@zaihanisme @DefenceMinSG And what exactly is wrong with storing fossil fuels
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Zu Jian Lee
4.2K posts
Zu Jian Lee
@JeanLuize
Engineer who likes music, basketball and anime. I like thinking about things
Singapore เข้าร่วม Eylül 2013
266 กำลังติดตาม143 ผู้ติดตาม
@DefenceMinSG Calling it hydrocarbon storage to obfuscate that they store fossil fuels, oil essentially
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#GuessWhere
This place isn’t visible from the surface, but it plays a critical role in keeping Singapore running.
Conceptualised over 20 years ago, it stores resources that power our homes and businesses.
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#Vietnam's Hanoi to Ha Long Bay high speed rail cuts travel time from 3h to 23 minutes
Vietnam broke ground on April 12 on the 120km high-speed rail to link Hanoi and Ha Long Bay at 350 kph speed (217 mph).
The $5.6 billion railway (excluding site clearance costs) is being developed by VinSpeed, a subsidiary of Vingroup.
Tourism in Vietnam is set to gain from easier and faster travel to Ha Long Bay, a famous UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Visitors will be able to explore Hanoi’s cultural sites and Halong Bay’s natural beauty in a single day, boosting the appeal for international tourists.
The railway will be connecting Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Hai Phong, and Quang Ninh provinces, and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2028.
The project is set to deploy the latest generation of high-speed trains, alongside advanced signaling and communications systems supplied by Germany’s Siemens Mobility, which will also gradually transfer technology to VinSpeed during operations.
Designed as a double-track, standard-gauge of 1,435mm, fully electrified line, it will support maximum speeds of up to 350kph, with sections in Hanoi capped at 120kph.
The line will start at Cổ Loa Station in Ha Noi and end at Hạ Long Station in Quang Ninh, with intermediate stops at Gia Binh (Bac Ninh), Ninh Xa (Hai Phong) and Yen Tu (Quang Ninh), as well as a depot located at the Ha Long terminus.
The project will require 551 hectares of land, including 44 hectares in Hanoi, 19 hectares in Bac Ninh, 210 hectares in Hai Phong, and 278 hectares in Quang Ninh.
Speaking at the ceremony, Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility, affirmed that the company would deliver world-proven high-speed rail technology that is highly efficient and safe.
He also pledged long-term cooperation with Vingroup, including deep technology transfer, joint assembly and maintenance, aimed at building a new high-speed rail ecosystem in Việt Nam.
The Ha Noi–Quang Ninh line is the second high-speed rail project undertaken by VinSpeed.
Previously, in late 2025, the company broke ground on the Ben Thanh–Can Gio railway in HCM City, which is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2028.
The project reflects both the investor’s strong capacity and commitment, and the increasingly significant role of the private sector in developing the country’s critical infrastructure.
Quang Ninh’s proximity to China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region also means the rail will strengthen cross-border connectivity.
Officials say improved rail links with China will help reduce logistics costs, integrate Vietnam into broader Asia-Europe supply chains, and elevate the country’s position in regional trade networks.
“Railway infrastructure is a strategic breakthrough for economic development and bilateral trade with China,” says To Lam (Vietnam's new president).
Note: I gathered the information from public announcements and a variety of state news media sources.
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NASA ran a study on a potential trip to Mars and found the most important trait for team dynamics was humor
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@ValeryGilka I didn't know BMW driver behavior was a global phenomenon
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В вашей стране водители bmw тоже не включают поворотники?
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@neteru_365 Never too late to start taking control of your own life 💪
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「デートしてきた。」
「デート？」
「初めて付き合った日に行った喫茶店、まだあったから。」
父が珍しく笑ってた。
「お父さんが連れてったの。」
「覚えてたんだ、あの店。」
「覚えてた。」
「なんで今日。」
父が少し間を置いた。
「今日からまた、付き合い直そうと思って。」
母がうつむいた。
また泣いてた。
「なんで泣くの。」
「40年経って、そんなこと言われると思わなかったから。」
父が照れた顔をした。
「定年になったら言おうと思ってた。」
「40年間、ずっと。」
「ずっと。」
40年間、朝送り出して夜迎えてただけだと思ってた母に、父は40年間、定年になったら言おうと思ってたらしい。
その夜、父と母が並んでテレビを見てた。
いつもより少しだけ、近かった。
付き合い直した2人が、また同じ方向を向いてた。
40年かかったデートの続きが、やっと始まったらしい。
日本語
父が定年退職した日、母が泣いた。
嬉しくて泣いてると思った。
違った。
「なんで泣いてるの。」
母が父を見た。
「この人が家にいるのが、怖くて。」
父が固まった。
私も固まった。
「40年間、朝送り出して、夜迎えるだけだったから。」
「それが今日で終わる。」
「嬉しくないの。」
母が首を振った。
「嬉しいけど、怖い。」
「ずっと2人でいる自信がない。」
父が黙ってた。
長い沈黙だった。
父が立ち上がった。
「出かけるぞ。」
「どこに。」
「いいから来い。」
母の手を引いて、出ていった。
2人が帰ってきたのは、3時間後だった。
母の顔が変わってた。
何があったか聞いたら、母が照れながら言った。
日本語
Valonia ventricosa, or “sea grape,” is the largest single-celled organism on Earth. It’s three-to-four orders-of-magnitude larger than most “normal” microbes. (Yes, the green ball in the image below is a single cell.)
