A*Star team creates smallest workable gear

The Straits Times

SCIENTISTS in Singapore have earned a place in the record books after creating the world's smallest workable gear.

The molecule-size device is up to 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair and could pave the way for new technologies. The invention will receive a mention in Guinness World Records' next edition.

It is developed by a seven-man team from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, which is part of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).

The scientists used a machine called a scanning tunnelling microscope, more commonly used to view materials at an atomic level. They took advantage of an electrical connection between the molecules and the tip of the microscope to manipulate the gear.

Their research was first published in science journal Nature Materials in 2009. Project leader Christian Joachim, an A*Star visiting investigator from French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, had said then: 'Making a gear the size of a few atoms is one thing, but being able to deliberately control its motions and actions is something else altogether.'

So far, the device has not been used to develop any products as the next largest gear is too big for it. Research is ongoing to create intermediate gears.

The scientists believe their discovery has the potential to be used in supercomputers. One of the most advanced now is the size of a refrigerator.

The team is also part of a group trying to create a computer chip 1,000 times smaller than a grain of sand. This project, worth €10 million (S$17 million), is a collaboration between the institute and scientists from the European Union.

Computer chips are currently made by using optical beams to etch grooves on their parts. Experts say the chips can shrink for only another 10 to 15 years before the width of the beam prevents any further miniaturisation.

To solve this problem, the group aims to build a chip from the atom up instead. They hope to create a prototype by 2015.

NUS bags grant for toilet that recycles faeces

Twenty-two universities submitted proposals and eight, including the National University of Singapore (NUS), have received the nod from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fine-tune their ideas.

The NUS team - the only team from Asia - won a US$280,500 (S$337,700) grant from the foundation last month to come up with a toilet that would cost less than five US cents a user a day.

The competition is intended to benefit the 2.6 billion people, or 40 per cent of the world's population, who have no access to safe and reliable toilets.

The teams will work on their projects for a year and the prototypes will be judged by the foundation in August next year.

Up to three prizes of between US$40,000 and US$100,000 will be awarded.

The foundation is headed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife, as well as his father.

The NUS team submitted a proposal for a toilet that turns faeces and urine into fertiliser and drinking water.

The communal toilet, expected to serve up to six households, separates faeces and urine and transfers the faeces to a collection point for drying and burning to be used as fertiliser.

Heat from the burning powers a desalination system that extracts water from urine.

The water is disinfected to make it drinkable.

Left-over liquid from the urine is concentrated so it can be used as fertiliser.

Project leader Ng How Yong, an associate professor at the NUS engineering faculty and director of the Centre for Water Research, said the toilet would be especially useful in rural areas that depend on agriculture.

He hopes that it can be implemented in developing countries such as India and Bangladesh as well as those in Africa.

Other finalists include Stanford University in the United States, the University of Toronto in Canada and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.

Their ideas include a solar-powered toilet that generates hydrogen and electricity, and a toilet that produces charcoal, salt and clean water from waste.

The competition is part of the foundation's US$42 million programme to improve sanitation in developing countries.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.8 million people die each year due to diarrhoea-related diseases, mostly caused by poor sanitation.

Children under five years old make up 90 per cent of the fatalities.

It added that improving sanitation can reduce assaults against women which take place in dimly lit and unsafe outdoor toilets.

The Straits Times, 19 August 2011

NTU students to launch satellite Velox-I

IT WILL be a big lift for Singapore when the second locally made satellite - and the first to be built by students - is launched in 2013.

Called Velox-I, it is being put through its paces by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) engineering students in the Undergraduate Satellite Programme (USP) that was started in April last year.

Unlike a typical satellite that can weigh more than 1,200kg, Velox-I is made up of two tiny satellites, one weighing 3.5kg and the other 1.5kg.

Slated to be launched in India or the United States in early 2013, it will have an NTU-designed camera with high-resolution, image-capturing capabilities and be able to conduct quantum physics experiments during its orbit.

The Velox-I project, which includes a student-built ground station on campus that picks up signals from space, has a budget of more than US$300,000 (S$366,000).

'This is not just a prototype, it's going to be up there in space and it's still hard to believe that students such as ourselves are a part of it,' said Mr Tan Chun Kiat, 25, a recent NTU aerospace engineering graduate who had been involved in the project, at the university's unveiling of the satellite yesterday. 'What if there were technical faults during orbit? What if it couldn't withstand the temperatures? We were apprehensive, even nervous, at the beginning, but having it come together piece by piece has been a great and challenging learning experience.'

