The QuanTam Scientist

The Biomedical Undergraduate University Experience

2012-04-03T19:20:00.000+01:00

Since beginning university last October I have soon realised what people say when they say university is the time of your life. Our time so far has included plastering newspaper over flatmate's doors in the early hours of the morning just because you can to having naked sleepovers in the hallway and endless bromance. It's easy to forget that university has a degree at the end of it sometimes. But not that easy.
I think university is definitely about building life skills. These aren't life skills like looking both ways while crossing a road, saying no to strange men in cars or washing your hands after going to the toilets. The biggest words are self-motivation, self-discipline and living, working and learning from housemates, course mates and lecturers. It is with these life skills that the best degree can be gained. Balance the party with the play and you have a winning combination. No, an invaluable combination.
Whoah, so they were some deep words. I'm not high. And just so you know, life, skills, and building aren't the thoughts going through my head when I'm at university. Bitch, pleeeease.

Anyway, while the original point of this blog was for me to cheekily impress the UCAS application, my life skills and I realised that the 4 weeks spent at home over easter should definitely include some revision for my summer exams, somewhere, of what I have learnt over my freshers year (first year) in Lancaster.

Why am I revising? What have I been doing for the last 6 months? Since this is in fact a science blog not a banter blog, here's an insight into the life of a undergraduate Biomedical Sciences student at Lancaster University:
In each 10 week semester (or term) of university we have had 6 modules.
Each 10 week semester is divided into 5 week 'half terms', where we study 3 modules.
During the first 4 weeks of a half term we have 3 lectures a week on our chosen modules (lets say 'Molecules of Life' or 'Anatomy and Physiology'). Since we're studying 3 modules with 3 lectures each, that's 9 lectures each week.

Lectures are 50 mins long on average, but can be longer or shorter (the shorter the better, naturally). Each module usually has one lecturer which does the first couple of lectures and then swaps with another lecturer for a later part of the module. There are 12 lectures per module. Some lectures contain 200 students, for example the modules that are more core, and other contain a good class size of 50 people. The first thing you will notice about lectures is that some of them will be really engaging and others you will want to sleep on the desk. This could be partly because you may have gone out the night before (naturally), because the lecturer has spent so many years in a lab they are better at talking to Drosophila than a person or that you have studied the topic for A-level (happens more than you think). Indeed, for any of you who have done OCR Biology for A-level, the 'Molecules of Life' has striking resemblance to the 'Biological Molecules' and 'Plasma Membranes' chapters studied in AS. Easy easy. Lectures aren't exciting as such, but they are engaging if an interesting topic comes along and particularly fulfilling if a lecture asks a question to the entire lecture theatre and only you know the answer. There's also quite a bit of lecture banter when the same guy (always a guy, never a girl, and usually an international student) asks questions every 5 minutes, or if someone has a funny sneeze.

As well as 3 lectures for each module, there are practicals for 2 of my modules per week that can last up to 4 hours (this sounds bad, which it is sometimes, but it depends on how bad the practical/pointless-cutting-up-of-small-leaves is). There have been practicals where mystery pieces of DNA have been given out and using an electrophoresis gel to sort them by size, identifying what DNA had been given to us against a known chart. This had a long waiting time, about 45 minutes, where we were allowed to leave the lab (an oreo milkshake was bought and drunk in this good time, as well as a bit of House watched on my laptop) but was cool to do, since it is such a commonly talked about method in DNA technology and it's uncommonly done in A-level Biology. Plus, and you'll have to trust me on this one, loading the DNA into the 'wells' of the gel looks like the coolest thing ever.

Other practical sessions have included tasks outside the labs also, where case studies have been given to us; a worksheet for example, where a person called...lets say Bob because it's one of the best names...has with low sodium levels. We then diagnose Conn's Syndrome, a condition that was studied in the lectures.

After 4 weeks of a module of lectures and practicals we get a reading week in the 5th week (no lectures = incredible lie ins) so that we can study for the 'end of module test', which is a 40 minute true or false exam paper with 100 questions give or take. This sounds bad but it really isn't that bad if you can decide something is false without a second thought (plants cells have huge penises, true or false?).
Since we have 3 modules per 5 weeks, that means we have 3 end of module tests at the end of each half term. Each end of module test counts for 16% of one module, which along practical lab reports and other courseworks (25%), as well as 3 separate online multiple choice tests online (9%), add up to 50% of the total mark of the year.

