3MT Presentation

Hello!

                           Today, we did a presentation on our adopted microbe.The concept of the presentation was as if we did a 3-minute-thesis.It was divided into 2 sessions which is in Thursday and Friday. I did on Thursday which is today. It was very nerve-wrecking. Even before the presentation, I could feel my heart beating fast non-stop.

                          I did my presentation on my adopted microbe which is the Halobacterium Salinarum.
The presentation went well despite my super nervousness.

                   From the presentations, I gained a lot of new knowledge on the various type of microbes.For example, Helicobacter Pylori It was a good experience  and I believe that everyone gain something. Now with this,marks the end of my 2nd semester. This is our last class of Microbiology.

                  Overall, I have learned a lot during classes.I learned new microbes that I didn't know before beside E.coli. I learned about the metabolism and how individual microbe grow. I also learned the diseases that could be caused by some microbes. I learned about virus ad prions. Other than that, I learned about autoimmune diseases and hypersensitivity. It was great to learn  new things and I'm glad that I took Microbiology classes this semester.

Adopt A Microbe

           Hello!

                    This semester, we were told to search of a species of microbe for our Adopt A Microbe
project. Each and everyon one of us have to find out about the microbe that we,individually selected and make a scrapbook on the information that we have gathered.I chose to search about an archeon which is Halobacterium Salinarum.This is because it was interesting how this microbe turned the lake pink-coloured.

                  The scrapbook has to be a online scrapbook whether in Cliptomize, Powtoon or other online applications. When I obtained an information, usually I would copy and paste it in Microsoft Office.Then I would reread it again and organize the points according to its categories.

                  I used to want to make the scrapbook in Powtoon since it is interesting.However, it was quite hard and so I gave up using it. Instead, I use Cliptomize to make my online scrapbook. It was very easy to use. Now, I have finished My Scrapbook. This have given me a lot of new knowledge and experience. It was very fun.

Yakult Trip

   Hi!  

             On last Monday, my classmates and I are given the chance to visit a well-known company of cultured milk which is Yakult in Seremban.It was our second class trip in this semester after the trip to IBS (Institute  of Bio-science).The trip was amazing and awesome.

              It was a one  and a half hour trip, which is from 10 am (arrive) until 11.30 am or so. It was my first time there. The factory looks so nice and clean.It was decorated beautifully.So it was our chance to  take a lot of nice pictures there.When we first arrived, we was given an introduction on the probiotics and the bacteria used in their Yakult milk. The bacteria was Lactobacillus Casei Shirota. Lacto basically means milk, bacillus is the shape of it , Casei means cheese and Shirota is the founder of the bacteria. It is shown that the bacteria can survive gastric juice and helps to enhance our immune system.

              Then, we went for a tour that shows the factory and the process  involves in making the cultured milk.It uses a lot of work power and machinery to produce a single bottle of Yakult. I kinda was amazed with the machines and how systematic it was. It could produce a lot of Yakult in a day to be sell all over Malaysia.Hence, I felt the urge to buy a packet or two of the milk and I did. I was very delightful.After pictures being taken ,we headed back to UPM.  I hope we could to this again since not only was it fun, I also gain a lot of extra knowledge from it.

Microbial Ecology

       Hello!

                     
                This week's classes, we have once again being taught by Dr. Wan on Microbial Ecology. Everyone in class was excited for the lessons since its has been so long that the class was taught by Dr.Wan. All this while, Dr Fairol took over the lessons for Microbiology classes  right after semester break.So, everyone was anticipating this week's class.

                  This week, we have learned about Microbial Ecology. It is not exactly an interesting topic but we managed to pull it through.  During class, we did not have a formal lecture as everyone expected. Instead, we did an information relay on the topic in groups of 6.Each member explained about one subtopic from the topic to another person in other groups. We were given time to discussed the topic within our group member and to find out new information that could be related with the  topic which is Microbial Ecology.It was an interesting way of sharing information with each of our classmates.

                 I learned a lot on these topic and I can understand Ecology more than before. From my understanding,ecology is the relationship of an organism with other organisms and its relationship with its surrounding environment. I learned to differentiate between species, population , community, ecosystem and biosphere.Species is basically a group of the same type of organism, population is a group of species together which when a different type of species is living in the same location it form a community. Ecosystem is the relationship of these biotic and abiotic elements in that environment. Abiotic could be classified as soil, water and environment air.The abiotic factors could affect the distribution of an ecosystem such as temperature, pH and energy sources.

