Philip Higgs

Dear diary, this will be my last diary this term, and what a good term it has been. I finished my practical report last night so I only have work left to do on 1 poster for the rest of this term. I have thoroughly enjoyed all lectures from all modules, especially the latest #BS1006 Physiology lectures as I find all the aspects of the cardiovascular systems fascinating. Anyway time to crack on with this work, have a good holiday everyone. Remember to relax lots, and revise more. - Philip Higgs

In our #MB1005 Genes lectures we have recently studied neurological illnesses such as Parkinson's and MS. This article highlights a new way to deliver drugs directly to the brain so they can now be treated much easier and give relief to sufferers. - Philip Higgs

This article is relevant to #MB1031, as we are doing a wide variety of topics that have included treatments for conditions. It is good to know that we now have treatment for sperm that get lost. - Philip Higgs

Dear Diary, another fun week gone by and another coming up with Varsity squash on Wednesday. Anyway my poster is done, just deciding on a colour sceme. One more poster to go then it's all my continuous assessment done (apart from BS1011). Again, a short diary, see you next week. - Philip Higgs

This article is relevant to our #MB1005 Genes module. We have been recently talking about Diabetes, and insulin resistance. This article shows that it's not only bad for yourself to have a poor diet but potentially for your children and grand-children too. - Philip Higgs

Dear Diary, last week was amazing. I had my 1st, and probably the last day off I'll have here at Leicester. I had a wonderful #MB1004 presentation with my group on Acetylcholine, and hopefully the 2nd half of my group will do an even better one next week. This morning I started on one of my poster presentations we have to do. The fun times I'm going to have...anyway, quite a short diary this week as not much else has happened. See you next week. - Philip Higgs

Congratulations. You still need to submit all the assessments to pass the module. - Dr Alan Cann

@Michael "BS1010 (Semester 1) and BS1011 (Semester 2) are each worth 5 credits (total 120 credits per year). To pass each of these modules, you must complete all the assessments and achieve an overall mark of 40%. This mark is independent of your overall first year mark. " - Dr Alan Cann

An interesting article relating to the #BS1009 and last terms #MB1030 modules. Staphylococcus aureas can be quite a dangerous microorganism,however most people know of it as MRSA. This is the multiple resistant form that has been in the news for causing infections in hospitals across the UK. When I did the presentation on MRSA for the Medical Bioscience A, I talked briefly on abscess formation. I did not know however that Staphylococcus aureas was the only microorganism present in the abscess as it killed all other pathogens as well as the human flesh. - Philip Higgs

Dear diary, this week was even better than the last. Not even the 2000 word Microbiology essay could dampen my spirit, as I proved when I powered through 1600 words Saturday afternoon to finish it. Continuing from this I recieved my formative scientific report about isozymes back from my tutor and that went particularly well. I expected both pages to be covered in writing, but he said that the report itself was good, and wasn't missing any real points, I just could've explained my data a bit better. Now as we are starting our slightly less hectic timetable (by about 6 hours in uni this week) I think things are going to continue getting better. The 1st #BS1006 Physiology lecture this morning was interesting and I'm really looking forward to the practicals, even though we don't get to do all of them. Anyway, I have a #MB1005 tutorial presentation to prepare for so I should get going, see you next week. - Philip Higgs

Dear diary, my last week has gone wonderful, until Saturday night when Grace Hodson decided she wouldn't let me use her Microbiology books. I did however manage to get all the information I need to reference the books, and all the useful page numbers so I can now make a trip to the library to make a proper start on my #BS1009 Microbiology essay. I have also made an excellent #MB1031 plan for the essay today, with a coloured in picture!! The rest of my week was fairly mundane, just passing by, but I am glad to say I'm not behind on any work anymore, and as soon as I finish the Microbiology essay the rest of the term shouldn't be that hard with no more major assessed work (like essays). I will still have some presentations, and a poster to make but that's fairly fun so it will be nice to work on. Anyway, I'm going to crack on with this essay, see you next week. - Philip Higgs

i'm honoured to be named in your diary, the only reason i didnt let you use them was that I was working doing my essay and didnt want to be distracted by you, i have said today already that you can come and use them tonight if there are not any left in the library today. - Grace Hodson

This isn't exactly relevant to any of our courses, but it is so interesting to see how you can trick your brain into having extra limbs, this process may be used in the future to help war victims regain limbs. - Philip Higgs

This article is relevant to #MB1005 Genes in Medicine, where we have been talking about inactivating enzymes and repression. The article also looks like a major breakthrough in Cancer medicine will occur soon, as this drug is produced to prevent Cancer's spreading in humans. When this is done we can prevent tumours from growing and spreading around the body so it is massively easier to treat. - Philip Higgs

how words was your abstract/into/discussion? - Max Levin

haha, it was only a friendly suggestion. and, yes, your Lineweaver-Burk plots are very clear, I will agree with you there. - Grace Allison

A particularly relevant article to #MB1031, as we are currently writing a scientific report on enzyme assays, and how to distinguish enzymes in different cells throughout the body. This article focuses on new ways to measure enzyme activity through new and different methods, including image-based, flow-based, and separation-based. When these techniques have been fully developed almost every enzyme will be able to be measured accurately without long strings of calculations, that we have to do for our report at the moment. - Philip Higgs

Dear diary, the past week has gone well. I have caught up all my work that I got behind on, after lying in bed for the last few weekends. My #MB1031 scientific report looks fairly sciency, and I hope after the lecture today I can make it look even better. I have been told by a few course-mates that the title isn't very...well, eloquent, so I may have to rethink it. Now the first few #BS1009 Microbiology lectures are out of the way, the course is starting to get a bit more interesting and definately well worth going to. The practicals for both Microbiology, and #MB1005 Genes are both reaching their end and it's really exciting to think we are doing gene transfer, and genetic crosses, as well as identifying bacteria that are growing on our skin, and in our mouth! I hope this week is as good as last week was, time will tell. - Philip Higgs

