Roshan Rupra

Just found this article which was put up a couple of months ago about how Parkinson's disease was widely thought of as being due to only environmental factors, but is actually down to genes. This links in quite well to our #BS1005 Genes module, but also to our #BS1008 module, as we're studying quantitative genetics. By understanding the genetic causes of Parkinson's, we're one step closer to preventation and genetically-tailored treaments of it. - Roshan Rupra from Bookmarklet

The last few weeks have been pretty relaxed compared to the rest of the year. Not that I'm complaining, this gives me way more time to look over lecture notes and have a read of the recommended textbooks for each of the modules we'll be examined on. I can't believe it's the last week of term as well, Easter's come pretty late and we've got pretty much a whole monthg off. I plan on revising loads during the holidays though. Absolutely loving the #BS1006 Physiology lectures too, they're dead interesting, but there's no way at all I could pick up any of it if I missed any lectures. The practicals for it are really interesting too, I've got one last one this week, I better find out when the booklet's in for as well. Overall it's been a good few weeks, and I'm looking forward to the term break. (: - Roshan Rupra

The past week hasn’t been too bad at all. #BS1005 (Genes) seems to be mainly recapping previous knowledge, although the practical today was a lot different to our previous practicals. We knocked out Drosophila (fruit flies) with carbon dioxide, compared different phenotypes and then killed them in alcohol. Was not expecting to that this semester! I’ll probably get cracking on with the report for that practical this weekend, as it’s in for Thursday instead of the usual Tuesday. #BS1013 (Animal and Plant Physiology) in my opinion has the most interesting lecture material so far. Although there’s absolutely loads going on in photosynthesis that we need to know. The practicals for it are pretty intense, with a huge practical report to do afterwards. I spent ages doing the last one, and I reckon this week’s one will take just as much time as the last. Anyway, better get cracking on my presentation on rubisco for Monday, lucky we’ve covered a fair bit of it in lectures already! - Roshan Rupra

We've been told we will learn more about Archaea later on in our #BS1009 lectures, so it might be worth having a quick read about the history of them. We know that Archae are more closesly related to Eukaryotes than Bacteria, but I didn't know their discovery was so recent. Turns out they were first written about by scientists only 130 years ago. The article goes on to talk about how Archaea have unique cellular components and pathways, I wonder if we'll learn about them this semester. - Roshan Rupra

Uni's been pretty good so far. Had the intro lectures, pretty standard. Still don't know the module codes off by heart, but that'll probably come with time! #BS1005 has been alright so far, maybe a little bit dull though. My first tutorial in that was today, was pretty much going over lecture material. Today was a beast, 9am til 6pm, I'm absolutely knackered! The #BS1009 practical on Tuesday was really good, though I ripped the agar jelly enough times. :/ I thought there was a lot to do, but it was dead interesting. My fav module so far is #BS1013. I find the lecture material really interesting, and the tutorial work we've been given about photosynthetic snails is lot different to what I expected we'd do! I've decided to be a lot more organised this semester, so I'm filing my work everyday and making sure I go over lecture material on the same day. I'm also making sure that any work that's set, I get done on the same day. That probably won't be the case when I get set essays though.... more... - Roshan Rupra

Well, no. We don't have the right organelles to process the products of photosynthesis. But this does link in to the #BS1013 tutorial I had on Monday, where we looked at a paper called "The making of a photosynthetic animal". There're sea snails and slugs that eat a particular algae, and they absorb plastids from it. This endosymbiosis coupled up with gene transfer allow the snails and slugs to survive for around 10 months living off nothing but sunlight! Absolutely brilliant. - Roshan Rupra from Bookmarklet

There are several ways it is possible to answer this question. If you need more help than Excel can provide, come to the help session on Monday. - Dr Alan Cann

Not to mention there's a lot of controversy around it. - Roshan Rupra

Neat! - Mikkel-Rev Tretterud

That is a great picture. - Mikkel-Rev Tretterud

how did it get flooded? - Khetase Chiwowa

Thank you!! - Parmilla Dhamrait

Liked it :) - Persefoni Ioannou

Just found an interesting article which talks about microtubules, which some of us studied a bit about in #BS1003 at the beginning of term. A bit of a refresher on what microtubules do, they maintain the shape of the cell and the positioning of organelles. Cells were studied from an organism, and different cells lacked certain proteins which would otherwise normally be found. None of the proteins are any that we've seen in #BS1015, but when different combinations of proteins are present, the stability of the microtubules changes. So the spacing of the microtubules differs, and organelle positions can change. Turns out proteins can even affect the shape of cells! - Roshan Rupra