                  Within the relationship, there are some symbiosis that are positive and some are negative.
Positive symbiosis are those relationship that gives benefits either to one of the organism or both, such as commensalism, mutualism  and cooperation.Meanwhile, negative symbiosis are those relationship that gives benefits to one organism yet the other organism gain some loss due to the other such as parasitism and amensalism. There are also competition and prey-predator relationship between the organism which involve producer and consumer in a food web.
              
                    That is most of what I can remember from the lecture. I hope the understanding that I have now could give me benefits later on.

                 

Eukaryotic Cells

Hello there!,

          This week we have finished another whole topic on eukaryotic cells. This week,the  classes were absolutely fun and exciting. We did a lot of games on eukaryotic cells.Each group were assigned several subtopics and we were entrusted to produce an interesting game for the whole class to participate in and enjoy learning the topic. Alhamdullilah, all games were a success and everyone enjoyed it together.

          The first game were handled by the first group which did a quiz on Kahoot and the quizzes covered the subtopic on flagella and others .My teammates and I did a game on subtopics: lysosomes,peroxisomes and ribosomes. We did a flip card game which one representative of each group will try to answer the given questions and if it is correct, the person will get a chance to flip and match 2 cards. Well, in my opinion, it was a hard-to-score game.Then, we played a crossword puzzle with punishment for those who answered wrongly. I hate the punishment. We also played a bingo game on mitosis and meiosis. It was very confusing. Other than that, we also played a game called Racing with the Organelles and the last game we played was musical chair.

          From all the games that we had played, I learned a lot about eukaryotic cells.Algae , protozoa , fungi, plants and animals are  eukaryote.

The eukaryote have membrane bounded organelles and membrane bounded nucleus unlike prokaryote.During the lesson ,I can refresh my memories on the function of each organelles as learned in high school, such as:

Mitochondria:To synthesis ATP for energy

Chloroplast:For photosynthesis

Golgi Apparatus:To sort, pack and modify molecules like protein.

Ribosomes:For protein synthesis

Lysosomes:To digest pathogens, dead and damaged organelles.

Peroxisomes:Sites for oxidation of amino acid, fatty acid and alcohol

Endoplasmic Reticulum:For protein and lipid synthesis

Nucleus: Contain hereditary information such as DNA and RNA

Cytoplasm:Contain  microfilaments, intermediate filaments and microtubules.

Provide support and shape 

Other that that , there is also cilia for movement , glycocalyx, plasma membrane and some have cell wall. We also learned about mitosis and meiosis in eukaryote.The process involved are shown as below: 

      Basically, the lessons that we learned this week is to jog our memory on what we have learned before. It was super interesting because of how the games are presented.It was fun.I hope everyday, everyone can enjoy the lesson like this.

Prokaryote

Assalamualaikum, Hi!

              Not long ago, in Microbiology classes, we have finished yet another topic which is the Prokaryotic Cells. The classes were interesting where we did a lot of activities such as combine-mind-mapping and we also did a self-evaluation on our own understanding on prokaryotic cells in Quizlet. To be frank, I think Quizlet is kind of weird.It is either that or it's me that don't know how to use it properly yet. Anyway, I have learned a lot for a week about prokaryotes.

            Prokaryotes are organisms that have no nucleus like bacteria and archaea. I have learned how to compare a prokaryotic cell and eukaryotic cell as shown below:

      There are several structures that are present in the prokaryote, for example the flagella that functions for movement.It consist  of  filament,hook and basal body. The prokaryote can be differentiated by the position of flagella such as  monotrichous, peritrichous ,amphitrichous and lophotrichous.This give the prokaryote movement like swim, run, tumble, swarm , corkscrew and gliding.There are also fimbriae and pilli for attachment.
     

                  There's also nucleiod which is a localised genetic material, axial filaments and  glycocalyx for protection against dehydration, source of nutrient, and attachment to surface.Prokaryotes also have many types of inclusion such as metachromatic granules, polysaccharide granules, lipid inclusion , sulfur granules, carboxysomes, gas vacuoles and magnetosomes. Each inclusion functions differently. For example, gas vacuole is for buoyancy while lipid inclusion is for lipid storage.The plasma membrane of prokaryote are much similar to eukaryote which are made up of  phospholipid bilayer, proteins and  carbohydrates like glycolipid and glycoprotein .

                         Other than that, I have learned that bacteria can be classified based on their  Gram Staining which is Gram Positive and Gram Negative.The cell wall of these bacteria are structured differently as shown bellow:

I really enjoyed the classes this week and can't wait for next week. 

