Daphne Ng
Deciding to plunge headlong into science writing, Daphne is currently a professional science communicator who writes about research for a general audience. Daphne is passionate about the applications of microorganisms in areas such as sustainability, the intersection of science and society and how new technologies such as artificial intelligence can revolutionise research. A recovering lab rat, she was formerly a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore who investigated the microbiological and physicochemical changes of water stored in underground caverns, a potential solution that ensures the availability of water in land-scarce countries. With a BSc and PhD from the National University of Singapore, Daphne still thinks of herself as a microbiologist although she now spends her days typing in front of computer screens instead of performing microbial screens. When she is not doing any of these, Daphne draws humorous cartoons about science, research and life. She also enjoys reading and is trying her hand at writing book reviews and science fiction.
Articles by Daphne Ng
Learn how the CRISPR prokaryote immune response systems were first discovered and the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool.
T4 DNA ligase is the swiss army knife of ligases, but it can’t always do it all. Find out what it’s good at and the alternatives available for the things it struggles with.
Given the importance of microorganisms as cell factories in biotechnological applications and as model organisms for the study of various biological processes, the preservation of microorganisms plays a key role in ensuring reproducible results and continuity in research. Maintaining a library of microbial stocks also enables microorganisms to be easily stored and retrieved, as compared…
As the vast majority of bacteria cannot be readily cultured in the laboratory [1], culture-dependent methods to investigate bacteria grossly underestimate the diversity of bacterial communities. To investigate unculturable bacteria without isolating them, culture-independent methods such as sequencing have been used. Unculturable bacteria can be identified by PCR amplification and sequencing of housekeeping genes such…
What is the first image which comes to mind when you think about microalgae? Green scum that covers the surfaces of ponds? Unsightly stains on pavements and walls? Far from being a nuisance in ponds, lakes, drains and on surfaces, microalgae are fascinating microorganisms which are used to understand various biological processes. Microalgae have been…
Previously, I wrote about the different ways to use scientific illustration to communicate research. In this article, I will introduce the technical aspects of digital images and the most common image file types that scientists will encounter when preparing images for publication. Raster Versus Vector Digital images are classified based on how information is stored.…
Does your laboratory resemble the nest of an overly enthusiastic laboratory rat that went on a scavenger hunt and squirrelled away all that it has found? Do you find yourself playing Jenga with stacks of Petri dishes and freezer boxes? Have you ever attempted to decipher the meaning of the mysterious string of numbers on…
Estimates indicate that there may be up to 2 billion living species of organisms, each with conserved and unique biological mechanisms that are vital for survival. How do scientists understand them all? Enter model organisms. Model organisms, as the name implies, are living things which are used as representative models for understanding other organisms. They…
Let’s be honest: the mentoring of undergraduate students is sometimes the lowest on the list of priorities for a busy postdoctoral research fellow. Amidst experiments, research progress meetings, reviewing of literature, manuscript writing, grant applications, and convincing your PI to let you attend that conference in Hawaii, your undergraduate charges may be just mere afterthoughts.…
Note: Physically competent field scientists who find fieldwork a breeze may scoff at the suggestions here As a bench scientist whose only form of physical exercise in the laboratory is pipetting, I vividly remember my first fieldtrip to the wilderness. It was a trip to an island off the coast of Singapore to collect water…
Biologists have a long tradition of drawing specimens as a form of data collection before the invention of the camera. The ability to present information in the form of illustrations is an important but often understated skill in a scientist’s toolkit. Scientific illustrations in publications run the gamut from schematics, 3D models, cartoons, and even…
Imagine that you want to test the efficiency of an antimicrobial treatment in inhibiting a certain bacterial pathogen. As part of the experiment, you expose the bacteria to the treatment and monitor the cultivability of the microorganism by counting the number of colony forming units (CFU) formed on culture media. If the microorganism is sensitive…