SEVENTH WEEK

HI AND GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!

So, this will be my last post.

So sad because i have to be part from Dr. Parameswari.  She would not teach us again. Seriously, she was the best lecturer i have ever learn from. Even though she was quite strict sometimes, but during her lesson she could be the best teacher and funny at a certain time. When i was in her class, suddenly i become very active especially when she ask us to fill in the empty venn diagram on whiteboard. I do not believe that this week was the last week to learn something from her. When study with Dr, she will explain everything in details. Her teaching really helped me in understanding the lessons easily. Dr also encouraged us to do concept map when we are done learning certain topic, and from there I learned to make a concept map using the internet applications. Our last class ended not that interesting because we are been given another unexpected quiz. But i am glad that finally i got quite high mark for the quiz than the previous quiz. I hope that i get the chance to have class with Dr Parameswari again and hoping that topics that she already teach me i can answer it well on test 2 and exam. After this, Dr Nik will replace her as our lecturer for this subject. So, also hoping, he will be a great presenter as Dr Parameswari, not that strict and will have many activity in class.

Thank you!

SIXTH WEEK

GOOD EVENING EVERYONE!

This week we learnt about Regulation of Developmental and Differentiation Hormone. Im going to remember so many hormone name and its function. So lets going through one by one its application.

AUXIN : When the tip been remove, axillary bud will grow make the plant look bushier. Phenomenon called apical dominance. Well it is help our garden to be more pretty and interactive. 
CYTOKININS : It has the property of delay aging process and help cell division. 
GIBBERELLIN : It is help in germination.
               

So, when you want to create dwarf plant, make sure the plant do not produce gibberellin. 

ABA HORMONE : Work opposite of GA. In the seed, when the plant undergo maturation. ABA will be produce to stop growth. For example, mangrove plant. Mangroves seed naturally have low levels of ABA. When the mabgrove plant produce seed and germinate on the tree and fall into the water and start to grow. Root anchor the ground and shoot grow upward. 

ETHYLENE : help in ripening of fruit. 

Hormones play many roles in growth of plant. I can apply what I learn in my everyday life in planting trees. Because sometimes we can modified plant on some characteristic we want. For example for the plant to look more bushier by cutting the tip of the stem or to ripen the plant by spraying ethylene on it. So, That is all for this post. Thank you!

FIFTH WEEK

GOOD EVENING!

So today i will write about my activity in class on the fifth week. Basically, this week I learnt about Pollination and Development of Plant Embryo. the topic is quite easy because i have learn in secondary school. I just need to recall all the method in this topic. For example, method of pollination and double fertilization. 

New things that I learnt in this week class is some plant have florets to ensure the correct pollen is transferred into its stigma. For example, dandelion. This flower can cross pollinate by insects or self pollination. When the floret were growing, the closed stigma of the dandelion flowers grew through the middle of the anthers. So, that pollen was transferred onto the style as it elongated. after period of time if the cross-pollination is not occur. the stigma curls back on itself to pick up its own pollen from the style below. 

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Another thing is plant can chemically recognize their own pollen and inhibit its further development in favor of pollen from another source. The example is Tiger Lily which the male and female organs are located called PERFECT FLOWER. While, flower that produces of male and female flowers separated is call IMPERFECT FLOWER. 

Next is Double Fertilization

Double Fertilization is the way a flowering plant goes through sexual reproduction. To make the story short, double fertilization occurs with two haploid sperm cells. One of them fuses with a haploid egg cell to form a diploid zygote. This structure eventually develops into an embryo. The other sperm cell fuses with a second cell within the female's reproductive tissue to produce a triploid cell. It eventually becomes the developing embryo's food supply. 
The sperm cells come from pollen grains that are produced in the anther, the male part of the flower. The sperm cells join with ovules, which contains a reproductive cell called megaspore. This cell undergo meiosis to produce 4 haploid megaspores; three of which will degenerate. The remaining cell goes through mitosis to produce 8 haploid nuclei, sharing one cytoplasm. The new structure is called the embryo sac. Two fo the nuclei become polar neclei and the rest are become an egg cell. Here is where double fertilization comes in.
The sperm cells goes into the ovary as a pollen grains go down from the stigma to the style. A haploid cell goes through mitosis to form two haploid sperm cells. This leads up to the final step of double fertilization.

