Seventh week of class

This week we were revising our test paper. Well it is good to know the mistake that you have done and try to fix it. Overall, I can say that I like how Dr. Parames taught us for this course. It's little bit sad to realize that this is the last week we can be with her. On Week 8, we will get a new lecturer which is Dr. Nik. I have never met him but I hope he is as good as Dr. Parames. As a whole, after 7 week of studying this course, I get a lot of information. This is what I want to study. Something about living cells or non living cells concerning about life. We as a human being should have the curiosity to know more about had happened before us. Evolution maybe one of the reason why scientist are doing deep research about cells and everything else. The evolutionary theory introduced by some of the scientist may or may not true. If it's true it has been proven by the scientific investigation. And if it's not then the new scientists need to take an action to discover about it. As a science stream student, we need to have that positive attitude and keep doing research because there a lot more things out there that are left undiscovered. last words thank you for teaching us along the seventh weeks. i feel blessed because i get to learn with you. thank you Dr! I love you  

Sixth week of class

                  On the 6th week, we learned about pollination. There are agents for pollination such as insects and winds. Insect pollination basically involves flowering plants and wind pollination involves non-flowering plants such as grass and conifers. After the pollen has been transferred to another plant, the pollen will undergo zygotic embryogenesis. As all of us have learned about this before, so Dr. Parames decided not to discuss in depth about the stages of embryogenesis of plants and so on. We can just read the notes and look for more information in the reference books.Futhermore, Dr Parames have key in the marks in the SMP. Im quite satisfied with my marks. I know my level and I worked hard enough based on my ability. Never mind, we can always do better next time. I will continue to strive in this subject because this core subject seems a little bit difficult for semester 1. Hopefully for the upcoming semester I can perform better.

Fifth week of class

Week 5, is known as test week. the test will cover up from chapter 1 up to endosymbiosis topic. the test was quite tough. It consists of 25 MCQ and 5 structure questions. For the structure part for me it was quite hard as they use a term that i never heard before such as anoxic and oxic environment. Im not familiar with that word after all. After the test i went back to my hostel and searched for the meaning, the meaning of the anoxic are those where oxygen are absolutely absent while oxic are those environment with the present of oxygen. So, i hope i will get a good mark for this test. Hehe All the best for me tho :)

Week fourth of class

       In Week 4, we started to learn a new topic which is Endosymbiosis, Cell Cycle and Totipotency. In this topic, I have learned about endosymbiotic theory which describes about the origin of mitochondria and chloroplast. This was a new topic for me. Before this I only know about the origin of mitochondria and chloroplast but I do not know about the evidences of endosymbiosis and endosymbiotic theory. The most interesting part in this topic is the division cycle of plant cell which includes G1 phase, S phase, G2 phase and M phase. For M phase we have prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase. For me, this topic is quite easy to understand because it is a continuation on the topic that I have learned during high school. I just need to revise my memory and do revision about this topic more as there is a new sub topic which is cyclin-dependent kinases and also anaphase-promoting complex.

        There is also other subtopic that I could not really understand which was totipotency. I am not familiar with the term totipotency and I do not really understand about plant tissue culture and callogenesis. To overcome that, I try to focus on what my lecturer explained in class about totipotency topic. Whenever I am unable to understand what my lecturer had explained about this, I will try to ask my friends to explain it again so that I could understand them better. Since it was really hard for me to understand, I need to study them over and over again, make a simple mind map and try to do example questions related to this topic.

Third week of class

During week 3, I have learned about cell theory and prokaryotes, eukaryotes, virus, prions and viroids. The class began with SCL activity in groups which are about the cell theory of life such as who has discovered about the cell theory. Every group must give their answer but sadly and regretfully, our group was unable do this task because we cannot access our Putra Blast. We were unable to retrieve the task given by the lecturer as well as the notes about this topic. Prof Madya Dr Parameswari was very upset with us. Though this was mostly due to technical difficulties from Putra Blast, I know I am also at fault here. I will make sure that I won’t do it again.

        In the cell theory of life, I have learned about three basic components of this theory which is all living things are made up of cells. Next, cell is the basic unit of life in all living things. Lastly, new cells arise from the pre-existing cells. I could understand about this cell theory because I have learned this topic during high school and able to refresh my memory again. I am able to remember about the prokaryotic cell structures but the eubacteria cell wall which includes gram-positive and gram-negative cell wall was a new topic for me. Before this, I only got to know their names but now I have learned about the structure. I am very happy to learn about this topic, about the prokaryotes structures such as  nucleoid region, flagella and pilli, endospores, cell membrane and lac operan more deeper. Before the class ended, we did our SCL activity which was drawing the Venn diagram on the similarities and differences between eubacteria and archaebacteria. This activity was very helpful to make students understand better and enhanced their learning towards this topic.

        Next, I have also learned about virus, prions and viroids. Prions is a new topic for me and I rarely heard about this before. So, I was a little bit confused and did not really understand about it. I will try to understand them better by studying the lecture notes. I really enjoyed this topic, cell theory which includes prokaryotes, eubacteria, archaebacteria, virus, prions and viroids.  This topic interest me and I enjoy learning it because I really loves topic relating to cells and this topic is a platform for me to further my study in Master in cell or virus.

so this is one of the shape of the virus

this is the structure of prion

this is the shape of potato that been effected by viroid

Second week of class

For the second week we were given a group activity. The activity is called SCL group work it was posted on putrablast. During this activity my friends and I cannot catch up and arrange the words given. We failed to arrange them correctly because we do not understand the topic and we have not learned about this yet. Thankfully, we are able fix them during our discussion with Dr Parameswari. For me this SCL activity could help student to enhance and refresh the topic that they have learned and makes them more understand. Although I feel like I have learned this topic during high school, but in UPM this topic is a bit deeper. In addition, I am not familiar with the words such as prebiotic broth hypothesis which includes Miller-Urey’s Experiment, protobionts and phylogenetics. Overall, I enjoy my first lecture even though I could not understand them clearly. I will try to study and ask my friends or my lecturer on the topic that I could not understand.

First week of class - Introduction

Hye guys so for the first week of class is the introduction class. So Assoc. prof. Dr Parameswari Namasivayam will be our lecturer for this course. In the class we were introduce to the topics that we will learn, how the marks given and when the test will be held. Then Dr. Parames gave us a simple lectures about biology evolutions and Charles Darwin. In this lecture we get to explain the historical development of the theory of evolution and know how to use appropriate terminology related to evolution such as evolution, fossils, vestigial structure, biodiversity etc.

We also get to know the Ideas on Evolution Prior to Darwin by Aristotle, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Charles Lyelland many more. Different scientist have different ideas on evolution for example Lamarck said evolution occurred by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Organisms are subject to a force which moves them from simplicity to complexity and environmental forces fine-tune them to fit their biological niche more efficiently

While  Darwin proposed and demonstrated that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection.

This is basically what we all learn in the first week . :)