WEEK 7 - Topic 7: Hormones & Regulation, Discussing Test 1 paper & SUMMARY

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL - WEEK 7

Hello readers,

This is the last post for my entries. We have covered the last sub unit topic which is hormones regulators and discussing exam paper for test 1. We do not have class on the first class for week 7 due to the bad haze and we got a day off on Tuesday. Week 7 is actually the last lecture we'll be having class with Prof Madya Dr. Parameswari.

Topic 7: Plants Hormones Regulation 

 

Based on my knowledgement before learning the hormones regulators topic, the most common hormones are auxin, cytokinins and ethyline. As I entered the lecture, a few more hormones that plant actually have which is abscisic acid act as inhibitory chemical compound that affects bud growth, seed and bud dormancy. 

  

  

Next, Gibberellin to initiate mobilization of storage materials in seeds during germination, cause elongation of stems, stimulate bolting in biennials stimulate pollen tube growth. 

So I think, for farmers or anybody who's taking agriculture course and decided to make agricultural as their main or side incomes can increase their crops production with good qualities by controlling their hormones production and nutrients. 

Next, our class had discussed the exam paper for test 1. My mark for test 1 is 7/10 percent. Im quite disappointed with the mark I got because the questions are actually easy and my target is to get an A's. However, I'm still grateful and have to accept it because that was the mark that I deserved based on my revision preparation. I noticed that I'm misunderstood the meaning of questions a lot especially the objective questions.

To be more familiar with the questions I need to do a lot of exercises and readings.

SUMMARY

I would like to thank my Cell and Development Biology's lecturer which is Prof Madya Dr. Parameswari because have taught us well with the syllabuses and also gave us extra knowledge outside of the box. Not only learning about sciences at all but we also got to learn on how to do comics, flyers and the most interesting part ever we got to handle big program which is Trainee Scientist Program for primary school student at standard five level. It's quite tough task and I'm willing to take the responsible because I think I will gain precious experiences while attracts the student's interest into science. This is also my first time doing the proposal of our planning and budgets about the program. I have learnt so many things just for seven weeks. Thank you.


Cheers,
Nurul Syafiqah Azhar, published on 221015, 1052am

WEEK 6 - Topic 6: Plant Cell & Totipotency and Topic 7: Pollination & Development of Plant Embryo

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL - WEEK 6 

Hello readers, 

For this week entry, the first thing that we were asked to do is playing a game! What kind of game? Of course a game that related to cell division cycle. It was an exciting game and quite releasing my stress. As u enter to play the game, the first thing is it gave you a few descriptions with information about cell division cycle. The controlling cell division cycle is the CDK & cyclin partner. It's really anxious when i was been given 10 seconds to answer the question before the cell been destroyed. Other than that, I get some useful knowledge as well as i gained joyfulness while studying.

Topic 6: Plant Cell and Totipotency 

 

Honestly, my interest to study is more towards the animal & viruses compared to plants. Even until now i have no idea why i need to study about plant? Why is it important to my life? Then i remembered before this i have try to plant a few type of plants that never grown up. I curious why. I tried a few other ways to make the plants grow but nothing happened. What else did i do not do, did i wrongly do? What is the suitable condition and medium that needed for my plants? Why this plant grown up but why this plant died? When i asked my mom, same thing happened. I actually indirectly learnt about plants. Then i realized,

"Things that i hate the most is things that i needed the most." 

Why plant tissue culture is easy compared to animal cloning? 

http://www.answers.com/Q/Why_cloning_plant_is_easier_than_cloning_animals

This website has clearly make me understood that: 

"Plants are already adapted to either sexual or asexual reproduction (asexual reproduction in the case of plants is called vegetative propagation) and it is not unusual for plants to create clones of themselves, therefore it is not difficult to get this to happen in the laboratory, whereas animals are not adapted to asexual reproduction, and do not normally produce clones."

There are a few methods of tissue culture: 

• The picture's below is a concept map drawn by myself accourding to the lecture in the class about the tissue culture

In the lecture beside the notes given in the putrablast, it has been said that the plant that undergoes tissue culture is under tremendous stress. This is because they were force to form embryo to reproduce. Wow, plants also have pressure state. 

