Birthday

When Lonely Planet was launched in 1973, the very first book Across Asia on the Cheap highlighted the way to adventure across the world in a budget manner. Another Lonely Planet’s book, The Best Things in Life are Free, reminded us that we don’t need a million dollars to enjoy ourselves. 

To celebrate my birthday this year, I picked the MacLehose Trail, which is free, open all year, 24 hours a day. My pick is the first two sections of the MacLehose Trail. The sun-kissed route with alternating peak and beach is stunning but pretty tough. This is even more so after the flooding from Super Typhoon Ragasa. 

I didn’t check my camera's memory card, which turned out to be nearly full. I knew it’s not worthwhile to waste battery life to erase old images, but I had to. By the way, our camera's memory cards and batteries have a way of going out when you need them most. I didn’t bring spare camera battery and my camera battery ran out before I finished my five-hour trek. Uh-oh.

Put simply, the lesson for me to learn, especially as I get older, is to remember a backup plan.

Connection

Try as you may, you can't find words to exchange information clearly via text or emails. 

Jefferson Fisher shared his story of misinterpreted text exchange with his momma. His mom saw the words but never read them all right. She simply needed his voice to hear the true meaning. 

What's the difference between transmission and connection? Reading sheet music is going to convey information like transmission. It's a prime example of communication that lacks depth. Hearing a symphony perform the music, on the other hand, is the answer to connection.

Think of connection, according to Jefferson Fisher, as a two-factor authentication. 

You can't have one without the other to connect. If I understand you but you can't tell, you won't connect with me. And if I acknowledge what you're saying but I still don't understand it, I won't connect with you. The aim isn't to turn everything into a happy ending, but to open the floor. I can understand and acknowledge you and still be upset with you, hurt by you, or upset by the disagreement. But we can connect, and understand why we disagree.

Prussian

If Yuval Noah Harari is named the most influential historian from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Benjamin Labatut would have been the Chilean counterpart of him.

One of Benjamin Labatut's "works of fiction based on real event", When We Cease to Understand the World, chronicles the complicated links between scientists and Frankenstein.  

Think about the pigment Prussian blue. That's one of the sensational colours used by Van Gogh (think Starry Night) and Katsushika Hokusai (think The Great Wave off Kanagawa). The dye was discovered by the dyer Johann Jacob Diesbach by accident: his aim had been to mimic the ruby red made by crushing female insect carapaces in a laboratory set up by the alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel. Diesbach tried to pour potash contaminated with animal byproducts from some of Dipple's grosteque experiments, and ended up yielding the legendary blue. Dubbed "Prussian Blue," the creation was thought to be a fabled hue of the ancient Egyptians. 

Soon, another chemist stirred a pot of Prussian blue with a spoon of sulphuric acid, and created a new compound prussic acid, also known as Zyklon B. That is the way hydrogen cyanide poison came to leave its residue on the bricks of Auschwitz, ending million of lives in gas chambers.

The rest is history. 

Argue Less

Jefferson Fisher, the American trial lawyer who gained millions of followers online for his videos teaching on communication, shares tried-and-true tips on his new book The Next Conversation.

This is a book of handling conflicts. If you wish to remember just one lesson from his book, it would be the one about "Never win an argument." I learned this rule the hard way, after joining a debate session in a recent scientific meeting. 

Think of a heated competition that divide the world into "right' and "wrong," "winner" and "loser." After the back-and-forth dialogue, the first question some asks the next morning is always, "Who won?" Or, in my case, the final answer to the debate question. We run into the rabbit hole: the loss of meaningful connection, the failure of seeing other's point of view, and often, the short-lived pride but long-lasting damage to the friendship. 

If that's what we want to gain from debate, then I'm asking to quit. Winning an argument often loses you more. Not my cup of tea. 

Pig

I would be lying if I said that I knew, one year ago, the meaning of a caption "This pig could save your life" in the National Geographic magazine this May. Now we know. And more so after the headline from the scientific journal Nature yesterday, announcing the news "Amazing feat: US man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant." And surprise, surprise, there have also been stories of pig heart transplantation in human body.

The scientific breakthrough of genetically modified pig kidney is unparalleled. No one can argue with the enthusiasm. And yet, the impact is still beyond our imagination. Anything can go south. Any time.

For a start, there is never a guarantee that xenotransplantation will halt the global donor shortage overnight. This brings me to the idea of researcher Roy Amara. Amara's law, which I learned recently, stated that as a society we often overestimate how technology will change the world in the short run and undersell its effect in the long run.

So, in all likelihood, pigs will more often appear on our dining table than in hospitals for the time being. And finally, dialysis will either disappear or simply serve as a bridging therapy, when pig kidneys are powered by major revolutions ten years later.

Vaccine

500 million US dollars. That's how many research grant contracts in mRNA vaccine development are being cancelled and scaled down in the United States recently.

It's a drastic and unprecedented cut. When I heard about this news, I knew it would not be a good idea to bring a book about Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci during my conference trip to the United States. They are the husband-and-wife team behind the discovery of BioNTech. I waited and read their inspiring story on my flight to Kuala Lumpur this week.  

An interesting trait of this German couple from Turkish immigrant families is the strict discipline. Whenever they fly, Uğur would insist on paying extra to check in an additional suitcase bursting with electronics, including a laptop and two large monitors, without which he found it impossible to map his thoughts. The family would also bring their own coffee machine and grinder along. Doing so can ensure a consistent quality for their early morning work. 

Oh, that's too much. I could tell I'm far less hardworking. I didn't even have checked-in luggage for my conference trip to Kuala Lumpur. A laptop, yes. Two computer monitors, hey, definitely not. I didn't have to bring my coffee machine even I usually wake up shortly after six in the morning. I wore a pair of shoes that look reasonably formal for conference and yet sturdy enough for running. A chance to run would be more refreshing for me.