More than 95% of the cell’s volume is taken up by a vacuole. This vacuole is not like cytoplasm; it’s acidic and packed with ions. It’s also filled with big sugar chains, which the cell uses to repair damage on its cell extremities. Each cell has dozens or hundreds of nuclei, pressed tightly against the walls.
One cool thing about sea grapes is that (because they are so huge, and visible to the naked eye) you can directly inject them with chemicals. I gave a $1,000 microgrant (courtesy of Astera) to a team of six working on scaling up Valonia cells as "living bioreactors." They are based out of SPLAT, a community lab in Durham, North Carolina.
Today, when scientists want to “design” a new metabolic pathway, they often use E. coli. The microbes are engineered to express each gene in the pathway, and then these genes are swapped and replaced until the metabolic network starts working. This takes a lot of work and usually requires months of genetic engineering. But with Valonia, what if we could instead test out metabolic pathways by injecting molecules straight into their vacuole? Perhaps sea grapes could become a sort of self-replicating, cell-free system for prototyping ideas.
That's the SPLAT team's idea. I think it's really cool, even though I’m skeptical that Valonia will become a model organism anytime soon. Nobody has ever engineered these cells, for a few reasons:
- They have hundreds of nuclei, each sharing a common cytoplasm pool extending as a thin layer around the whole cell. (Perhaps an extrachromosal plasmid would work?)
- Their cell walls are thick, so electroporation is unlikely to work.
- Nobody knows their genome sequence!
- Even if you get DNA inside, you need to make sure that DNA matches the cells’ abnormal genetic code. After millions of years of evolution, Valonia has reassigned its TAG and TAA stop codons to glutamine.
There are also issues with injecting chemicals into the vacuole. The vacuole is *not* like cytoplasm; it is acidic and packed with molecules that would likely interfere with proteins. So you’d need to find some way to engineer the vacuole environment, and maintain that environment, before you turn Valonia into a prototyping platform. Not an easy problem to solve!
If this idea did pan out, though, the SPLAT team told me that they could transform sea grapes in bulk (”potentially hundreds of thousands at once”) and then grow them to the size of cherries. It’d be a totally new way to prototype metabolic pathways and manufacture chemicals.
And despite the barriers, I’m surprised more people are not studying these organisms. At the very least, we should have better microscopy images and a complete genome sequence. So best of luck to the SPLAT team. I’m glad they are working on hard problems!
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$TSLA - DUTCH RDW: APPROVAL OF TESLA FSD IS VALID ON ALL ROADS IN THE NETHERLANDS
DUTCH RDW: IF IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE NETHERLANDS ITS GOOD ENOUGH FOR EUROPE
DUTCH RDW SAYS IT HAS NOTIFIED EUROPEAN COMMISSION OF ITS PLAN TO SEEK EU-WIDE APPROVAL OF TESLA FSD
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When we were building the explicit stack in 2019, the Netherlands—especially Amsterdam—gave us major headaches. So many pedestrians and bikes on narrow streets.
Today, FSD just works out of the box. Generalization is a beautiful thing.
Tesla Europe, Middle East & Africa@teslaeurope
De toekomst van mobiliteit is aangebroken FSD Supervised has been approved in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 & will begin rolling out in the country shortly! Trained on billions of kilometers of real-world driving data, it can drive you almost anywhere under your supervision – from residential roads to city streets & highways No other vehicle can do this. We're excited to bring FSD Supervised to more European countries soon
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The feeling of nostalgia is a sign that you have lived a good life
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LaMelo Ball is truly one of a kind
Passed up the open layup for an open three. 🤣🔥
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Former NBA player Yao Ming returned to his alma mater, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), to attend the university's 130th anniversary celebration.
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Can relate, as a Singaporean if I hang out with Malaysians too much I start unconsciously speaking Chinese with a Malaysian accent
しゅぷら@shupra004
今日、中国語の発音が悪くなったと老師に言われた。 「君は発音が悪い人と付き合っているから、つられて発音が悪くなっている。発音がいい人と付き合いなさい」 と言われたので、発音がいい人と付き合うようにした。 老師が言ったとおり、その人の発音が悪くなった。
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