REFLECTIVE JOURNAL!

1.       1.  The learning outcome is the ecology of microbes had been known. We get to know the types of ecology involve such as soil, water, and atmosphere. The involvement of microbes in our surrounding and daily life can be identified more deeply. If we expose to other people who don’t really have microbiology background, it is going to be quite shocking for them to know that we live with microbes and depend on microbes in so many way.

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   2. What have I learned from microbial ecology is the involvement of microbes in our environment. How the interaction actually works two ways. The microbes use the ecology as their source of nutrient which enable them to grow and survive while the ecology gets the benefit from the microbes. But there are also microbes which give negative effect. Learning microbial ecology, makes me realize that not only things that can be seen with our naked eyes are crucial in maintaining the balance in our environment, but also the things that can’t be seen by our naked eyes. In fact, some of them actually contribute quite a big part in our ecology.

3.  3.  The experience from Microbe and Us project that me and my groupmates get is we learnt how to produce a documentary video and also article. Even though before this we had produced a few video, but this documentary video is not really the same. It was different in content and also we included narration. For the article, it was a very new experience as we never write any article before. We also made an interview with one of our lecturer, Prof Shuhaimi. The interview was smooth because Prof Shu was very cooperative and he gave us the informations we needed as well as new information. It was fun working with people who has wide knowledge but never hesitate to share their knowledge.

4. Microbial ecology can be related to most of the subject we already took earlier semester. This is because, as we are taking microbiology course, for sure the focus is on microorganism. Learning all these ecology is related to its morphology, characteristic, the function and many more. The knowledge gained from this subject can be used in the next semester especially when we are going to do our final year project. It is important to know about the microbes and where to isolate them. Without knowing where to isolate them, and also the source of nutrient, how can we grow the microbes for our final year project.

THE AWESOME MICROBES CARNIVAL!

On 19th and 20th of November, we had successfully organized an event,THE AWESOME MICROBES CARNIVAL!!!!

This event was actually to give awareness about microorganisms as they live among us and we live among them. People often have the assumption that all bacteria are bad and can cause negative effects only. We want people to know that there are also beneficial bacteria, as well as virus. Most of them are used in technology too. We invited UPM students, school students and also university students. 

What interesting about this carnival is that we have a lot of things to do. First, we have the entrance which is the tunnel. Tunnel provide the history of researchers and scientist who studied on microorganisms.

Dr Irwan in the tunnel yo!

Second, we provide microscopes so that visitors could experience on how to use them. They could observe the beautiful cells themselves and it could make them appreciate the microorganisms more.

Third, we also brought a 3D model printer. This was the most expensive among all. We want to show to visitors the process of printing and with the 3D model, they could touch them and look at structure more clearly. This could help they to understand more.

3D Printer Machine

Fourth, we have the posters and all. This one was actually assignment for Sem 1 and Sem 3 student. The evaluation was on Friday. Through out the event, we explained about our posters to the visitors and of course answered all their questions. 

 

Our group: Mitochondria

The last one, we provide activities and games. The games are stacking Petri dish, streaking, Photo Puzzle, Microbes Memory, Microbes and Ladder, Kahoot and Acideroid games. For me, visitors enjoyed those games very muchhhh as some of them even tried the games more than once. Well of course they were sooo eager to win the prizes!

Photo Memory

Acideroid Game

Stacking

Photo Puzzle

Oh and yes! We also sell fooooooood. Basically the ingredients are made up of microbe.

From this event, what I learned the most is we should really well prepared when we organize an event. We managed to complete everything right before the event but still, it should complete earlier. Team work and cooperation are VERY important. Without those to, this event couldn't be successful. 

We always must have back up plan if anything happen. We also need to think fast to make any decision. It is not about you are in which committee. But it is about you are in the team. The responsible held by each one of us is equal. 

Surely, this event taught me how to organize thing as I am one of the committee for Activities and Games. Distributing task is not a simple and easy thing to be done. It needs a whole team to cooperate and to work together. 

Most of all, organizing an event is nothing if we just want other people to learn, and not us. So, if we do not know about something, we should just be honest and try to find out about it. It does not matter if the visitors know more than us about what we are explaining. It is the learning process that matter. 

Lastly, I hope for the next event, all of us can do better, as a family. :)

Intracellular Structures of Prokaryotes.

Assalamualaikum!

 

So in this entry, I'm going to write about intracellular structures of prokaryotes.

 

As we all know, prokaryote means no nucleus. 