For me, this cross pollination is important in order for plant to reproduce. Many method being used and It is kind of interesting to know how plant produce it flower that adorning our garden. That's all. Thank you! 

FORTH WEEK

HELLO GUYS!

This week lecture, i learnt about Cell Division Cycle Of Plant And Totipotency. Cell division is crucial for plant in order for them to grow and reproduce. they divide by mitosis. I just know that interphase was the longest phase in cell division because it is a preparation phase for division that consist of three phases which are G1, S and G2. I never emphasize those phases, it is actually the most important stage in cell division. If in this phases DNA mutate, the next phase will continue to divide wrong cell. The role of G1 phase is to check the resources for division whether it has enough energy and building block. S phase is for DNA synthesis and G2 phase for replicated DNA being checked for no errors during the DNA synthesis. If the cell damage, it will undergo apoptosis, if not we as a human will got cancer. 

Next, I was blur in class during Dr explain about regulation of cell cycle because it is new for me. So I search a video about it, that help me to understand it better. 

The most hard in this week lecture is to understand about totipotency. From the definition we know that totipotency is ability a plant cell/tissue/organ to regenerate into a whole plant under right condition. So, im going to summarize it using concept map that me and my group have completed. 

that's all for this week input. Thank you!

THIRD WEEK

GOOD EVENING EVERYONE!

This week lecture is about CELL. So, i am quite not interested because i already have some knowledge on it. But, there are topics that caught my attention which are virus, prions and viroids. Well, i never heard about prions and viroids before. So, i got an expectation that prions and viroid may also cause a severe diseases just like virus does. 

VIRUS

Virus can infect animals, plants, human and even bacteria. They can only attack specific cells because they only recognize certain receptor on the cells. The common example of virus that we are familiar with are HIV and H1N1.

Dr had explain how virus reproduce, they reproduce in two ways:

LYTIC CYCLE:

                                       

                                              

LYSOGENY CYCLE:

1) Same beginning and end as lytic cycle which insert DNA, make copies and cell lyses.

2) After the DNA is inserted, it is integrated into host cell's DNA.

    Prophase: 1 gene codes for a protein that prevents

    transcription of the rest of its genes. 

3) Cell grown and replicates by binary fission normally with viral DNA

    still hiding in host DNA. 

Do you ever wonder what is a virus outside the host cell?

IT JUST A DUST!

PRIONS

Prions are proteins that transform other cellular protein (PrPC) to the prion form PrP^SC. Prions are normal proteins that become folded incorrectly due to mutation. Prions cause fatal, neurological degenerative diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), kuru, scrapie (Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy), mad cow disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and chronic wasting disease.

  

What makes prions so special?

    ·      Prions are resistant to inactivation by heating to 90°C, which will
           inactivate viruses.

   ·       Prion infection is not sensitive to radiation treatment that 
           damages virus genomes.

   ·       Prions are not destroyed by enzymes that digest DNA or RNA.

   ·       Prions are sensitive to protein denaturing agents such as 
           phenol and urea.

   ·       Prions have direct pairing of amino acids.

VIROIDS

Viroids are infectious RNA. These are Circular RNA molecules which infect plants. Viroids are the smallest infectious pathogens known. This RNA molecule Don’t code for proteins and disrupt regulatory systems in plants. It Causes growth problems in plants. Well guys that was that! They are bad guys! We need to choose a clean and healthy food to avoid them because once we are infected, no cure for it! Thank you!

     

SECOND WEEK

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!

