Third Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week, the lecture was very interesting. Dr. Parames taught us about the prokaryotic cells, virus, viroids and prions. Actually, we have studied about this chapter in our foundation year but this time, the exposure is differ because Dr. Parames taught us more than what we have learnt.

Dr. Parames asked us to sit in our group with our group mates. Dr. Parames gave us a task for us to make a mind map about "The Cell Theory" and then discussed among our group members. Arthur was one of the members that gave so many ideas on our task. We also need to do a mind map about similarities and differences of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

We also learned about prokaryotes like archaea and bacterias. Archaea like halophiles, methanogens and thermophiles. After that, she taught us about acellular organisms such as virus, viroids and prions. I was actually terrified by the fact that prions are abnormal proteins that cannot be sterilized by normal method. It is very extreme. 

After class, we went to the Computer Lab for a short quiz. It was really quick because the questions are easy and it was just a short quiz with some questions.

I really like the way of Dr. Parames approaches us with lots of group works.

Second Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

For the second week, by right I should have watched the video titled "Endless Form Most Beautiful". And I did. This video is actually a lecture video given by Dr. Sean B. Carroll,a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the university of Wisconsin, Madison. In this video, the speaker told us about the early Darwin's theory about evolution. How was Darwin developed the theory, how can he do so, what makes him justify his theory and tell people about it. By watching this video, I learned a lot about evolution. I enriched my knowledge about what had happened around us, how does the early species survive and a lot more. Although the  video is quite long, but then it benefits me because  I gained a lot of new and interesting information from the video.

We were also asked to watch another video titled "Selection in Action". This is also a lecture video conveyed by Dr Peter Bruns. This video basically telling us about natural selection and artificial selection. Natural selection is a natural occurrence among the species that favors on certain physical characteristics. No human intervention during natural selection. Whereas artificial selection is man-made processing. It means that human purposely select the species and change their genes in order to get a better species. I am quite impressed with these occurrence because nature is actually taking approximately 1 billion years to make natural selection and it still occurs until now. Scientist and breeders are actually contribute a lot on artificial selection. Many species that we saw today, their genes are not the original one, they have evolved from one generation to another and became what they are now. Surprisingly, I only knew that the great 'rafflesia', its ancestor has linked with rubber tree. As for me it is super weird and impossible because by looking at their physical appearances they don't seem like they have similarities on genes but then it is proven that they do. I laughed when Dr Parames told us about these new fact. All in all, it's a good thing to know about evolution. It has somehow changed my perception on evolution a little bit.

First Week of Lecture of BSM3101 with Dr. Parames

This week of lecture, we are actually having some introduction session since it is our first class with Dr. Parames. We introduced ourselves, one-by-one by telling our full name, origin and our Pre-U program that we came from.
Our first lecture was on Tuesday in Bilik Seminar 1.3. Dr. Parames introduced to us about the structure of the program for the whole semester. She also introduced to us briefly about Cellular and Developmental Biology course that will guide us to know more about the origin of life and supposed to master how to differentiate characteristics of various types of cells, organelles, basic physiological processes during plant and animal development.
Dr. Parames uses a very interactive way for us to study. She uses videos such as for this first lecture, she showed to us a video about Simpsons evolving from a pre-historic animal into the human. It was very funny but it shows to us briefly about what we are going to learn.
This week's lecture was mostly about evolution. We studied about Lamarck's Theory about giraffes with long necks and Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
It was very interesting to learn about these theories although as a Muslim, I am not supposed to believe in the theory, but Dr. Parames said that we need to put our believes aside and learn this theory in the view of a scientist.
Overall, it was a wonderful week. I like the way she taught us with some cheerful aura.