This is briefly the differences of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

 

 

And here is a picture of a bacterium with the intracellular structures.

 

 

It's gonna be a lot to write if we want to list down all the structures and their functions. And because of that, I would like to focus on just one structure which is not included in the picture above, Endospore.

 

 For me, endospore is quite interesting because of its characteristics which can withstand extreme condition. It also need special dye to stain it, so that we can observe it under microscope. 

 

 

Endospore also have few positions;

 

 

 

These are some things that I could share here. I will update this entry if I find anything more interesting.

That's all for now. Thank you! 

 

 

Cell Wall and Membrane Structure of Prokaryotes.

Assalamualaikum and hi:) 

I'm going to continue previous entry with next topic which is about cell wall. We have been learning about cell wall since our first semester. As Dr Wan said, we should have been able to identify and classify type of cell wall.

For me, what are the things that are important in this topic is about the functions of each structures and the differences between gram positive and gram negative bacteria.

I find out a new way to remember a little bit about gram positive cell wall. Well it might be simple, but it could help us from being confused between gram positive and gram negative. Especially during exam(well our brain least function during exams right? Or maybe just my brain).

For gram posi+ive:

+hick peptidoglycan

+echoid acid

So from here, we know that gram positive have thicker peptidoglycan compared to gram negative. And gram positive have techoid acid as well, which gram negative have none. 

Oh yes, this maybe could help too.

 

 And it is important too, to recognize the differences between cell wall of archaea and cell wall of bacteria.

So basically these are the things that I would like to highlight in this entry. 

Till then!

Introduction to Prokaryotes

Assalamualaikum and hi! This is my first entry for my third semester. So here we go. 

Our first topic is actually not something new to us. It is aaaalllll about prokaryotes. But there are few new things of course. We learned about proteobacteria. 

Over all there are six of them;

 

Alphaproteobacteria
 Betaproteobacteria
Gammaproteobacteria
Deltaproteobacteria
Epsilonproteobacteria
Zetaproteobacteria  

 

Just click on them to find out more okayyy.

 

I also found out that Deinococcus radiodurans is actually called as 'Conan the Bacterium'.

 

Why is it called with a name like that??

For those who have the same age as me, or basically 90's kids, we only know about Detective Conan, that famous Japan cartoon hahaha so of course we are going to wonder why this bacterium is called as 'Conan'. The name actually is originated from a movie entitled, 'Conan The Barbarian'. In this movie, Conan is the main character. He is very brave and strong of course. So basically Deinococcus radiodurans is called with that name is because of its characteristics which able withstand any extreme conditions. 

Well, I actually learned 2 new things. About the movie(haha) and what 'Conan' is all about. 

 

 

 I think this is enough for this entry. Gonna continue on next entry!

 

Deinococcus radiodurans

The movieeeee

 

Last Day of Lecture

Today was the last day of lecture. The topic was about Aspect in Biotechnology. Well, I am not going to talk much about today's lecture on this entry. But more to summarize this semester. Taking Microbiology 2 course is not as easy as taking Microbiology 1 course in semester 1(which is no that easy as well). The first chapter was totally a new thing for me. 

As I am new to the topic, it was quite hard for me to adapt well. But that's the challenge in taking this course right? The following topics are those I had learned before, so, it was like a recap for me. However, I need to read the all over again in order to memorize them as there are so many facts rather than process. 

For someone who loves to learn about process, I love immunology chapter, but I do not really know where it went wrong as I got a quite low marks in Test 2. So, for thus upcoming final exam, I really hope I am going to do it VERY well, because my carry marks from Test 1 and Test 2 are not that good. I hope Dr Wan will help me a lot on my assignments' marks hehehehe. Thank you Dr Wan for this half of semester 2. See you next semester, insyaAllah! :)

Thank you.      

Biogeochemical Cycles

Actually, we continued the topic of principle of ecology a little bit but I think what I explained in previous post had all the big picture of that topic. So I will just move on to the next topic which is Biogeochemical Cycles.

Dr Wan asked us to answer a question on Padlet.

And again, my internet connection is very slow so I will upload the picture of the padlet later.

With decomposers, recycling of nutrients will occur. But without decomposers, nutrients are trapped. 

The characteristics of biogeochemical cycles are; they are transformed and cycled through oxidation-reduction reactions, and all cycles are linked. 

The cycles are; carbon cycle, sulfur cycle, iron cycle, manganese cycle and nitrogen cycle.