First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the 2007-2008 Committee Members of the Students’ Association. Through their concerted effort, the ethos of harmonious relationships among students was enhanced and students were provided with chances to show their respect and love to their teachers and school. Not only did they show their concern for the welfare of their fellow schoolmates, but they also cared about the people in our motherland. Actually they successfully organized two fund raising activities to support the snowstorm relief work in China and help the victims in the Sichuan earthquake in the past year.

      The inauguration of the new committee will now take place. Our congratulations go to all the new members. The SA plays a very important role as a bridge between the school and students. You are the students’ representative.  You should ensure that all student leaders to serve your fellow schoolmates and voice their needs. At the same time, you should be open to suggestions. In order to enhance your work, you should seek advice from the teacher advisors and the former SA Committee members. Be active and energetic, try your best to face the challenges ahead and perform your tasks with confidence. We hope you will carry out your duties with great enthusiasm, and have the commitment to bring about changes.

Lastly, may I wish the new Committee Members of the Students’ Association every success in their work and a fruitful year ahead.

Thank you!

    Do you know what makes us happy when we eat chocolate? Do you know how Penicillin was discovered and found its use as an antibiotic? Do you know why cookware and test tubes made of Pyrex glass can be heated and does not break easily? Do you know what makes airbags in car inflate when there is a collision? If you would like to know the answers to these questions, and many more, this book would be perfect for you.

    This book is a guide to chemicals that we may encounter every day. It talks about their history, discovery and how they are related to us in our daily life. The book discusses a large variety of chemical molecules, including those found in food, minerals we need for our body, drugs and medicine, household chemicals, plastic and synthetic materials, chemicals in the environment, fuels and even poisonous and hazardous materials.

    The book introduces these molecules in a light-hearted way using everyday language. You do not even need to have any chemistry knowledge to understand what the author says. No tedious technical information is given, instead, the book focuses on the historical background and the usage of the chemical substance in our daily life. It is like a biography and portrait of the chemical molecule. Everything in the book is closely related to our daily life and even if you do not study Chemistry, this book is worth reading and you should find it interesting.

    I find some stories in this book very intriguing and it is good to know. For example, rhino horn is prescribed in Chinese medicine to treat fever, arthritis and back pain. It is considered as a precious medicine and some people even believe that it has aphrodisiac potency. A couple of grams of rhino horn shavings can cost about 30 US dollars. However, in fact rhino horn is simply made of keratin, a protein that is difficult to be digested and the same material that forms our fingernails. Therefore, when people are drinking rhino horn tea, they are actually drinking fingernail tea. How ridiculous that is! I realize that this is really foolish to use rhino horn as a medicine. But some people believe in this silly myth and rhinos are actually becoming an endangered species because of this. If people have a little chemical knowledge, perhaps the life of the rhinos in Africa and India would not be threatened and people would realize that it is absurd to use rhino horn as a medicine because they are actually eating fingernails. It is always good to know more, or else we may not realize that we may be doing something stupid.

    Chemistry is closely related to our daily life. Whatever we breathe in, eat, drink, touch or use, these are chemicals. It is good to have some basic knowledge of Chemistry. Recently, there are many food safety incidents causing panic among the public. In fact, if we know more about Chemistry, we would have a clearer idea of the situation and we would not be scared easily by incorrect information or deceptive pseudoscience. Very often people would be frightened by food safety news such as the recent melamine milk incident. However, if we have some common sense on Chemistry, we would know that the toxicity of any substance is determined by its dosage. Normal consumption of food that contains a trace amount of potentially harmful substance would not pose a significant threat to our health. It is always good to learn more and know more.

    If you would like to learn more about Chemistry in our daily life, this book is a very good book to start with. I am sure that “Molecules At An Exhibition” is a fun book to read. I highly recommend this book to all of you. This is the end of my book sharing. Thank you

I think most of you have heard of the termDNA before , but you may not know much about it.Simply speaking,DNA is a very large molecule containg carbon,oxygen,hydrogen and nitrogen atoms.It forms a polymer containing chains of nucleotide monomers while genes are short segments of DNA in chromosomes containing the genetic materials.Genes for different characteristics then control protein sythesis by arranging the amino acid sequence.Our parents pass their gene to us and we most probably inherite some of their characteristics.
   
There are genetic diseases,such as hereditary cancers .They are caused by the inheritance of mutant alleles of tumor suppressor genes.Cancer is currently the major area of medicine in which the gene therapy is being used. Approches include introducing genes to kill tumor cells, or to stimulate the immune response of the host.

This book includes information from molecular genetics to how genetics related to our society ,which allows us to have microscopic and marcoscopic views inunderstanding genetics.It is also divided into different chapters with key notes printed in the beginning of each part which let us have a brief idea of what is going to be discussed and introduced in the coming chapter.

Genetics may sound unfamiliar to you , however , it is a topic that we should know and understand more about it.The book consists of clear and detailed explanation ,as well as simple illustrations which allow me to understand the mainpoints easily. If you are interested in reading this book or interested in the topic of genetics ,you can borrow it from the public library.Thank you!

    Chance governs our lives. From the genes we inherit and the environment into which we are born, to the investments we may make in the stock market or the lottery ticket we buy, life is a gamble from which none of us is excluded. In business, education, travel, health and marriage, we take chances in the hope of obtaining something better.

    Chance, risk, probability and statistics are the topics to be dealt with in this book. The tales range from the earliest gamblers, who thought that the fall of the dice was controlled by the gods, to the modern geneticist and quantum theory researcher trying to integrate aspects of probability into their chosen specialties.

    The development and application of probability is one of the most interesting chapters in this book. In order to examine chance and try to understand more about how it operates, mathematicians develop probability as a measure of chance. A probability is a number that gives a precise estimate of how certain we are about something. By convention, probabilities are measured on a scale from zero to one. The zero point on the scale indicates that an event is impossible to happen, while the highest point, one, indicates that an event will certainly happen. Talking about probability, a famous game show comes across my mind. It is the one called ‘Deal or No Deal’, which was shown on TVB every Sunday before. In fact, the probability for the player to draw the 3 million box is only 0.03, which can be regarded as quite low. In fact, it is very high in comparing with getting the first prize in mark six, which has only a probability of around 7 over a hundred thousand, just a bit higher than the probability of being struck by a meteorite.

    After choosing the box, the player will start to eliminate boxes left, which is also involving probability. Upon eliminating several boxes, the player will start to calculate the probability of eliminating the desire boxes, and decide whether he/ she should sell his/her own box or not. To a certain extent, probability can really help us to make correct decisions. However, it is not 100% true when it is applied to daily cases and the theoretical value is greatly affected by many external factors.

    This book is written in simple English and there are many interesting stories and facts regarding probability and risk. After reading this book, you will find that mathematics is no longer boring numbers.