Topic 7: Pollination and Embryo Development 

Pollination is the topic that chosen by my Trainee Scientist Program's Group. Therefore, I'm going to relate this topic with our group's planning about the program. The video of pollination that posted on the putrablast was really useful as we make as a reference for us to build up our model of cross & self pollination and also pollinating agents involved. 


Cheers, 
Nurul Syafiqah Azhar, published on 201015,0600pm

WEEK 5 - FLYER ASSIGNMENT and Topic 5: Endosymbiosis + Test 1

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL - WEEK 5 

Hello readers, 

At the end of topic 4, each group were needed to complete another group assignment which is making a flyer about most wanted or unwanted bacteria. My group have made an agreement to choose Lactobacillus Casei as our most wanted bacteria. 2 persons find the information, 1 person write information & draw figures and another 1 person colors the flyer. The picture's below is our group's flyer. 

 

Topic 5: Endosymbiotic Theory

Endosymbiosis in one of the interesting topic for this subject. It's about an evolution the origin of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotics. It stated that several organelles of eukaryotic originated symbiosis between separated single-cell organisms. 

The biochemical evidences are:

• mitochondria developed from proteobacteria (Rickettsiales)
• Chloroplast from cyanobacteria (nitrogen fixing filamentous) 

Before this I only learnt about the functions and structures of these organelles since my secondary school until my matriculation level. I never know how and why is it happened. Let me make this cleared. For example, what is the special characteristics of mitochondria or chloroplast (plastids)? 

Yes of course. it contain single circular DNA and replicate independently and do not contain introns & histones. This characteristic was same as prokaryotics characteristic while mitochondria is actually an eukaryotics organism. Have you all ever wondered how was it happened? 

From that moment, i just knew and realized that these two organelles had gone through evolutionary process which is endosymbiosis around 1.5 billions ago. From ancestral host cell to modern cell that contain mitochondria and chloroplast. Based on what I've learnt from the lecture, the name of mitochondria & chloroplast were not same as they entered the ancestral host cell which called aerobic bacterium & cyanobacterium. 

 

 

 

 

Four pictures above are the forum questions that we need to answered before the next class.

Cell Division Cycle

MITOSIS

MEIOSIS

The learning of division of cell cycle mitosis and meiosis is likely as my revision session because I think all the science stream student from the school have learnt about this cell division cycle. Some terms is common for us such as G1 phase, S phase, G2 phase and M phase. All cells do undergoes mitosis cell division cycle except the reproductive cells which undergoes meiosis. Therefore, when i was learning with Prof Madya Dr. Parameswari i have actually done recalling back my memories and knowledge about the cell division cycle. 

The next class we were having a test that covers topic 1 and 2. The questions are all easy but there's a few question that provided quite confusing answers especially the objective questions. Therefore for the preparation of the next test 2, i have to do more exercises answering questions to be more familiar with any kind of questions given. 

Cheers, 

Nurul Syafiqah Azhar-published on 181015;0600pm 

WEEK 4 - Topic 4: Cell Theory & Prokaryotes and Viruses, Prions & Viroids

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL - WEEK 4 

Hello readers,

SCL ACTIVITY

Before the lecture for topic 4 is started, all the students have been doing the SCL activity that related to cell theory, scientists that contributed to the discovery and differences & similarities of prokaryotic and eukaryotic. We have to find the information by our own and discussed it in the class by groups. I think this is for generating the main idea of what we were going to learn for this topic to give us some clues by searching the information in our own research. I find out this was so helpful and i tends to understand it more after the lecture class. 



The sub units that I've learned in this topic are:
-Cell Theory and Prokaryotes
-Viruses
-Prions
-Viroids

Cell Theory and Prokaryotes

Three main ideas of Cell Theory

The biggest contribution to Cell Theory

The Cell Theory's timeline

Prions and Viroids are the new things that I've learnt. At first, I have no idea what prions and viroids are about. But all i know is there are all must be related to diseases causes. 
I really like this topic because it's related to human health. Most of people know variety of diseases but only just a few people know and conscious how and why our body can be infected.

