WEEK 7

After surviving through hectic weeks from week 1 till 6, finally week 7 came by.

As we had already covered the topic that was supposed for this week, we used the time in classes to discuss the questions and the answers and also the techniques on how we supposedly tackle the questions in the test 1 that we had done. While discussing, we were able to point out where we were wrong and I felt more confident now to answer such questions.

After all, this was also the last week of our lessons with Dr Parameswari.

After all these weeks, I felt sad as we had quite a close relationship with her but from week 8 onwards, it will be another lecturer who will be teaching us this subject.

I felt very grateful to Dr Parameswari as she had taught us with so much passion and sincerity in order for us to understand the lessons and apply it in the real life. She also one of the lecturers who had inspired me and opened my mind to be more creative and to always think out of the box.

In summary, I think that this subject is one the most enjoyable course to learn and to be applied in real life. Although at first it may seemed like a hard subject to master, with continuous hard work, it will surely become more easier to digest and to be understood.

As said, I cannot wait for the next week and I am very excited to learn something new .

That's all for now, people. I guess this might be the last post of this blog, but who knows . Goodbye for now though. May whoever is reading this have a great day ahead.

WEEK 6

Hi, we meet again.

For week 6, basically we covered pollination and development of plant embryo.
Basically pollination is the act of transferring pollen grains from the male anther of a flower to a female stigma. Pollination is divided into two which are self-pollination and cross-pollination.

A Venn diagram which showed similarities and differences of self-pollination and cross-pollination.

Pollination was closely related to double fertilization process. Below is the link to a youtube video which will help you to understand about double fertilization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjVHUf4d1I

Other than that, we also learned about the differences of zygotic embryogenesis and somatic embryogenesis. Also we did a Venn diagram on the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants.

A Venn diagram regarding the zygotic and somatic embryogenesis.

A Venn diagram regarding the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants.

As we finished learning Topic 6, my lecturer moved onto the next topic which was about plant growth regulators.

We only learned 5 of them which are auxin, cytokinin, Gibberellins, abscassic acid, and ethylene. To understand about this topic better, below is the link to a youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF-7Tuu8bPM

A screenshot of my own notes regarding plant growth regulators so that I can understand and memorize it easily.

Basically, that's all for week 6. Goodbye.

WEEK 5

Hi, how is everyone doing?

Always remember that to achieve success, we must stay focus and work hard.

In summary of week 5, we learned about cell division cycle in plants and totipotency.

As for totipotency, totipotency is the ability of a single cell to divide and produce all the differentiated cells in an organism.

We also had to submit a mind map on the topic of totipotency of plants.

A screenshot of my group's mind map.

Other than that, in week 5, on 6th October 2016, we had our first test. I was a bit nervous when I checked my mark for that test as I studied and struggled a lot to understand and remember all the facts. Unfortunately, I only got 6.33/10.00 which was not as high as i hoped it will be. However, I will not give up continue to work hard to obtain success.

I think that's all for now. Goodbye.

WEEK 4

Hi everyone.

In week 4, basically we learned about endosymbiosis.

Simply speaking, endosymbiosis is a type of symbiosis in which one organism lives inside the other, the two typically behaving as a single organism. It is believed to be the means by which such organelles as mitochondria and chloroplasts arose within eukaryotic cells.

As said, it is believed that the first primitive eukaryotic cell did not contain such organelles which were mitochondria an chloroplast. As the eukaryote engulf the ancestor of mitochondria, it discovered that the bacterium might be useful to it so it let the bacterium lives inside it. The same phenomenon happened for chloroplast. This is actually quite believable as both mitochondria and chloroplast have their own DNA, both have double membrane structure, and other characteristics which prove the endosymbiosis theory.

Below is the link to a video that will explain further about the ensymbiotic theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FQmAnmLZtE

Other than that, we were also required to complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast mitochondria and chloroplast.

The Venn diagram that showed the similarities and differences between mitochondria and chloroplast.

Basically, that's all for week 4. Goodbye and see you in the next post.