The other 50% of the modules come in 3 exams in June. Each exam contains 5 sections, with each section corresponding to one module, like our little friend Molecules of Life module. There are 3 questions in each module to choose from (one must be chosen), and each section should take half an hour, taking the total exam time to 2 hours and 30 minutes. Maaan I am not looking forward to the hand-ache during those exams.

Anyway, that's basically how it all works in Lancaster for Biomedical Sciences. As it stands with all my assessed work, that's end of module tests, online tests and courseworks, I'm set for a First Class in my first year, which is a great feeling. And on top of that, this holiday I'll be rocking out to cornwall with some of the guys I met in the snowsports club, we're going to see DJ Fresh on the first thursday of term at the student union club, and I love life.

Over the next couple of weeks I've decided I'm going to get down all the experience I've had from the modules into some blog posts for the purposes of cementing them into my sciency mind, and sharing them to the world. Observe my self-motivation and self-discipline in the following posts, like a boss*.

*new favourite saying picked up from housemate

The Effects of Alcohol and the Flipside of a Great Night Out: Hangover.

2011-06-30T16:26:00.007+01:00

To you and every other John Smith, a hangover is all the incredible dancing and ugly betty-turned-cheryl coles of last night’s partying reversed and concentrated many times over into one super-bad curse of body pain and badhead.

Ok, maybe it isn’t that bad. But actually, I wouldn’t know since I've never had one. It’s true, and I realise how annoying I sound if you are sat there reading it with a smashing headache, I’m just so great.
But what is a hangover, and why does that annoying friend who drinks just as much as you never get a hangover? It’s not magic, or medicine, and for those of those who know me outside of Quantam Scientist, it isn’t the essence of Chinese DNA either.
As soon as you begin drinking your pint of Cider (or if you are hard like me, your tray of Tequilas), the effects of the ingredients reach your brain via your bloodstream. Although hard to believe, this happens in less than 2 minutes due to the high relative permeability of nearly every cell membrane in the body to ethanol. Incredible. There in the brain, there are receptors called GABA-A also known by their other name Relax Receptors (© Alex Tam) which ethanol binds to by positive allosteric modulation. Now this just means that it increases the activity of the Relax Receptor when ethanol binds to it and the crucial point about this receptor is that when it is made more active it suppresses several elements of the human consciousness such as the fear of social situations. Hey presto, you have a good night ahead.

The concentration of alcohol in the central nervous system also starts to get the brain's bodily functions quite confused. Normalement, an area of the brain called the hypothalamus secretes a cheeky little hormone called Anti-Diuretic Hormone or Vasopressin which stops you going for a wee wee when water supplies are running out. However, the confused brain, much like his owner, doesn't show the capacity to listen to the words of the sensible hypothalamus and of course going for a wee occurs much more often. Banter. On top of this, you are probably sweating like beast on the dance floor and burning plenty of calories, of which both require water. As a result of all these things, you lose more water than you drink and the body becomes dehydrated due to lack of water.
Beginning to sound familiar? This is where hangover begins. Since water, H20, is required for most biochemical reactions, negative effects begin to ensue. Headache, nausea, lethargy are the official symptoms given by the NHS of dehydration and all of them kindly contribute to the woes of hangover. In spite of dehydration, the reserve of body water stored within the tissues means the the body can resist most of the symptoms for a couple of hours, draining at it as much as it can. It is because of this that hangover is only felt in the morning, when the reserve of water has run out. The liver is responsible for converting the vodka-sourced ethanol into less harmful substances and needs water to perform the detoxification, so when the reserves of water have passed their threshold, it begins to remove it from other parts of the body, starting with the brain.

Headache:
Water is removed from the brain and it shrinks, pulling away from the outside of the skull. This is the banging headache experienced during hangover.
Lethargy:
The less water that is about, the less respiration can happen. Respiration is needed to make ATP, which is the energy dollar used throughout the body. Less water, less energy, more tired. Disphoria is also felt, which is the opposite of Euphoria. Self-expalanatory.
Nausea:
Ethanol is an irritant, which means it annoys the stomach lining by saying that it is has never had a hangover because it is Chinese. As a result, you feel sick and nauseous.

