In the 1980s, Malaysia made a critical decision in moving from an agricultural economic base to an economy based on manufacturing and remains on the cusp of moving towards a knowledge society. The idea seems to be sound – by moving to a more “value added” economic activity, the country and its people can benefit from greater returns on their investments. So, it was interesting to find a group of articles on Bloomberg today on how some big international investment funds are starting to look at investing in agriculture again as a way of generating good return on investment.

According to this article from Bloomberg, some international private equity funds have invested in free range goat farming projects in Australia, which promise 12% returns on investment, and according to this article also from Bloomberg, George Washington University in the United States is planning on raising its investments in agricultural projects to 10% of its total endowment. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve only recently heard about this universal city in India called Auroville, which isn’t really timely news because it was founded in the 1960s, but we think it deserves a mention because it is probably something that we haven’t really heard about and it does sound like a worthy project. The whole idea of the universal city as embodied by Auroville is to create a place where the only values uniting every resident of the city are those human unity and celebrating the diversity of all humans. And Auroville really does live up to its ideals, with people from more than 30 nations around the world living on its premises and being a part of the community.

Apart from being a place attuned to spiritual and human development, Auroville has also been designed with sustainable principles in mind. Water for the city is drawn up from underground aquifers using a combination of diesel and sustainable energy for the use of its residents, and Read the rest of this entry »

It has been said that the greatest opportunities arise from the most trying conditions and there really aren’t as many trying times as the recession that most countries around the world are going through right now. Nevertheless, it’s good to know that there are some enterprising businessmen in Malaysia who still see opportunities in some of the unlikeliest places. We recently saw this story from The Star that tells the story of an enterprising Malaysian who saw a hill of discarded rice husks, commonly thought of as industrial waste, and saw an opportunity to reprocess and convert them into household items. Better yet, it appears that his industrial process doesn’t even need to use any harmful chemicals and is eco-friendly.

In fact, waste management is a huge business although it’s the type of thing that we tend to keep at the back of our minds. Most people certainly don’t want to be thinking of waste all the time! However, throughout these blogs, we have always been attracted to the idea of reusing “waste” products and turning them into something desirable again – after all, so many of the planet’s resources are non-replenishable. We’ve also written in these blogs about some companies around Malaysia who are in the business of collecting used cooking oil and converting it into biodiesel. Read the rest of this entry »

For most Malaysians, rice is an essential part of almost every meal during the day and no meal is complete without a plate of fluffy white rice. Many parents like to tell their children to make sure they finish their rice because it’s good for them, but what if we told you that white rice isn’t necessarily as good as some people think it is? In fact, white rice actually got off to a bad start – the technology to profitably make white rice has only been available since the 19th century and it was found that those who ate white rice were susceptible to a disease known as beriberi, which is caused by a deficiency in vitamin B1, because the process of converting the raw rice grains into white rice was removing this essential vitamin from the rice. Because there was a lot of lobbying to the governments, manufacturers started adding back the vitamin B1 to the rice to prevent beriberi from spreading, but they were never obliged to replace some of the other essential nutrients lost in the process of preparing white rice.

Enter brown rice, which has started seeing more attention from the health conscious although there still remains a stigma against brown rice which is seen more as “poor man’s food”. Until the technology was around to process white rice, brown rice was actually what people ate for most of human history, although we are now much more accustomed to eating white rice. Brown rice is basically Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve noticed a trend in Malaysia and indeed with many cultures around the world where people are moving more towards a consumerist society based on the individual rather than a more collectivist model where the wellbeing of society as a whole generally takes precedence over individual pursuits. While some argue that this is the natural progression of a society that aims to maximise opportunities and freedoms, we find it hard to deny that there are some who cannot adjust to the pace of development.

Social disenfranchisement can manifest itself in many forms – including severe depression and can push the disenfranchised to many social ills including drug abuse and even terrorism. Fortunately, there have been many social movements that reach out to the disenfranchised and try to engage them on a human level in order to turn them towards being productive members of society. While societies like the Befrienders and many religious societies are well known to many Malaysians, we’d like to highlight an example we read about from the UK that is turning many of the disenfranchised Muslim youths away from terrorism by giving them a greater sense of identity. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in the middle of 2008, when petrol prices suddenly spiked to above RM 2 per litre, we started hearing lots of people talking about converting their cars to running on natural gas to take advantage of the cheaper prices. While that might have been a good idea, it is unfortunate to note that there was recently a fatal explosion where a car powered by natural gas exploded in a car park while the driver was asleep in the car and leaving the engine running, destroying it and the cars around it and causing much damage to the surrounding area.

While natural gas is probably a better fuel to use for your wallet and the environment as it is cheaper and burns more cleanly, it should be noted that cars have been designed with petrol in mind. Therefore, there needs to be a set of pretty extensive modifications to the car including to the engine and the fuel transport mechanism that means that natural gas tanks need to be fitted to your car as well as a series of rubber tubes feeding the natural gas from the tanks to your engine. Rubber has a tendency to degrade over time and therefore need to be checked regularly for leaks to ensure that you’re not leaking gas which can be catastrophic especially in enclosed spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve just realized that we haven’t really written all that many articles about crude oil, despite the fact that it is such an important strategic resource in today’s world. Although all our discussions about alternative energy sources are important and would serve to build a cleaner and greener world tomorrow, the fact remains that we are still very dependent on crude oil and other petroleum byproducts to power much of our modern society. With so much knowledge about digging crude oil from the ground and exploring for new oilfields, you’d think the science would be settled on the origins of crude oil, but it’s really not quite that simple. In this article, we delve into the world of the slightly bizarre.

The standard story of the origin of crude oil is, of course, that crude oil is generated from the breakdown of the detritus of ancient life that have fallen deep within the earth and are subjected to the immense temperatures and pressures underground. This causes all those complex organic molecules to break down into much simpler hydrocarbons which then go up to make crude oil, from which all the useful products that we use for industry and our daily lives are distilled. Read the rest of this entry »

This controvery actually seems to flare up every 10 years or so, and we’re not sure if it has ever been satisfactorily resolved. As granite countertops become more common in the kitchen, some people are concerned that the use of granite means exposing their homes with radon, a colourless, odourless and radioactive gas that is present in almost all granite in the world. Radon is actually one of the most poisonous substances on Earth; although very little amounts of it are produced every year, relatively speaking, radon is actually cited as the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, just behind smoking. Concerns about radon exposure because of granite countertops at home are therefore quite understandable.

How is radon actually produced in the Earth? Well, the Earth has had small quantities of uranium since the formation of the planet and because uranium takes a very long time to decay (4.5 billion years before half of the uranium decays to other elements), there will be uranium in the Earth for a good time yet. Uranium decays to form other elements such as radon which is therefore present in almost all the rocks in the Earth but particularly granite. If this granite is then mined and then used for kitchen countertops, you will then have a small amount of radon constantly being released into your home. Read the rest of this entry »