The team has conducted multiple vibration and space simulation tests to ensure that the contraption can withstand forces up to 10 times that of gravitational force during launch.

The first made-in-Singapore satellite - the 105kg X-Sat - was launched on April 20 after a nine-year collaboration between scientists and engineers from NTU and Singapore's defence research body DSO National Laboratories.

X-Sat has been monitoring environmental changes with images of erosion, forest fire and sea pollution.

Only two other countries in the region - Indonesia and Malaysia - have their own satellites in space.

'We wanted to work on something smaller, not only to lower costs but also to ensure it could be launched in a shorter period of time,' said Associate Professor Low Kay Soon, 49, director of NTU's Satellite Research Centre.

'A smaller and cheaper satellite would also mean we could take more risks in experimenting with its capabilities and be able to test it locally.'

Students get to work with industry partners such as the US Air Force Academy and University of Tokyo.

The USP, which takes in about 50 second- to final-year students annually, is the only space programme of its kind here as space science is a relatively unexplored field. NTU is considering developing the nation's first space engineering courses if interest grows, said Prof Low.

Said Ms Luo Jia Yu, 24, a mentor from NTU's engineering master's programme: 'I had always wanted to venture into space science as it's a mysterious and intriguing world, and this was a rare chance for me to get a taste of it.'

Singapore teams impress at international science competitions

Lin Zhaowei

The Straits Times20 July 2011

SINGAPORE has scored its best-ever showing at two major science competitions for pre-university students, coming in joint-first in the International Physics Olympiad and third in the International Biology Olympiad.

In the nine-day physics competition that ended on Monday, the five-man Singapore team shared top spot with traditional powerhouses China and Taiwan as well as relative newcomer South Korea.

All four countries came away with five gold medals each.

Last year, the Singapore team came in seventh.

Almost 400 pre-university students from 84 countries took part in this year's event held in Bangkok. Winners had to score in both written and practical tests.

The Singapore team comprised Raffles Institution (RI) students Kang Zi Yang, Li Kewei, Lin Jiahuang and Lin Sen, and NUS High School of Mathematics and Science's Tan Zong Xuan. They are all in their final year of study.

It was led by Associate Professor Rajdeep Singh Rawat from the Natural Sciences and Science Education department of the National Institute of Education at Nanyang Technological University, and Associate Professor Chung Keng Yeow from National University of Singapore's physics department.

Mr Li, 19, said the victory showed that the team's hard work over the past seven months had paid off.

'We were very happy because we knew this had never been done before (by a Singapore team),' he said.

'Although the team spent the entire June holidays preparing for the competition and ended up lagging behind in our school work, it was worth it,' added the physics whiz who hopes to enrol in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for undergraduate studies.

Prof Rajdeep, involved in training the Singapore delegations for the past eight years, said this year's team was 'fantastic' because the members were very motivated.

In the International Biology Olympiad, held in Taipei from July 10 to 17, Singapore improved from its ninth placing last year.

Hwa Chong Institution's Javan Lee Tze Han, NUS High's Hong Xinyuan and RI's Jin Chentian came away with gold medals while Michael Sia Zhen Wei of Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) bagged a silver. They are all final year students at their schools.

Singapore 'will likely overtake Las Vegas'

SINGAPORE'S two casinos, in operation for just over a year, are poised to overtake a name synonymous with gambling the world over: Las Vegas.

Their stunning success was highlighted by Mr Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association, on the sidelines of a gaming conference in Macau yesterday.

Mr Fahrenkopf predicted that the casinos at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) and Marina Bay Sands (MBS) would see combined revenues of US$6.4 billion (S$7.9 billion) this year, up from US$5.1 billion last year.

The revenue for Las Vegas last year was US$5.8 billion.

Macau, with about three dozen casinos, is the world's largest gaming hub after leapfrogging Las Vegas in 2006.

The Chinese city, which attracts a large number of wealthy players from the Asian region, raked in US$23.5 billion in casino revenue last year. The figure is expected to grow by between 25 per cent and 50 per cent this year, said Mr Fahrenkopf.

It is going to be an extremely good year in Singapore and Macau, he was quoted as saying by Associated Press.

If Mr Fahrenkopf's prediction about Singapore is accurate, the world's second-largest gaming hub after Macau would also be in Asia.

Extracted from The Straits Times, 8 June 2011

Singapore an 'ideal vantage point' for German firms

SINGAPORE'S considerable economic clout and reach into South-east Asia makes it an ideal vantage point for German companies, visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday.

Following discussions with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shortly after she arrived here, the German leader said she also saw a need to enhance cooperation between the European Union and Asean.