Of course, the symptoms of hang over get progressively worse depending on which drinks you have and how good you felt the night before. Shots tend to have a higher alcohol concentration, with Tequila being right up there and Sourz being one of the lowest, and can get you wobbling and dribbling in as little as 5 minutes. They are also fantastic for dehydration and thus hangover. On the other-hand, pints of pub-glassed beverages are far lower substance than shots and contain more water so will get you there slower and steadily. Besides the liver of McLovin, most livers can handle a pint of beer without any problem at all.

So why is it that I, and 20-30% of all drinkers do not get hangover? It is simply because we are more hydrated, and the more hydrated you are, the less hungover you shall be. Water is also renowned for it's beauty properties as evidenced in myself.
See the video for explanation and banter from Mr James May, who really should be knighted.

I also just wanted to say well done to every A-level student of 2011, well done for all your hard effort and I hope it all pays off in August. In spite of this article, I have been hammered every other day since my last exam.

Killer Plants Made By Humans

2011-03-20T14:25:00.006+00:00

The trailer of the film The Happening, which you can watch here, is a pretty thrilling one. Although a very good watch for my brother and I last night (he had nightmares in bed, I don't recommend!), it also gives grounds for some scientific ethics. It's one of those films that is becoming more and more relevant as science's research into genetic engineering continues.
The film depicts an entire population being crudely infected by an unknown disease believed to have been created by plants, where the people seem to lose mental consciousness and in each case they attempt to kill themselves. This obviously makes for some very disturbing and admittedly fictitious scenes of the methods to kill oneself, however I couldn't help thinking to myself how real this situation could be.
Golden Rice is an example of a genetically modified plant that has been developed for 3rd world communities which lack sources of vitamin A. Genes from daffodils which express the production of beat-carotene were inserted into the rice and the result is that it now contains 23 times more vitamin A. [Wiki] This was one of the first successful GM plants. Is it dangerous?
Ever since the pioneering of genetically modified plants, scientists have always been wary of cross pollination between the transgenic transformed plants and wild species of plants which will inevitably grow around them. If cross pollination were to occur between, lets say, a modified car size potato and an adjacent venus fly trap growing nearby then you could end up with a car sized venus fly trap (yes, just like mario kart). Now, if we started making genetic plants in the masses, imagine the possibilities and increased probability of cross pollinations that could occur. Start with one field of super potatoes and a patch of venus fly traps and you get a bigger patch of mario fly traps. What happens with those mario fly traps? Who knows. Maybe there will be a series of unfortunate events and they will breed with the neighbouring field of dandelions so we get flying fluffy mario venus fly traps. Although unlikely, it is definitely possible. All you have to do is see the example of the belgian blue, seen here, to see the potential of what manipulating genetics can do. It is unlikely, very unlikely. But still there, which is worrying.
Resident Evil, another thriller film, is about an underground weapons corporation which design abominations and is another example of what genetic engineering can do at its worst, see here, but we can accept that this is even further fictitious, or at least hope that it is, because the horrors created within it have been genetically and dramatically engineered to be as dangerous as possible by the weapons corporation, whereas the cross pollination of genetically modified plants would not usually result in a crude characteristic such as crazy red mongrel-like leaves.

The thing is, it is not fictitious to genetically modify viruses (genetically modified viruses are the vector for destruction in resident evil). As productive research into super crops continues, it is inevitable that the scientific community will find out about how to manipulate genes furthermore and thus so will fuel the other areas of genetic modification, such as biological warfare.
It is in these situations that I hope human innate goodness prevails and I sincerely hope that underground organisations such as that in resident evil do not exist. Especially the evil dogs.

Mole Rats in the Kalahari desert, Africa - BBC wildlife

2011-02-22T19:07:00.001+00:00

Sticking to mole rats, here is an informative video about the only social living mammals on Earth.

Possible Elixir For Immortality Found: Mole Rats?