Prions 

 Prion is actually an infectious protein (missed-folded protein) and it will form aggregated or clumped. Therefore this prion protein will not be degraded and caused it to resistance to proteases. So what do you all think the type of disease could be affected by this prion protein? 
The answers are Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases. 

One interesting fact that i love the most when i learnt this topic is the cure of the Alzheimer's disease. It's actually out of the syllabus but i earn extra knowledge from the lecture by Prof Madya Dr. Parameswari.

 Do you all ever known about a plant species called GINKGOBILOBA ? 

Yes, ginkgobiloba also known as Maidenhair Tree is the cure of the Alzheimer's disease which helps to slow down the Alzheimer's disease. It's mostly been used by the Chinese as traditional medicine. Ginkgobiloba sp. is actually the only one species that could survived and came from the dinosaur's era which is billion years ago. It's amazing fact right? 

Viroids

Referring to this helpful website: 

https://www.boundless.com/biology/textbooks/boundless-biology-textbook/viruses-21/prions-and-viroids-139/prions-and-viroids-558-11769/ 

  

Based on my previous knowledge from the lecture, viroids will only infected the plants. Human will not being infected and not harmful for health. Even though in our daily life we still eat the infected plant that caused by viroids. You never heard people get shrink because of eating the infected potatoes so far. But this infection will responsible for crop failures and the loss of millions of dollars in agricultural revenue each year.

Why is it happened? 

If you've been given choices, according to picture above which kind of potato that you will choose? Of course the biggest rounded potato is it? This will causes the left-over infectious potatoes will not being sold and caused a big loss for farmers. Therefore, even though this viroids infection will not harm our body people were finding the cure to prevent the loss of profits selling the potatoes. 

For my opinions, i think a lot of benefits we learned about all the causes of diseases. We can used our modern technology to create a new tools or treatment to prevent the diseases as well as to cure the diseases. 


Cheers, 
Nurul Syafiqah Azhar-published on 121015;0800pm 

WEEK 3 - Topic 2: History Of Life Part II and Topic 3: Classification

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL WEEK 3 

Hello readers, 

History of Life Part II 

This topic is likely to classify each living things in this world with their own specific characteristics. Sincerely, I've been learning this topic in my previous matriculation college which is under Biodiversity's chapter. I think the essences from this topic in my matriculation level is more profound compared to this course, Cell and Development Biology. So it's quite easy for me to learn about biodiversity because of the previous knowledge i have. 

However, speak on behalf of me it's hard to memorize all the divisions and classifications of living things with all the scientific name of organisms makes me even more confused sometimes. So, the lecture notes given in putrablast is easier for us to understand and good for students because of the various pictures provided. We were likely tends to remember for each division of living things easily. Moreover, in the class the itself also we were taught by using the concept map which is more effective to learn. 

Beside that, i also sometime refers to my lecture notes in previous matriculation college that appropriate to the university syllabus which provides the classification of kingdoms in box diagram. 

Furthermore, I have used the simplest acronyms to memorize the sequence of the kingdoms. 

    

There is some sub unit of the topic which is phylogenetics that is new for me. It is presented by cladogram. At first, i did not understand how was the derivation of each branch that called clade. So, i have to make my own research then I've go through a web and I clearly understood

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/reading-a-phylogenetic-tree-the-meaningof-4195-6  

it has been stated that: 

"a diagram that depicts the lines of evolutionary descent of different species, organisms, or genes from a common ancestor. phylogenies are useful for organizing knowledge of biological diversity, for that occurred during evolution."   

Next for topic 3, the class have did the grouping activities including the SCL activity. Each of the group have to do the concept map of the Origin of Life and Classification. My group were actively discussed with each other and get into small conflict about the sequences origin of life. So, we have to make some research on the internet to convince the answers. Therefore, the picture's below shows the flow of the sequence of Origin of Life of my group.

 

Cheers, 

Nurul Syafiqah Azhar-published on 101015;0304pm