Saintis di Finland menjalankan satu eksperimen yang mana mereka menukar halaman tadika yang asalnya berbatu kerikil kepada tanah hutan sebenar, lengkap dengan rumput dan blok tanah gambut.
Selepas hanya sebulan kanak-kanak bermain di situ, ujian darah menunjukkan perubahan yang luar biasa.
Kepelbagaian bakteria pada kulit mereka meningkat, dan sel imun yang berfungsi untuk menenangkan badan daripada reaksi alahan (macam debunga atau kacang) bertambah dengan ketara.
Sebaliknya, kanak-kanak yang kekal di kawasan kerikil tidak menunjukkan sebarang perubahan positif ini.
Pakar berhipotesis bahawa punca utama kepada lonjakan penyakit asma dan alahan makanan dalam kalangan kanak-kanak sejak beberapa dekad kebelakangan ini adalah kerana kanak-kanak "terlalu bersih."
Lihat saja taman permainan sekarang yg dahulunya berlantaikan rumput dan pasir, bertukar menjadi getah dan plastik.
Statistik di Amerika Syarikat sangat membimbangkan. Misalnya, alahan kacang dalam kalangan kanak-kanak setahun melonjak tiga kali ganda antara tahun 2001 hingga 2017.
Sistem imun kanak-kanak hari ini membesar dalam persekitaran yang kekurangan pendedahan kepada bakteria semula jadi yang sepatutnya melatih badan mereka untuk jadi lebih kuat.
Tambah pula gaya hidup moden yang mengehadkan masa bermain di luar — 37% kanak-kanak prasekolah di Amerika hanya luang masa kurang sejam sehari di luar rumah — telah melumpuhkan kemampuan semula jadi badan untuk beradaptasi.
Bak kata Aki Sinkkonen (ketua penyelidik yg jalan kajian, "Paling bagus kalau kanak-kanak boleh bermain dalam lopak air dan semua orang boleh menggali tanah organik."
Sekarang, kerajaan Finland dah ambil langkah drastik dengan membiayai transformasi halaman tadika di seluruh negara untuk mengembalikan tanah dan alam semulajadi ke dalam kehidupan harian kanak-kanak.
Orang biasa simpan duit invest in stocks bla3. Kayangan simpan hutan. We are not their level. Making them the caretaker of the land is the biggest mistake. They think they own the land instead of taking it like it's a huge amanah. May they rot in hell for every tree they uproot.
She was born the seventh of nine children in Kuantan.
Her father was a public servant who got transferred all over the country, so she grew up moving between small towns.
Her mother never finished school. But her mother worked harder than anyone she knew, and believed education was everything.
That belief sent Swee Lay Thein to medical school at Universiti Malaya. She graduated in 1975.
Then she moved to the UK and spent the next 20 years chasing one stubborn question. Why do some patients with blood disorders suffer terribly, needing transfusions their whole lives, while others barely feel sick?
The answer was hidden in a gene. Babies are born producing a special kind of hemoglobin that protects them. Then the body flips a switch and stops making it.
Swee Lay wanted to know what controlled that switch. If you could keep it on, you could save millions of lives.
It took her decades. She travelled across the UK collecting blood samples from families. She flew to Malawi to study a single family with 270 members across seven generations. She hit dead ends. She kept going.
In 2007, she and her team found the gene. They called it BCL11A.
That discovery led to Casgevy, the first FDA-approved CRISPR therapy for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. A real cure. Already changing real lives around the world.
Last month, Dr Swee Lay Thein stood on a stage in Los Angeles and accepted the Breakthrough Prize, often called the Oscars of Science.
She is the first Malaysian-born scientist to ever win it.
In her speech she said, "As a child hanging out with my older brothers, playing on old railway tracks in Malaysia, I never imagined being here today."
She dedicated the moment to her mother. The woman who never finished school.
A girl from Kuantan. A mum who believed in education even though she never got one herself. A daughter whose work is now saving lives around the world.
That is a Malaysian story.
Tahniah, Dr Swee Lay Thein. We see you. We are proud. 🇲🇾
Quite concern tengok ramai terkandas di KLIA tak dapat terbang sbb airasia overbooked.
Apa ni AirAsia. Orang nak balik kampung raya. Janganlah main overbook overbook pulak.