So interesting :)) - Persefoni Ioannou

Maybe it's hit me a bit late, but it definately doesn't feel as if we've gone through so much work in so little time. Winter revision should be pretty interesting. (: - Roshan Rupra

yeh.. its only when you start reviwing and revising that you suddenly realise how much work has been covered!!! - Novpreet Rainer

Well said.. We've done alot in Biochemistry! .. And i never thought glycolysis was as complicated! - Neelam Dave

Just found an article that talks about mitochondria fusing and dividing. I didn't even know that mitochondira could fuse! As we've learnt from #BS1015, mitochondria supply the cell with energy in the form of ATP, which is generated by oxidative phosphorylation. It turns out that mitochondria fuse and divide according to their physiological conditions. For example, in metabolically active cells, lots of mitochondria will divide and interconnect to form a large mitochondrial network, and will form a lot of ATP. In contrast, the opposite will happen in cells that aren't metabolically active, and so they'll fuse together. - Roshan Rupra

Some useful reading for #BS1015. As we've got a practise exam coming up this week, this article makes a nice change from staring at lecture notes. It relates back to our earlier lectures about DNA sequencing, and it touches a little on some of our later lectures on protein synthesis. Though, the article mainly focuses on splicing. Even though it goes beyond our course syllabus, it definately makes a nice change to regular revision. - Roshan Rupra

A little something about flatworms! A professor talks about his experience in a practical class when fiddling with some flatworms. Thought it tied in pretty nicely with lecture 4 in Animal & Plant Diversity - #BS1012, as well as the practical we did recently. The article goes on about regeneration of the flatworms when they're cut in half. We know that regeneration is due to the concentration of the growth factor in the split pieces of flatworm, which determines where the head develops. It'd be pretty interesting to see it myself, or to even carry it out! Definately something interesting to look over if you fancy a quick read. - Roshan Rupra

Hopefully our #BS1010 report will be done just fine, soon. :) - Aklimah Haji Mustapa

I agree, its much easier when the slides are put up and the lecture is still fresh in your mind. Although I guess its a good thing in that you can't always rely on their being slides so you need to make sure you develop your own notes. - George Woolnough

Found a pretty interesting article from New Scientist which links in with the #BS1015 module (Biochemistry). The article talks about how "custom DNA" can be used and altered to make virus', which probably shows how flexible DNA can be when manipulated. I know that we've been taught that DNA can code for amino acid sequences from our lectures, but I wouldn't have guessed that it can code for virus' too! Interesting stuff, it definately expands my knowledge around the subject, so a bit of extra reading pays off. Anyway, because of this, the US and a few other countries are starting to restrict who can work with the custom DNA. They do this by verifying a customer's identity, and making sure they're not on a list of banned buyers. They screen a few orders too, and all this is being done to crack down on bioterrorists who can use these pieces of DNA to make bioweapons. - Roshan Rupra

http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices... - Roshan Rupra from iPhone

Getting you thinking* - Roshan Rupra from iPhone

If you read ahead to the next practical you'll get a sneaky heads-up on the relevance of ONP and ONPG to Biochemistry - Dr Chris Willmott

Some interesting stuff about how mitosis can be regulated. It's related to our #BS1003 module, as we've just covered mitosis. It discusses how regulating mitosis can be used to help treat cancerous cells by "inducing death" onto them. It helps my studies because it shows what can be applied to mitosis in cells, and it helps keep up my interest in the subject! (: - Roshan Rupra

when looking stuff up. didn't realise text got cut off if you type so much. :x - Roshan Rupra

thats a really useful video. thanks! - Luke Thompson

Thanks! Thats a good video, really easy to understand so it cleared that up for me :) The lecture was good- I hadnt even heard of okazaki fragments before :s - Rebecca Suter

I wouldn't complain about scoring 100% ! - Dr Alan Cann

This is really helpful :) - Niyati Velani