?
I will be eaten like a cake.

What if you are a dog?
I will bite your socks.

What if you are a bird?
I will poop on a nerd.

What if you punch a B?
He will turn into a D.

What if G has a baby?
Her tummy will be heavy.

And here are the best two which were made solely by my son:

What if you are a fish?
I will swim in a dish.

What if you are a chip?
I will dive into a dip.

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I am not an economist, but I have learned that empirically, death penalty cannot deter the criminals. Data suggest that the crime rates went up and down regardless of death penalty.

However, I still strongly support death penalty. Death penalty is not a tool of reducing crime rate, but an ultimate punishment for those notorious criminals. It is based on a fair principle: blood for blood, teeth for teeth.

Some may criticize me that my rationale for advocating death penalty is not different from the thousands of years’ old Bible teaching. Yes, it is true. Given that the greed and sin of modern human beings are not different from those living in the Bible era, why should punishment be changed? Further, what kind of punishment is more suitable for those criminals than death penalty is?

It is also true that abusing the law or torturing the suspects are not rare. Some innocent people may be executed because the police have forced them to commit the charges. However, in an unjust society, eliminating death penalty won’t reverse the unfair treatments. Innocent people may still be sentenced to life time imprisoning. It has no difference from death. But lives of hardcore criminals are worthless. Trying to convert them is hopeless, and preserving their lives is wasting resource.

Death penalty is a must for a just society, except for that the execution of death penalty should be cautious.

The story of Narnia is simple. The Narnia world is created by Aslan, the Lion, the king of kings. In Narnia, animals talk like humans do. There are good and evil, and fights.

The movie Narnia depicts one of the seven Narnia stories. Four kids, Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy accidentally entered the Narnia world through a magic wardrobe. During that time, Narnia was ruled by an evil White Witch. The land had been frozen for more than a hundred years. The appearance of the four kids seemed to fulfill a prophecy that four humans would defeat the White Witch and save the world.

Lucy was the first one who entered the new world. She came across a faun called Mr. Tumnus. Mr. Tumnus asked Lucy to leave the land immediately because she was in grave danger. However, Lucy decided to enter the world again that night, and this time she was followed by Edmond. Unfortunately, Edmond met the White Witch herself and was enticed to bring his siblings back to her.

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From October 1980 to May 1981, a rare pneumonia, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), was confirmed among 5 homosexual young men in Los Angeles, California. Symptoms also included a long period of fever, cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and candidal muscosal infection. CDC reported these cases in June 5, 1981, and the Newsweek also made a passing mention about this new disease.

Meanwhile, in New York, at least eight cases were identified with aggressive Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS). These cases were also young, homosexually active men.

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Being a left-handed person is a life at odd. My memories are full of frustrations and confusions which continue till today. Science may provide some theories about the origin of handedness but won’t help my daily life.

A lefty kid brings shame to the family. In my hometown, and in China generally, struggling chopsticks clumsily with your left hand is a sign of low family education. Parents believe that it is their negligence that kids become lefties. Thus they feel responsible to correct this mistake, often forcibly. One trick my grandma used was to let me use chopsticks to pick up beans in a bowl with my right hand. It was fun at the beginning but quickly went miserable after I couldn’t pick most of beans. Picking up beans is OK, but no-food-with-your-left-hand is definitely a punishment. Left hand being slashed to red during the dinner is a common experience most switchers have suffered.

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Social science, or social sciences, refers to a branch of science that uses scientific methods to study the behavior of human and the society. It includes language studies, psychology, econmics, anthropology, sociology, and many others. It is related to humanities.

Yes, because social science deals with unpredictable human behavior and societal movements, there is no absolutely true or wrong answer for most social problems. However, social theories are formed exactly the same way as other sciences do: first observe the phenomenon, then summarize it and form a theory, and then collect data and test the theory. It is a spiral process. The empiricism is the key in modern social science.

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The long awaited movie, Harry Potter IV–the Goblet of Fire, is frightening but also surprisingly entertaining. The movie is well crafted and the story flow is better than the novel itself, a rare case in the history of film.

The Harry Potter book IV is not my favorite one. The story in this book is complicate and JK Rowlings didn’t handle it well. In addition to pushing through the thrilling tri-school wizard competition, she tried her best to depict the romantic stories among teenagers whose activities are mostly driven by their abundant hormone. Harry Potter has a crush with Chou Chang, and Ron Weasley is fervently jealous about Hermine’s date with Victor. It seems everybody is dating with somebody, which is true at the age of 14. Fortunately, the movie made a good decision between these two conflicting themes.

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Last weekend, the CNN Paul Zahn show (hosted by Heidi) featured the contested debate between intelligent design and Darwin’s evolution. The absurdity in those ID believers made me laugh and furious.

In the show, Michael Behe, a biology professor in the Lehigh University, deceitfully reasoned that some intelligent beings, in his belief, God, must design everything because even a propel system in a simple bacteria was complicate, let alone human eyes. However, most of his colleagues felt ashamed of Behe’s theory. Some even posted a statement declaring they were Darwinists.

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Rumors are not new to human society. Words of mouth is the traditional way of spreading rumors. But information is likely distorted during the transmission. Messages posted on the bulletin boards and blogs are unverified and, in a sense, rumors. In the era of internet and multifunctional cellular phone, emails and text messaging also make rumors spread at light speed. In fact, we are surrounded by rumors.

Sometimes rumors come from nowhere. However, more commonly they are derived from some vague facts, or originate in ambiguous situations. As a result, rumors cause more confusion among common people, and the government is supposed to reject rumors. However, several recent big rumors in China suggested that government may be partially responsible for these rumors.

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