WEEK 3

Hi, everyone. How was your day? Mine was pretty fantastic. Hope your day was as good as mine.

Basically, in week 3, we covered the topics of prokaryotes and a bit of viroid, prion and virus.
We also learned several names of scientists that contributed to the Cell Theory such as Robert Hooke, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Rudolf Virchow and Theodore Schwann.

Below is the link for contributions to Cell Theory timeline:

https://www.preceden.com/timelines/46013-contributions-to-cell-theory

The original Cell Theory is as follows:

1) Cell is the basic unit of life.
2) All living organisms are made up of cells.
3) Cells arise from pre-existing cells.

However, as time goes by, there were modern Cell Theory which are:

1) Energy flow occurs within cells.
2) Heredity information (DNA) is passed on from cell to cell.
3) All cells have the same basic chemical composition.

To understand more about those scientists, below is the link to a super cute video about them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OpBylwH9DU


Also, for me, it was the first time that I heard about viroid and prion. So, I did a bit of background reading for more understanding. Below is the link to that website.

http://omninoggin.com/microbiology/viruses-viroids-and-prions/


Other than that, we had been asked to do group assignments which were to do several mind maps on everything that we had learned.

The mind maps that we were required to submit.

We also had a fun activity in class which was to draw a venn diagram that showed the similarities and differences of eubacteria and archeabacteria. After that, a representative from each group had to come in front and write one similarity and one difference on the whiteboard.

The whiteboard that showed the result of our discussion.

My lecturer was quite happy during the activity as we were very eager to come to the front and be the first one to write on the whiteboard. Also because this was one of the very rare time where all of the students participated actively in the lesson rather than became passive as we usually were.

Basically, that's all for now I think. Goodbye.

WEEK 2

Hi, it's me again.

Off to the second week, I felt quite excited to enter the class and learn something new.
In this week, we learnt about the history of life. Basically, this topic talks about how the first organism exist on the Earth.
Research shows that in the beginning, there was no living organism on Earth,

So, how does the existence of living organism start?


It all starts from a process called chemical evolution where, the comets eject the inorganic compounds to the atmosphere when it land on Earth. Due to the high energy provided from the volcanoes, hydro thermal vents and lightning, the inorganic compounds came together and combined to form organic compounds. Protobionts then exist to form RNA which was the first genetic material. From that,the first prokaryote exist as heterotrophic prokaryote. After that, biology evolution took place. This theory had been proven by Miller-Urey experiment.


To understand deeper about this topic, below is the link to several websites regarding origin of life.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life
http://science.jrank.org/pages/1387/Chemical-Evolution.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment



We also received our second group assignment which was a mind map on origin of life. To do the mind map, I used an online application which was called Popplet.

A screenshot of the mind map that was done by using the Popplet

I guess that's all that I can shared here regarding classes in week 2.
That's all from me for now. Goodbye.

WEEK 1

The first class for cellular and developmental biology course was on 6^th September 2016. Upon entering the class, I felt a bit nervous.

In that first class, my lecturer, Dr Parameswari introduced us to the teaching plan and topics that we will learn throughout the semester.

Our first topic was introduction to evolution and Charles Darwin. Evolution is basically change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. Through the process of understanding evolution deeper, we also learnt about natural selection, and the evidence of evolution.

Other than that, we learnt more about the "Father of Evolution" which was Charles Darwin. Learning about Darwin was fun as I never had any chance to learnt about him before. As I learnt more, I felt inspired and motivated as throughout his life, he contributed a lot to the world of science. His contributions definitely lead us to all researches we had done from then till now.

I did a lot of reading regarding Darwin after that class and I was enlightened to put the links here so that other people can gain something from it just like me.
http://www.biography.com/people/charles-darwin-9266433
http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zq8gcdm

In that first week, we also got our very first assignment which was cartoon on natural selection.

A sneak peek on my group's comic on natural selection which was entitled "Mutation Happened!"

Basically that's what happened in the first week classes. Anyway I simply can't wait for the next class.
That's all for now. Goodbye.