2011-02-12T19:28:00.001+00:00

Mole rats are now being studied with increased interest because of their unusual long life. Although not much larger than a standard rat, they boast an average lifespan that is 10 times larger than their counterparts. They were originally admired as the one of the few mammals to live within social groups but now scientists realise that they may start the research and development for the elixir for life.
Oxidative stress is thought to play a large part of the human ageing process and scientists think that it is this that the mole rats are countering to live so long. During oxidative stress, the telomeres on the end of DNA chromosomes react with some of the products from metabolism- free radicals. These are chemicals which, for you chemists out there, have an unpaired electron in the outer shell that makes them extremely reactive. Over time, typically 70 years in humans according to Wikipedia, the telomeres shorten and disintegrate as they react with the radicals. As a result the cell cannot replicate and cell death occurs which leads to ageing. Knowing this, It doesn't take a genius to work out the theory of eternal life- lengthen these telomeres then you lengthen your life. In spite of this, mole rats have actually been found to have even shorter telomeres in their own chromosomes than in mice of the same age who only live for a mere 3 years in captivity.
Maybe it is their immunity to cancer that allows them to reach such an elderly state- yes- mole rats have never developed the tumours that cause the death of 6.7 million people worldwide each year. Suddenly Mole Rats don't look so ugly.
It is due to the sensitivity of the mole rat cells that give it anti-tumour properties, scientists think. Human cells, and indeed mice cells, all show the phenomenon of contact inhibition whereby cell replication is disabled and is caused by cell-cell contact. This means that the cells are never too dense, something that would occur if the cells became cancerous. Cancerous cells have no contact inhibition, which means that they will replicate an infinite amount of times. As a result, humans cells will shut down when they are too densely packed and the cancer is prevented. In mole rats, however, the cells are hypersensitive to being dense and are observed as inhibiting cell growth earlier than human cells (aptly named "early contact inhibition") which makes them especially resistant to a tumour. Scientists think they will be able to turn on the phenomenon on in humans if they find out the physiological mechanism behind "early contact inhibition" is a extracellular molecule. This could then be implemented into an injection. That is a big "if" ,however, and there is still a long way to go to find out the elixir for immortality.

My question is- why don't scientists just ask Legolas?

Vegetarians, Vegans and Idiots

2011-01-12T17:41:00.007+00:00

I love meat, so I've always wondered what possesses people to become vegetarians. The health benefits? The taste? The ethics?

I have been always told (and still are told) to eat my vegetables ever since I was a small child. Back then, I had been led to believe vegetables were filled with ultimate goodness and that if I didn't eat them I would surely die a terrible death and "The skin is the best part, the most nutritious, YOU MUST EAT THE SKIN", must've been said at every dinner. But are vegetables really that healthy?
Here's the science-
As is probably the most popular word in any health environment, the healthiest person is the one who has a balanced diet. This hypothesis is based on the fact that too much of any one thing may be harmful to you, as who knows what your body tolerates. We are all different and genes are a massive part of the way our bodies are made up. For example, imagine Jenny eats Food A for a lifetime. Alex eats Food A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M....etc. Now what happens if Food A is poisonous? Well Jenny surely dies as she has only eaten Food A. Alex, on the other hand, ate Food A AND all the other foods, so did not fill himself up proportionally with Food A as Jenny did. To sum it up, everyone's bodies can tolerate moderation but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I bet you didn't know you could get water poisoning...
My point is that vegetarians must take extra care to balance out their diet as they exclude a large part of the 'normal' diet when they decide to be vegetarians.