This week Dr. Parameswari starts the class by asking us to write our answer from the previous activity on the whiteboard about natural selection and new technology of evolution. Can you just imagine how I feel? My heart beats so fast because I did not manage to answer all of the question. Luckily my name not being called by Dr. But this make me realize that I need to prepare well before the class because anything could happen during class. Here is a video of natural selection.

What can be conclude is natural selection can be defined as the process by which random evolutionary changes are selected for by nature in non randomly way. With descent with modification, natural selection can cause a population to evolve for fitness within a given environment over multiple generations.

Next, we are told to form a group and I got a same group with Hanis, Yenni and Syazwan. Please be nice to me guys!

New topics for this week is Introduction to Origin of Life. I have ever wondered three things:

How did Earth begin?

What is the Big Bang Theory?

When did Earth form?

Mayber this video may help.

And from Prebiotic Broth Hypothesis, propose that organic molecules formed near Earth's surface:

Now that we have an idea of what Earth may have looked like, let's take a look at what steps scientists have hypothesized led to early life. It is agreed by scientists that there are four main stages to how life came from non-living things.

The first step is that small organic molecules such as amino acids that make proteins and nucleotides that make DNA. While these organic molecules are found in living things.

The second step is that these small organic molecules joined together to form larger molecules. The small molecules are called monomer since they are made of just one unit. However, when they join together creating polymers that have many repeating units. 

The third step of early life on Earth is when things start to get a little tricky. The polymers that were formed from the monomers grouped together to form protobionts. Protobionts are very important to understanding early life. The name protobionts literally means 'early form of life,' but they are basically small droplets with membranes that are able to maintain a stable internal environment. They are similar to the cells with which we are familiar in that they can reproduce, metabolize, and even respond to their environments.

The fourth step is that these simple protobionts evolved to pass on genetic information. Protobionts are capable of replicating. However, cells are the basic unit of life which unique in that they can reproduce and pass on genetic information from one generation to the next, metabolize matter and energy, and can evolve. These simple cells were created from complex molecules that were created from simple molecules, then continued to evolve into a variety of life forms.

Clear enough right how life form on earth? 

Next, we also learn on taxonomy. Learning it help me remember the organism and communicate clearly about it identity. besides, it is also help in finding the similarities of two different species of animal but in the same genus, for example this two big cats, lion (Panthera leo) and tiger (Panthera tigris). The similarities are they both hunter. For the name, genus name must be capitalized and species name must be lowercase. 

There are classified in many ways:

1) Form, colour, size, chemical structure and genetic make up.

2) Molecular similarities, proteins, DNA and genes. 

That's all. Thank you!

FIRST WEEK

GOOD EVENING EVERYONE!

On the first week of class, I was so nervous and  have no idea what exactly I will learn in this cellular and developmental biology subject because I never learn the subject before. Lecturer that would teach me throughout these 7 weeks is PM Dr. Parameswari Namasivayam. At first I was expecting this subject will only learn about structure and function of animal and plant cell in more details and how it going to adapt with the environment. After some briefing by Dr. Parameswari, I had change my thought on this subject. Apparently, it encompasses the principle of biology and comparison of various cell types in term of physiology and genome organisation and so on.

Yes! It is a beginning of a new experience for me.

On the same day, I was given a task to watch a video with a title, Selection In Action. The video quite long and it took about 1 hour to finish. Then, I take an initiative to watch it 20 minutes per day, since I got very slow internet connection. In the same time, I was told to complete 2 activity which are Darwin’s Observation. Which it requires a referral from the video. It teaches me to be a sensitive listener and chalk down every important information that I got.

Darwin’s observation is all about what he observe on variation among island species, which species could adapt to their environment and some fossil and geologic evidence. I cannot deny that all of his theory is reasonable and have evidence. One of his theory that caught my attention is he proposed that evolution occorder for us to survive we need convenient place to live at if not we are unable to get source of food and shelter. There is one video that help me to understand more about Darwin's observation. 

Lastly, how giraffe got a very long neck?

Well, it is all about random mutation make them favourable to the environment.

 Until the next post! Thank you!