Algae And Fungi

              4 hours of lecture. YESSSSSSSSSS. We covered about algae and fungi. But before that, Dr Wan talked  a bit about our THANK A  MICROBE project. The winner is GROUP 2. And I do agree with it because one of the group members, Chew, explained everything in detail. So yes. They deserve it. Yeay congrats!

           Okay then we back to our lecture on algae. Actually we had covered this topic before. So I think I will not emphasize about it in this post as I have done it in previous post. But I want to talk a bit about algal bloom. It is actually caused by high nutrition in lake or pond. The high nutrition is due to a lot of dead plants and animals suspended in the lake or pond.  And where chemical changes occur, toxic gases will be releases. The production of toxin kills marine organisms such as small fishes. However it does not kill big fishes. In fact, big fishes eat those algae in order to clean the lake or pond back. If human consume that particular big fishes, then it will be harmful to human. There is also red tides which caused by dinoflagellates that produces brevetoxins. These brevetoxins could result in respiratory irritation in human.

 This is the picture of my marks for crossword activity. (I used hint few times, that is why hahahaha).

   For fungi, there are 4 types of fungi which are, chytrids (Chytridiomycota), zygote (Zygomycota), sac (Ascomycetes) and club (Basidiomycetes). There are few things that I actually think it is important to know,

• Fungi are classified and identified by spore type 
• Fungus spore and bacterial spore are different 
• Sexual and asexual reproduction occurs by formation of spores 
• Fungi act as decomposers ( recycling carbon, nitrogen and other elements to the ecosystem) 
•  Fungi modify habitat (lichen inhabit inhospitable places and make habitat suitable for life 
• Fungi act as spoilers decompose food/wood 
• Fungi improve plant growth 
• Fungi as food for animals and humans 
• Fungi as pathogens (it causes athletes foot, ringworm and yeast infection)

This is the picture of my marks for crossword activity. (The marks getting better hehe)

TODAY IS THE DAY!

      TODAY IS THE DAY. Today is our THANK A MICROBE exhibition. All of us are so nervous an excited at the same time. Nervous because there were judges(lecturer) who judged our project, and excited because it was our first exhibition ever! It actually went well (according to Dr Wan hehe). Am not gonna summarise  the event but here are what I learnt from this event. 

        First, expect the unexpected. To be honest, me and my group members did not expect at all that the questions  asked by the judges, would be asked. And as the result, we could answer none of the questions. My group chose Bacillus thuringiensis as our microbe for this project. And this microbe is widely used as biological pesticides. It kills harmful insects with its crystal proteins. The question was, what is the benefit of crystal proteins for the microbe itself? I seriously never thought of that. The judge said, “This Bt wont produce the crystal protein just for others’ benefit. It must benefit itself too”. Why I’d never thought of that……….

     

        Okay the second one is, if we really want to know about something, we gotta to do a lot of research about it. We cant just know about the surface, we must know externally and internally. Yup I admit, I just find things that were asked by Dr. Wan. I mean like I just find the points stated in the module. I should have did the research in a whole.

        Thirdly, okay the first question was given by Dr Wan. And my group couldn’t answer that question. Well the good thing was, after we couldn’t answer the question, we google it right away. We did that with every judges. So at the end, we gained more information, and yes, the last judge listened to the most informative presentation by us hahaha.

          Okay the last one. Don’t ever make up stories. Just say don’t know, when you don’t know. There is no point in lying. In fact, you are not going to help yourself at all. Just be honest. People understands us, I guess?

          So yes that’s all I think. Whatever it is, this was really new for me, and really make me more confident in giving presentation in English. And I hope Dr Wan satisfied with our exhibition. Thank you Dr Wan (for the food as well hehe). Here are some of the pictures at the exhibition.

Meeting

For today’s class, well actually it was just a meeting to discuss about our THANK A MICROBE project (and I’m not sure about today’s journal, is it I have to do it or not, so just to be safe, let’s just do it haha). Most of the groups had some problem in uploading the video on AURASMA, the apps that we use to play our video for augmented reality. So, my group decided to use other apps, which is ZAPPAR. I honestly think AURASMA is more interesting apps to use compared to ZAPPAR, but since it cant really upload certain video which have large mb, we have to use ZAPPAR. However it still okay. So here it is the zappar code that we are using. If any of you who are reading  my blog, you can download ZAPPAR from google store or apple store, depending on the phone you are using. Then, just scan the code! Hope you enjoy our videos (the videos ARE informative I think).

 

And we also edited our poster, that actually end up to be a bit different from what we have prepared before.  A bit different as in it is better than the old one hehe. Whatever it is, I am so excited with the upcoming exhibition, which is TOMORROW!!!! May Allah ease everything aite. Well that’s all :)

(Our poster)

 

Thank A Microbe!

I dont really know how to start my journal for today's lesson but we learn about algae and fungi. Dr Wan actually reminded us to bring our own notes regarding this topic so that we can exchange our notes, and we did share it at the edmodo. I brought my senior's notes and it was the same with the notes that Dr Wan had uploaded at the lms. So I tried to find other notes and I already share it on the edmodo.

You can click on it to read! And as I did not make the mind map yet, so I kinda borrowed my friend's notes, Sarah Alia. This is her mind map.

