Last day of elective liao... so blog in a more relaxed and less "chim" way. So what did we do today? We learnt about this thing called BIOINFORMATICS!!!
After obtaining a portion of the protein sequence for humans (in text form of course), we then proceeded to enter this information in the GENE BANK, (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST) which then allows us to search for "somewhat similar" genes in the whole database.
However, the database is so huge and there were so many results that we got this:
INFO: Too many HSPs to save all INFO: [blastsrv4.REAL]: Error: CPU usage limit was exceeded, resulting in SIGXCPU (24).
Lol.
So we only got a few results. But never mind. We still learnt that the gene name for the one we entered was the DJ-1 gene. Not Disc Jockey gene though.
.........................................nvm......................................................
Actually we were supposed to get results like mice and flies? But then, how are we similar to mice and flies??? (looks insulted). Well, this is explained in the next part of the lesson.
We learnt that in each and every living thing, there are similar genes and DNA!!! Not every one though. There is a portion of gene sequence (62 triplets of ATCG) that is similar in every organism on Earth. Cool eh? The person in the video was looking extremely awestruck. Lol.
Yeah and also the time from Gregor Mendel's theories of heredity to the time when the whole human genome was deciphered is only 150 years!!! Waah... so many smart people... some of which include THE FAMOUS Thomas Hunt Morgan who is also featured in our blog.
And things like messenger RNA are introduced to us. The video we watched really cleared my doubts about what is RNA, how it is different from RNA, etc. We learnt that MRNA (or messenger RNA) is a single strand of DNA which prevents entire DNA strands from being copied. It's like only wanting the drumstick out of the whole chicken. We don't have to buy the whole chicken to get the drumstick. (Interesting analogy eh?)
The DNA and genes of our stomach cells and our skin cells, and in fact, every cell in our body, is the same!!! Just that some parts of the genes of certain cells are turned OFF. So they don't produce RNA which gives the cell instructions for making proteins. If not, our skin will start dripping mucus and producing hydrochloric acid, pepsinogen and rennin. The pepsinogen will then be converted by the hydrochloric acid to pepsin, which can then digest stuff. Ooops a bit offtrack here.
However, the video has also sort of awakened me to the sort of tiring, monotonous, dedicated, overly-passionate work that a life scientist, or in fact, any scientist, must consign himself/herself to. Am i prepared for this? Don't know yet, but now at least i know more about this branch of work.
Haha. Actually quite like today, not becoz it's the last day, but rather, because it is so relevant to our career choice. Should have this for career guidance also. Haha. The video is good! Recommend it to anyone who likes life science. 100 greatest discoveries, genetics or sth liddat. The one with the brother of the host (not biology host). Lol. If you don't understand, IGNORE the last sentence and let your love of Biology lead you. Wahahaha.
Yeah.
What do we (auhors of this blog) love about this elective? The flies of course. They have really awakened us to the work of a life science researcher. That we have to make friends with flies to know about them. That maggots (fly larvae) are not that disgusting after all. Cute in a way. Especially wriggling under the microscope. And especially after dissection.
Pretty sadly, though, we have to update on our results of the breeding we carried out on the first day. Thing is, they didn't breed!!! Probably accidentally put flies of the same sex together. Or perhaps they just don't like each other. Perhaps.
Yeah well shall stop here. Time to watch another video liao. Byeezzzz
After obtaining a portion of the protein sequence for humans (in text form of course), we then proceeded to enter this information in the GENE BANK, (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST) which then allows us to search for "somewhat similar" genes in the whole database.
However, the database is so huge and there were so many results that we got this:
INFO: Too many HSPs to save all INFO: [blastsrv4.REAL]: Error: CPU usage limit was exceeded, resulting in SIGXCPU (24).
Lol.
So we only got a few results. But never mind. We still learnt that the gene name for the one we entered was the DJ-1 gene. Not Disc Jockey gene though.
.........................................nvm......................................................
Actually we were supposed to get results like mice and flies? But then, how are we similar to mice and flies??? (looks insulted). Well, this is explained in the next part of the lesson.
We learnt that in each and every living thing, there are similar genes and DNA!!! Not every one though. There is a portion of gene sequence (62 triplets of ATCG) that is similar in every organism on Earth. Cool eh? The person in the video was looking extremely awestruck. Lol.
Yeah and also the time from Gregor Mendel's theories of heredity to the time when the whole human genome was deciphered is only 150 years!!! Waah... so many smart people... some of which include THE FAMOUS Thomas Hunt Morgan who is also featured in our blog.
And things like messenger RNA are introduced to us. The video we watched really cleared my doubts about what is RNA, how it is different from RNA, etc. We learnt that MRNA (or messenger RNA) is a single strand of DNA which prevents entire DNA strands from being copied. It's like only wanting the drumstick out of the whole chicken. We don't have to buy the whole chicken to get the drumstick. (Interesting analogy eh?)
The DNA and genes of our stomach cells and our skin cells, and in fact, every cell in our body, is the same!!! Just that some parts of the genes of certain cells are turned OFF. So they don't produce RNA which gives the cell instructions for making proteins. If not, our skin will start dripping mucus and producing hydrochloric acid, pepsinogen and rennin. The pepsinogen will then be converted by the hydrochloric acid to pepsin, which can then digest stuff. Ooops a bit offtrack here.
However, the video has also sort of awakened me to the sort of tiring, monotonous, dedicated, overly-passionate work that a life scientist, or in fact, any scientist, must consign himself/herself to. Am i prepared for this? Don't know yet, but now at least i know more about this branch of work.
Haha. Actually quite like today, not becoz it's the last day, but rather, because it is so relevant to our career choice. Should have this for career guidance also. Haha. The video is good! Recommend it to anyone who likes life science. 100 greatest discoveries, genetics or sth liddat. The one with the brother of the host (not biology host). Lol. If you don't understand, IGNORE the last sentence and let your love of Biology lead you. Wahahaha.
Yeah.
What do we (auhors of this blog) love about this elective? The flies of course. They have really awakened us to the work of a life science researcher. That we have to make friends with flies to know about them. That maggots (fly larvae) are not that disgusting after all. Cute in a way. Especially wriggling under the microscope. And especially after dissection.
Pretty sadly, though, we have to update on our results of the breeding we carried out on the first day. Thing is, they didn't breed!!! Probably accidentally put flies of the same sex together. Or perhaps they just don't like each other. Perhaps.
Yeah well shall stop here. Time to watch another video liao. Byeezzzz
UPDATED: Saw something interesting in the video, so shall show you a picture.
Taken from www.bio.davidson.edu
Know what this is??? This is a GENE GUN!!!
Lol never heard of anything like this before. Have you? if interested there is an article on it in wikipedia. It's not used to kill genes though.
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