In the spirit of 1 Malaysia

Yesterday I received a copy of the distinguished American journal, Soil Sci. Soc. Amer. J., vol. 74, no. 4, July-August 2010, for being a member of the society. In this volume of the journal, I have an article entitled "Increasing the Organic Matter Content of an Oxisol using Rice Husk Compost: Changes in Composition and its Chemistry". For your information, we are competing with the best soil scientists in the world. Hence, we have to use the state-of-the-art research equipment to be in business. For this research, my PhD student, Markus, used solid state 13C NMR available at UTM, Skudai, Johor, to study rice husk compost undergoing decomposition in soils. It costs about MYR 8,000 to my research budget though.But my friends, It is worth it.

Another PhD student of mine, Muhrizal,  went to use SEM at USM (Perak branch) some years ago when ours at that time was out of commission. And before that, we got the help from our colleagues at MINT and Petronas Laboratory, both at Bangi, Selangor. They were very happy to help. What I am driving at is if we cannot bring mountain to us, we go to the mountain. That is the way it should be.

You know what? Whatever equipment available in this country, located in public institutions,  belongs to Malaysia. Everybody should be given access to these equipment. We do not mind paying for the services and running cost. In this way, we are supporting the 1 Malaysia concept that the present government is seriously promoting. Alas, it is sometimes not happening in our courtyard of late.To say is far easier than done. When our graduate students approach lecturers for help, not all are giving smiling faces. What does it mean? It means that these people are not willing to help out. If this happens and is allowed to happen, how can we progress and become a developed nation comes the year 2020 that we dream about! I appeal to my esteemed colleagues in UPM to please emulate our counterparts in other institutions in the country.

I end my write-up this time around with a pantun since we are in the festive mood (Eid Mubarak). It goes like this:

Ada puasa, ada raya
Ada data, ada paper

Shamshuddin Jusop