We discussed about it and I get to know about the seven phyla of algae: 

SEVEN PHYLA OF ALGAE
Phylum	Structure of Thallus	Pigments	Food Storage	Cell Wall composition
Chlorophyta (Green Algae)	Unicellular Colonial Filamentous Multicellular	Chlorophyll a & bCarotenoids	Starch	Mainly Cellulose
Phaeophyta (Brown Algae)	Multicellular	Chlorophyll a & cCarotenoidsFucoxanthin Peridinin	Laminarin	Cellulose Algin
Rhodophyta (Red Algae)	Multicellular	Chlorophyll aPhycobilinsCarotenoid	Starch	Cellulose CaCO3
Bacillariophyta (Diatoms)	Unicellular Some Colonial	Chlorophyll a & cCarotenoidsXanthophyll	Starch	Pectin SiO2
Dinoflagellata (Dinoflagellates)	Unicellular	Chlorophyll a & cCarotenoids	Starch	Cellulose
Chrysophyta (Golden Algae)	Unicellular Some Colonial	Chlorophyll a & cXanthophyllCarotenoids	Laminarin	Cellulose
Euglenophyta (Euglenoids)	Unicellular	Chlorophyll a & bCarotenoidsXanthophyll	Paramylon	No Cell Wall  Pellicle

And after that, Dr Wan discussed with us about our Thank A Microbe project. My group want to submit it directly to Dr Wan but the video need to go through some editing so yessss the editing took so much patience like seriously. Because the internet internet connection was slow at the biotech 1 building. So my groupmate, Dayang, and I went to library but we still couldn't do the editing because I think there were some problems with the website itself. Dr Wan reminded us about the spelling. 

 The spelling must be like this:

Bacillus thuringiensis

Bacillus thuringiensis

Okay that is all thank you!

Test 1 :(

The title kinda sad right? Well I am not really sure what I feel now. Half of me is happy that the test is over. But the other half is so worry about the result. I am hoping for the best though.

So the class was started with the test, held for one and half hour. But I completed it like 15 minutes earlier? Oh whatever. I was so nervous.

Our class was a bit relax I guess. Because Dr Wan asked us to present topic protozoa in our own way of learning. For my group, here it is

 

These are the other groups!

Choy's group made a song and yup have to admit that is kind good haha and helping.

 

And otherssssss. But there is no photo of my group :( haha but it is okay. I can't really write long now because it is already 3.20 am and I have koko tomorrow (well actually today since it is already morning). I must finish it today because my internet connection is very slow and I cant connect with the wifi, I don't know why, hope this is enough! I am sorry Dr..... D: 

Rendang Dr Wan Soo Goood

The title of this post is so not really academic but yeah, Dr Wan's rendang daging taste really good! So glad to have the chance to eat it :D 

Okay now we enter the academic part. Well we actually proceed our lesson with finishing the topic of intracellular structures of prokaryotes. To be more specific, we continue on inclusions and endospores. 

For inclusions, there are

(this is a part of my mind map)

Metachromatic granules - as food storage, found in eukaryotic.

Polysaccharide granules - consist of glycogen and starch, differentiated using iodine.

Lipid inclusions - storage material 

Sulfur granules -  as energy reserve, derive energy by oxidising sulfur.

Carboxysomes - used for carbon dioxide fixation during photosynthesis.

Magnetosomes - act like magnets, to protect cell against hydrogen peroxide accumulation.

Gas vesicles - called gas vacuoles, for buoyancy.

Next, endospores. Very impermeable to dyes except Malachite green. It enable the organism to endure extreme enviromental conditions, small acid-soluble proteins.

After all done, we were asked to do some quiz on b.socrative.com. However the internet connection was so slow, so the quiz was moved to edmodo. 

That's all :)

 

 

Raya Haji Holiday yeayyy

Well the class was on the day that we were going to go back to our hometown for Hari Raya Korban, so yep, I was a little bit distracted hehehe I was not really focus. 

 But the class was about the cell wall topic.  Functions of the cell wall, 

1. Prevent bacterial cell from rupturing when the water pressure inside the cell is greater than that outside the cell 
2. Contributes to pathogenicity 
3.  Classification maintains characteristic shape 
4. Provides a rigid platform (a point of anchorage) 
5. Counters the effects of osmotic pressure

2 major types of cell wall are gram positive and gram negative. Gram negative consist of outer membrane that makes the gram negative become more pathogenic as it is resistant to certain antibiotic (penicillin), lysozyme, detergent, heavy metals, bile salts and certain dyes.

Gram positive consists of techoic acid –  makes the Gram positive cell wall acidic –  cell walls do not degrade as easily.

(Roughly about cell wall)

We proceed to intracellular structures of prokaryotes. My favourite part is on plasma membrane. I love this topic since secondary school. To be more specific, the movement of materials across plasma membrane. There are active process and passive process. Active process requires energy because the materials move from lower concentration region to higher concentration region. Active process includes active transport and group dislocation. Passive transport does not require energy as the materials move from higher concentration regionto lower region. It includes osmosis, facilitated diffusion and simple diffusion. 

We also discussed about ribosomes, cytoplasm, nucleoid and plasmid. Dr Wan gave us a short assignment. We must label the picture and list down the functions for each organelle.

 

And yeay, the end of classsssss. So excited eventhough it is only a short holiday. 

(We asked Dr Wan to bring rendang for us on our next class! Yeay can't wait!)

 That's all :)