Adios~

Microsopy

  Hi,

            This week in Microbiology classes we learned about the topic, Microscopy. This topic was easy to understand but it is kind of boring because most of us have learned about microscope in our early education. However, the topic that was taught throughout the week was even more detailed and more in depth than what was taught during our high school years and matriculation studies. 

             To make the lesson more enjoyable, Dr. Wan decided to make a group of students present the topic in an interesting way. Hence, they came up with a story that was successfully delivered in a fun way but to me it was kinda illogical.However, that made us all paid attention and showed interest in the learning process.

            From that, I have gained a lot of knowledge about the topic, Microscopy and now I can differentiate the type of microscope used to observe the specimens.There are many types of microscope such as optical, electron, scanning probe and scanning acoustic microscope.

            Bright field microscope is a type of optical microscope which view  specimen against brighter background.Its function is contradicting with the dark field microscope. Another type of optical microscope is the phase-contrast microscope, which usually used for motile specimen or to detect the bacteria components.The fluorescence  microscope is an optical microscope but the specimen is tagged or naturally fluorescing against dark background.The fluorescence stain are called fluorochromes.

           The transmission electron microscope is a type of an electron microscope which can be used for analysing internal structures while the scanning electron microscope can only view the surface structures. Other than that, I know that scanning probe microscope needs a probe while scanning acoustic microscope uses sound to study the specimen.

           Not only did we learned about Microscopy, we also did an online mid map on the topic Prokaryotes which are very hard to do unless we have a strong wifi connection. It would drive me crazy doing it for hours and suddenly all my points disappeared. However, it was  a good learning experience and now I know how to make a mind map online. Yippie!!!

Introduction to Microbiology

Assalamualaikum and Hello there,

      Now finally the start of my 2nd semester in UPM. This semester, I am taking Microbiology classes and it has been two weeks since I attended the classes.During these two weeks, my lecturer,Dr Wan Zuhainis has taught me a lot about this course.

       What I have learned these past two weeks are the type of microbes that lives in  these entire world.Microbes are microorganisms that are small to be seen with naked eyes and can only be seen by the aid of microscopes. It exist as fungi, bacteria, virus , protozoa ,algae and even archae bacteria.
The characteristics of these creatures that differentiate themselves with each other.

      Prokaryotes is a domain that consists organisms without a membrane bound nucleus and covers both bacteria and archaeia For example,bacteria are prokaryote that vary in shape and sizes, exists as Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria and they are enclosed in cell wall made of peptidoglycan. Such bacteria that existed in this world are E.coli  ,Staphylococcus Aureus,Bacillus anthracis ,Thiomargarita namibiensis( biggest bacterium in the world),Mycoplasma pneumoniae (smallest bacterium)and etc.
     
          Archae are also prokaryote but instead the cell wall made of peptidoglycan like bacteria, the cell wall of an Archean  is made of pseudopeptidoglycan or pseudomurein.For example, Halobacterium salinarum ,Methanofollis aquaemaris and etc.They are able to live in an environment that is not suitable for any other living organism. They are found in extreme conditions of acidic, alkaline, salt marshes, and hot sulfur springs. Therefore, they are also called extremophiles, as lover of extreme conditions.


 Fungi have the characteristics of an eukaryote and its cell wall are made up of chitin.The example of fungi are molds and mushrooms. Penicillium is a fungus that produce antibiotic to kill bacteria called penicillin.Stachybotrys chartarum is also a fungus known as black mold.

       Protozoa and algae are also eukaryotes.However, protozoa are parasites which moves by pseudopods.The nutrition of all protozoa is holozoic; that is, they require organic materials, which may be particulate or in solution. Algae contain chlorophyll and exist as a photosynthetic eukaryotes.The cell wall of an alga is made up of cellulose like plants.Examples of algae are Chlamydomonas nivalis (watermelon snow) and Porphyra tenera (seaweed).









         Then, we learned about the history of Microbiology, which started with a scientist named Antonie van Leeuwenhoek who used his meticulously made microscopes to discover one-celled organisms, which were then called "animalcules".He proposed Spontaneous Generation which states that life arise spontaneously from non-living matter.Robert Hooke who then discovered these  microorganisms and called it cells which marked the beginning of cell theory.Then, a scientist named Rudolf Virchow suggested the concept of Biogenesis which states that living cells can arise only from preexisting living cells.Finally, the spontaneous generation theory was disproved by Pasteur Experiment.

           I have learned a lot of things in these past two weeks. The class was exciting because we did not learn according to the slides and there were game-like quizzes, discussion and etc.I have also searched for information and watched a video on this topic to gain more knowledge. I hope the next topic would be interesting and easier to understand.

Adios~