Its true, your eloquency leaves a lot to be desired :) apart from that its pretty good though! - Grace Allison

What is that even about?! :S - Aneeka Ul-Haq

It's just a general revision quiz to consolidate the module so far - Ria Patel

Yep, everything we have covered so far in Microbiology will be in it (apparently). - Philip Higgs

Again, another article relevant to #MB1005, and this one we only covered this morning. Trisomy 21 is the extra chromosome that causes Down's syndrome. If this test can be perfected there will be no need for any needles to take blood samples, so there will be no possible locations for error and no potential harm to either mother or child. - Philip Higgs

This is an intetesting article relevant to #MB1005 Genes and Medicine. This article shows how the bacteria that Gonorrhea adapts to survive inside human hosts, by collecting human DNA fragments to stop it from being destroyed. - Philip Higgs

Dear Diary, love is in the air. I am thoroughly enjoying my course, with all of it's aspects. However I think I may have made myself ill after spilling E.coli on my hands (before I put gloves on) at the start of last week's Microbiology practical. Either way, I have become slightly more used to the work load and didn't get as tired this week. I know this for a fact because I didn't spend the whole weekend in bed watching cartoons and scientific documentaries (a wierd mix but it worked for me). Plus, after our #MB1005 lecture this morning I walked over to the Adrian building and thankfully saw my name on the pass list =) now I can wait until next year to do some more Biochemistry. Overall a good week, with only a minor illness to bring it down, hopefully this week will be just as good. - Philip Higgs

Dear Diary, last week was quite horrible, and very exhausting. But I think this week will be much better as I'm now used to the work again. Thursday was especially bad with 9-6 and tired from a previous day's sport/social. However aside from that I feel this semester is going to be good as I'm enjoying all the modules and they all look interesting. I can't wait to get into the more juicy stuff. From what we have covered so far this term I think the #MB1031 module will be the most useful as it is all about designing proper experiments and learning to write scientific papers. We will see how it goes and hopefully I won't get as tired this week as I'm back into a good routine. - Philip Higgs

This is an exciting story about how some of the building blocks of life were formed and how possibly life on Earth started. This is relevant to our #BS1015 and #CH1070 modules from last semester due to the structures and composition of proteins in the modules. Examples like this, indicate that if amino acids are being formed many light years away and brought to earth, surely they went to other planets as well, and make it highly likely that other life forms exist in the universe. - Philip Higgs

Yay, the university of Leicester discovered something in one of my feeds :)this is vaguely relevant to my #MB1031 modules - Genes and Medicine as in the lecture I've just had we were talking about gametes and how they are affected. However I think this is one that Biological Science students should keep an eye on as it may help in Animal and Plant studies. - Philip Higgs

"A microbe living in the Dead Sea has been found to use a new metabolic pathway to process carbon.ImageBroker/Imagebroker/FLPA". This is continuing from my google reader. I just wanted to try the bookmarklet posting a picture, to check I can do it... - Philip Higgs from Bookmarklet

nice use of the bookmarklet, Philip - including the picture too, makes for a nice post. - Dr Jo Badge

Dear Diary, this week has been really good for me - I finished my exams, then had 4 days off to relax and get ready for the next semester. I now feel ready for my several modules. Although I had a huge downer today...going from no work to 4 hours today, starting at 9 was a big change. For the past few weeks I havn't been out of bed before 9. Then after the frist lecture I spent 2 hours trying to sort out my timetable as the computer wouldn't print excel. To finish it all off looking through my timetable I see I have a 7 hour Thursday, from 9-6. Only 1 lecture left to go today, and it is our introduction to Microbiology. Oh well, I will see how the next week goes. I know it will be hard work, but hopefully fun as well. - Philip Higgs

Have you thought about how to best use the long gaps in between timetables activities yet? how about this? http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices... - Dr Jo Badge from iPod

Well, I don't really have long gaps in my timetable. Most days they're only 1 hours, with an occasional 2 hour gap. However I think I will spend most of them in the library preparing for later lectures, looking up slideshows or writing up practicals, doing homework for the #MB1031 course and such like. - Philip Higgs

A lovely reminder of the #BS1015 module, with metabolic pathways and the breakdown of macromolecules. This is an exciting discovery that would unfortunately mean students in the future need to learn more pathways. However, this discovery is helpful in figuring out how some organisms survive in the harshest of environments, and could lead to colonising harsh places with new ways to produce sugars and obtain energy. - Philip Higgs

This is an article relevant to my #MB1030 presentation of MRSA last term. SA in the bloodstream are quickly wiped out by a host's immune system. Studies have showed they developed an attachment that attaches to the endothelium. This then leads to the SA to be transported through the cell to deeper tissues and cause secondary and more serious damage to health. - Philip Higgs

"Once added to your toolbar, this button will let you share web pages on your FriendFeed. You can even attach thumbnails of images from the pages you share!" - Philip Higgs from Bookmarklet

You can include images in your shared items too - just hover over the image and click Share on Friendfeed. - Dr Alan Cann

"The module timetables I have posted at the moment are pulled directly from the timetabling/room booking software and as such there is a slot for every room booked for the module. I know this is far from ideal from a student perspective and is meant to give you an indication of what is coming up in Semester 2. We are in the process of providing a simplified Year 1 Semester 2 timetable... more... - Dr Alan Cann