'We see it as a vast potential that has yet to be fully realised,' she said after their hour-long meeting at the Istana.

'The relationship between the EU and Asean needs to be further developed because these are two economic regions that wield quite considerable economic clout and therefore lend themselves ideally to cooperate even more in the future.'

PM Lee, recalling that he was Dr Merkel's first foreign visitor in 2005 when she became Chancellor, said he was pleased to welcome her, in turn, as his first foreign guest following his May 7 re-election.

Dr Merkel arrived from India for a two-day visit, and also called on President S R Nathan and met former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew yesterday.

PM Lee hosted an official dinner in her honour at the Istana last night.

Today, she will deliver the 31st Singapore Lecture, organised by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. A special orchid hybrid will also be named after her.

PM Lee said they had a 'very good discussion', and added that the visit showed the strength of bilateral relations.

Her visit was also a clear indication of Germany's interest and resolve in strengthening its investments, ties and engagement in South-east Asia and Singapore, he added.

Bilateral trade reached $20.5 billion last year. Germany was thus Singapore's largest trading partner in the EU, just as Singapore was Germany's largest trading partner in Asean.

Some 1,200 German companies are based here and with a considerably high level of direct investment.

During their talks, the two leaders exchanged views on Singapore, Asia and Europe, as well as broader issues of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and financial market regulations.

PM Lee said there was more scope to build on the relationship with Germany, including in areas such as research and development and green technology.

Dr Merkel announced a new exchange programme that will allow scientists to work in research centres on both sides.

An extract from Straits Times Article dated 2 June 2011

Singapore set to overtake HK in size of economy

SINGAPORE'S economy looks set to surpass that of its long-time regional rival Hong Kong this year for the first time.

Powered by a robust Singapore dollar and an exceptionally strong economic rebound last year, the Singapore economy is now the larger of the two, a Bank of America (BoA)Merrill Lynch report showed yesterday.

For the first three months of this year, Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) was US$63.9 billion (S$79.1 billion), exceeding Hong Kong's US$57.9 billion economy by about 10 per cent.

If this trend continues, Singapore's economy is likely to grow bigger than Hong Kong's for the whole of this year, said BoA's Dr Chua Hak Bin.

'Such a development would have been seen as far-fetched a decade ago, given Hong Kong's geographical advantage, being next to mainland China, against Singapore's more volatile and marginalised neighbourhood,' he said.

Singapore's economy was just half the size of Hong Kong's a decade ago but a combination of factors such as a strong Singapore currency and new engines of growth has propelled the Republic ahead of its rival.

The Singapore dollar has appreciated by some 23.3 per cent against the Hong Kong dollar, which is pegged to the US dollar, over the past 10 years.

Another factor accounting for the shift has been the emergence of new growth engines for Singapore such as high-end manufacturing and the casinos, said Dr Chua.

While Hong Kong did not choose casinos, Singapore's gamble on the integrated resorts has paid off.

Tourism revenue soared to $18.8 billion last year, up 47 per cent from $12.8 billion in 2009. Singapore's gaming market will likely reach $7 billion to $8 billion this year, exceeding the market size of Las Vegas, noted Dr Chua.

Dr Tan Khee Giap, co-director of the Asia Competitiveness Institute at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, also pointed out that a key advantage Singapore has over Hong Kong is its flexibility.

He noted that Singapore has always recovered faster and stronger than Hong Kong whenever both are hit with recessions.

Last year, Singapore rebounded from one of its worst recessions, in 2009, by growing 14.5 per cent, the second fastest rate in the world.

'This is due to the fact that we have tools like exchange rate policies and a pro-active Government which implements innovative policies like Jobs Credit to help the economy recover faster,' he said.

'So it's no surprise that we have caught up with them.'

This achievement is all the more impressive given that Hong Kong does not spend on things like defence, which takes up a significant chunk of the Singapore Government budget, said Dr Tan.

This means that Singapore has come into its own, despite the fact that it does not have mainland China as a hinterland, as Hong Kong does, said Dr Tan.

But OCBC economist Selena Ling cautioned that using GDP as a gauge to compare both is not entirely useful.

She noted that Hong Kong has, for some years, been seen to be part of a sub-set of China while Singapore stands on its own.

'So the models are different and I'm not entirely sure if people still compare the two the way they did in the 1990s,' she said.

Likewise, as a financial hub, Hong Kong's stock market is much larger than Singapore's and the Hong Kong stock exchange has been attracting big name listings in recent years, said Dr Chua.

'On that front, Singapore has some way to go,' he said.

The Straits Times

28 May 2011