As well as this, the main problem with vegetarians is that they don't get enough protein into their diet. Within our diet, protein is most abundant in meat because it is the sole component of collagen fibres, located within muscles of animals. Therefore, the best vegetarians must obtain their dietary protein from other sources and I say best because, give or take, most vegetarians do not do it enough. If there is not enough protein within the diet i.e. 46g for women, 56g for men, muscle waste will occur whereby the protein starved body literally digests it's own muscle tissue. Kwashiorkor is an example of muscle wastage, a disease that occurs in African famine.
The best vegetarian avoids muscle wastage by eating plenty of beans such as kidney beans, almonds and soya. Soya, in particular, has always been very popular due to it's integration into replica meat, similarly to the brand Quorn. There are yet more problems with these though, however. The types of protein contained within these meat alternatives have, first of all and in the main, a lower amount of protein gram for gram than any meat. Therefore one would need to fill up one's stomach more than a meat eater to get the same amount of protein as them. Secondly, this problem is compounded as some proteins have a different biological value, which is to do with how well the body absorbs the nutrient. In the case of egg whites, the biological value is 100- the best value and the optimal selection of proteins for the body to absorb nitrogen. The biological value of the proteins found in the meat alternatives is far less than that of real meat, so one would have to eat even more meat alternative to make up for it.
Iron is an important for humans as it is found in the haemoglobin proteins that are the oxygen carriers in our erythrocytes (red blood cells) which are within the blood. It is therefore very important to eat high iron-containing foods such as red meat, poultry, lentils, beans, leaf vegetables, tofu, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, fortified bread, and fortified breakfast cereals[Wikipedia] in order to make more haemoglobin when the old erythrocytes are replaced. So what's this got to do with vegetarians if there are plenty of vegetarian iron sources? Well there are two types of iron: non-heme and heme and guess what? Yes that's right, heme is the superior in terms of it's absorption and is only found meat sources. This means vegetarians must consume more iron that those who eat meat and it is therefore not uncommon for vegetarians to develop iron defiency anaemia, where the lack of supplies of iron in the body are so low that haemoglobin cannot be formed. Meat eaters win again! P.S for the girls: During the menstrual cycle, many erythrocytes are lost in the period so it is very important for females to eat plenty of iron-containing foods.
Calories are the other big one affecting vegetarians. On average, fats contain 9 calories per gram and proteins and carbohydrates both contain 4 calories per gram. Fibre, the nutrient which makes up at least 80% of a vegetarian's diet, contains 2 calories per gram- that's 4 times less than fat and twice as less than carbs and protein. This means that vegetarians must add fats to their diet that are not present in everyday vegetables such as oliver oil or butter (and if they are vegan they are stupid). The knock-on effect of this is that vegetarians would then be increasing their risk of high cholesterol and then heart disease blah blah blah.
It's not looking great for the human rabbits of the world but in spite of all these negatives, there are in fact some very good things about being a vegetarian.
Vegetables contain little or no saturated fat and this makes vegetarians especially resistant to heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), type 2 diabetes (insulin resistance), kidney disease, osteoporosis, dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease and above all obesity. Answer me and answer me truthfully, have you ever seen an obese vegetarian?!
A true vegetable is a savoury part of the leaf, stem or root of a plant. We're talking carrots, broccoli, cabbage and cucumber- the main ones! They contain lots of:
Dietary fibre- for a healthy digestive system
Vitamins C and E- two vitamins that the body needs
These are all good things.
This may go some way to explain why vegetarians have a lower mortality rate than the most frequent meat eaters. But I believe there is something else behind the reason that vegetarians are seen to be healthy.
Those who choose to be vegetarian obviously have a degree of control over their lives (bar those buddhists who are emotionally blackmailed into it). They boast self-confidence and independence to be set apart from the norm and quite obviously have a strong self-concept of what they want and what they don't. Forgive me if I'm wrong but this is almost sounding like the ideal human. And that's it folks, a happy vegetarian is a long living one. Physical science isn't the be end and end all of why vegetarians are healthy, it's the emotional side you also have to consider. The type of people that are vegetarians are quite clearly not chavs (ever met a vegetarian chav?...)- they are successful people who for whatever reason, decide to only eat vegetables.

Educational Explosive Experiments

2011-01-06T23:26:00.000+00:00

Impossible: First you think it's just a video being played backwards...then look again...!

2011-01-06T19:44:00.000+00:00

"Human Intestines Made From Stem Cells" and the Tortilla Theory

2010-12-25T23:56:00.004+00:00

Another controversial step in stem cell technology has been made this month after stem cells were used to grow human intestinal tissue.

The tissue was made by obtained by inducing skin cells into pluripotent stem cells. This allowed them to change into the types of tissue used within the intestines such as muscle, endothelium and nerve cells. After this, the research team rolled the cells out flat and exposed them to a growth factor called Activin A, to the same effect as Agar Jelly is used in Petri Dishes. This produced a flat 'Tortilla Fajita'-like wall of gut tissue in which they rolled up and placed Microvilli tissues and muscle inside (call that BBQ sauce?). They then exposed the tortilla to more growth factors...

"Great/ Solid/Fantastic-

people with bad intestines and crohn's disease can finally get brand new compatible and unsmuggled intestines!"

But no.

The result of this massive step in stem cell research is an unrecognisable mess of bits of this and that and the other. Although most of the components for a complete intestine are present, and the cylindrical shape of the gut is made, the elements that make the organ complete are missing. At present there are no nerves and no functional muscle (it doesn't contract).

When the scientists resolve how to mesh the organoids together, testing will begin in animals. Probably not mice though because they are too small...

Research for artificial organs steams on in search of the answers.

Stay tuned for the next article!

Welcome to QuanTam Scientist

2010-12-25T16:16:00.001+00:00

Thanks for visiting the new blog- articles soon to follow.