[TinyRedLeaf]

It has been a while (almost four years ago!), and many of its original contributors have since moved on from AnimeSuki but, still, I feel that the guns and gun-control debate should have been moved to the thread where it belongs (I've added "guns" and "gun control" to the tags list; hopefully that would make these posts easier to find in the future).

Most of the key issues had already been thoroughly discussed, rendering many of the recent posts in the past few pages somewhat unnecessary. My opinion today hasn't changed from four years ago: The idea that the solution to gun crimes is to have even more guns is scary at best, and a delusion at worst. I still fail to see how encouraging a civilian arms race would make a country a safer place. But, hey, if Americans like it that way, who am I to argue?

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Moving on, an exciting discovery on the scientific front:

HK scientists store complex data in bacteria

Hong Kong (Jan 9, Sun): The United States' national archives occupy more than 800km (500 miles) of shelving; France's archives stretch for more than 160km, as do Britain's.

Yet a group of students at Hong Kong's Chinese University is making strides towards storing such vast amounts of information in an unexpected home: the E. coli bacterium better known as a potential source of serious food poisoning.

"This means you will be able to keep large datasets for the long term in a box of bacteria in the refrigerator," said Mr Aldrin Yim, a student instructor on the university's biostorage project.

Biostorage — the art of storing and encrypting information in living organisms — is a young field, having existed for just about a decade. The Hong Kong researchers have developed ways to store complex data in bacteria and have started to overcome practical problems that caused sceptics to see the method as science fiction.

The group has developed a method of compressing data to overcome limits on storage capacity. They are also able to "map" the DNA so that information can be easily located. This opens up the way to storing not only text, but images, music, and even video within cells.

As a storage method it is extremely compact. As each cell is minuscule, the group says that 1g (0.3 ounces) of bacteria could store the same amount of information as 450 2,000GB hard disks.

More importantly, "bacteria can't be hacked", pointed out Mr Allen Yu, another student instructor. He added: "All kinds of computers are vulnerable to electrical failures or data theft. But bacteria are immune to cyber attacks. You can safeguard the information."

The team has even coined a word for this field — biocryptography — and the encoding mechanism contains built-in checks to ensure that mutations in some bacterial cells do not corrupt the data as a whole.

Professor Chan Ting Fung, who supervised the student team, told AFP that practical work in the field — fostered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which helped develop standards enabling researchers to collaborate — was in its early stages.

But he said: "What the students did was to try it out and make sure some of the fundamental principles are actually achievable."

AFP

On a more depressing note, the Chinese again demonstrate how low they would go in the name of greed:

Chinese official suspended over lead poisoning

Beijing (Jan 9, Sun): An environmental official in eastern China was suspended after a battery factory sickened more than 200 children with lead poisoning, the authorities said today.

Mr Zhao Yiping, the head of the local environmental protection bureau in Huaining County in Anhui province, was suspended from his duties after tests confirmed that lead emissions from Borui Battery Company had polluted the nearby soil, the county government said in a statement.

It said 228 children out of 307 tested were found to have high levels of lead in their blood. Twenty-three of them were hospitalised and are receiving treatment. The battery plant was forced to halt operations while investigations continue, the statement said.

The plant had failed to pass necessary environmental checks and was asked to close in August, but it later resumed production without notifying the authorities. The factory was across the street from a residential area, despite regulations that battery plants must be at least 500m (1,600 feet) away.

Reports of lead poisoning have emerged from far-flung parts of China since 2009, usually rural areas where large, highly polluting factories have been plunked down among farms at the behest of local governments whose performance assessments are based on their ability to deliver economic growth.

Excessive amounts of lead in the body can harm the nervous and reproductive systems and cause high blood pressure and anaemia. In severe cases, it can lead to convulsions, coma and death.

AP

The above comes after a recent report about Chinese attempting to profit from fake eggs.

China has fake wine, tofu and now... eggs

Beijing (Jan 5, Wed): China looks set to start the new year struggling with a food-safety problem that it just cannot seem to overcome.

In one of its latest stings, state broadcaster China Central Television uncovered the process behind the making of fake eggs — a persistent practice that is dangerous because of the chemicals used.

Local media followed up with reports of rampant do-it-yourself DVDs being sold online that provide "lessons" on how to make fake eggs. The disks are sold for 500 yuan (US$75) each. The fake eggs, which are sold as the real thing for anything from 0.5 yuan each, cost only 0.05 yuan to produce, several times cheaper than real ones.

THE STRAITS TIMES