In Malaysia, we tend to view entrepreneurship through the lens of business – if you asked the normal person on the street who they would define as entrepreneurs, they might cite names like Tony Fernandes of AirAsia or maybe the late Lim Goh Tong of Genting as examples of people who built a business from a very small seed and grew it to become one of Malaysia’s leading names. While this is correct, we feel that we should highlight social entrepreneurship, that is to say, entrepreneurs who come up with big ideas that really can impact the “social value” of the world around us rather than the “economic value” that business entrepreneurship tries to increase.

Perhaps it’s symptomatic of the Malaysian condition but many Malaysians generally seek a stable and secure life to provide for our families and for a few luxuries in life. Although this is natural, the social entrepreneur generally wants more out of life than that and seeks to make a difference. While we may dismiss this as dreams of idealistic youth, there are ample examples of people out there who Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us have probably never heard of atrazine but it is known to be one of the most commonly used weedkillers around the world, with almost a hundred million pounds of the weedkiller used every year in the United States alone. We’re not sure how much of it is used around Malaysia but considering that we’re a country with a strong agricultural base, we probably use it quite a bit under various trade names. You might even use some of it in your garden at home. While you might think it should be relatively safe considering the United States Environmental Protection Agency allows the use of atrazine and it is so common around the world. We should note, however, that the use of atrazine has been banned in the European Union.

The reason for the ban is quite straightforward, atrazine tends to persist in the soil for longer than is desirable with some estimates of soil halflife (this is the time it takes for half of the chemical to be removed from the soil) ranging between 13 to 261 days. This gives atrazine an adequate amount of time to leech into the underlying groundwater and pollute the water supply. This wouldn’t be that bad if the chemical were completely harmless, but unfortunately, it’s not. Read the rest of this entry »

Those Malaysians who love eating durian are already well aware that durian season is here again! We know to what lengths Malaysians will go to get hold of the best durians they can find, even if it means driving across the state or to another state just to find the one that suits their taste. And we also know how much of a problem it can be when you’ve got your car full of durians – you will have to sit in the car with the gases filling up the small space of your car the entire drive and, worse, the smell just won’t go away and you’ll still be “enjoying” the durians for weeks afterwards even after they’ve already been eaten. Or, how do you get the smell of durian away from your hands once you’ve enjoyed the fruit?

We’re all about finding natural ways to do things and so, here are some tips that we’ve gathered from an assortment of Internet links and old wives’ tales: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve heard that one of the popular trends for women who go to hair salons right now is rebonding treatments to straighten their hair to achieve that silky and shiny look. Apart from being an expensive treatment for your hair, the rebonding process actually uses quite a lot of different chemicals, some of which can be very harsh to your hair. In this article, we’ll try to explore the rebonding process a bit more and talk about some of the stresses and strains that your hair will encounter.

Human hair is largely made up of proteins with very strong chemical bonds holding the molecules together to create a lightweight yet strong material. Whether your hair is naturally silky and straight, or curly and frizzy, depends very much on your genetic makeup – you will notice, for example, that you Read the rest of this entry »

The generally accepted wisdom, of course, is that civilization has increased all our lifespans and made us healthier on average thanks to advances in medicine, greater knowledge about nutrition and diets as well as public healthcare and hygience techniques that bring benefits to a wider range of people. But could it be that the trappings of civilization can actually reduce our lifespan rather than enhance it? According to this article (note: you will have to make a paid subscription if you want to view anything more than the summary), this may not be true and the evidence suggests that human health has declined markedly since agriculture became widely adopted.

Some careful thinking about this might be warranted and it is fairly easy to see how this may be the case in our own daily lives when considering the lifestyles we lead nowadays in a “modern” or “civilized” world. Read the rest of this entry »

In one of our earlier articles, we spoke about some of the additives that are used in the shampoo industry and why they should be avoided because there really are some nasty chemicals out there. We’re now going to extend the concept even further and share with you some of the information we’ve gathered from the Internet on how to make your own shampoo – which should be even more cost effective than looking out for organic shampoos in the shops.

Before we begin, we should note that you need to be very careful if you decide to make your own herbal shampoo. Make sure that you do it outside in a very well ventilated location, some of the chemicals that are used in the process can cause some severe burns and can release smelly fumes which can quickly overpower you if you’re doing it in an enclosed space. Also, don’t forget to dispose of everything carefully when you’re done, we don’t think we need to explain why throwing chemicals or anything into the ground is a bad idea! Read the rest of this entry »

We think that the call for blood donations and organ donations has been put out time and time again and that our readers should be aware of the need to participate in these programs but we feel that we should put out the call again since unfortunately, despite receiving great publicity, there never seems to be enough blood available in the blood banks and hospitals and the Health Ministry repeatedly have to put out calls for people to donate their blood to replenish supplies which have diminished to critically low levels.

In actuality, there are a battery of tests that are done to ensure that blood donation provides a supply of high quality blood that will save lives rather than cause problems further down the road. Before you donate your blood, you are required to undergo blood tests so that your blood type that can be identified – this will determine a match between your blood type and the potential recipient’s blood type to prevent any fatal rejections. You will also Read the rest of this entry »

Hydrogen is one of those alternative fuels that’s always been touted as the fuel for the future and, really, it’s got a few things going for it. For one, hydrogen burns very cleanly (the byproduct of the combustion of hydrogen is water) and, despite all the bad reputation with hydrogen as an explosive substance (remember the Hindenburg disaster at the beginning of the 20th century?), can actually be rendered relatively safe and transported in a canister and used to power your vehicle.

We’ve heard of a few kits being sold around town nowadays which promise better fuel economy by installing a device in your car that will convert water into hydrogen which will then feed into the combustion engine, although we can’t seem to find any details of how this will be done. Nevertheless, we urge caution because, unless you are buying devices that have been extensively tested by a world class standards organization, there is Read the rest of this entry »