Tuesday, 7th October 2014, 8th Microbiology Class "I don't remember what I'm feeling that day, but I'm sure it's a positive feeling"

 Class started a bit late. 15 minutes late if I am not mistaken. Dr Wan was late by 15 minutes. Hehe. It's okay though, not that I mind x'D In addition to it, Dr Wan was late. Yes. But she arrived late while carrying a plastic bag. That sprang to mind at that moment that last friday, on our previous class before we go back for Eid al-Adha, she promised to bring 'Rendang' for us. I didn't know she actually meant it. Hehehe. But she told us afterwards that she was late because she was cooking "rendang" for us but at the last minute, she remembered that some of our class members are allergic to chicken, so she cooked fried rice for the said students. That's so... Sweet and thoughtful of Dr Wan x'D

And classes soon after, on the last section of Topic 3 which covered on Inclusions.

Since today's lesson was a bit short, I shall do the "What I learned today" or "New Things That I Learned Today". Hehe.

New Things That I Learned Today

• Although it is well known that prokaryotes have metachromatic granules, Dr Wan told us that eukaryotes also have metachromatic granules, which is used as food storage.

• Other than as an energy reserve and having for nutrient, sulphur granules is also used to form spore.

• (This is not something that I just knew, but I wanted to put this in the journal too, because I am reminded about it again x'D so it's important too)

• The other name or term used for "carbon fixation" is Kelvin cycle or Kelvin-Benson cycle (Thanks to Dr Wan for reminding us!!)

• Dr Wan asked us what is "microbial nutrition" (what they eat to survive?)

1. Source of carbon
2. Source of energy

• For microbial that uses carbon dioxide and light, it is called "phototrophic microbe" or "photosynthetic".
• While other microbial that use other kinds of chemical (other than dioxide and light), it is called "heterotrophs".

• The function of magnetosomes is to passively align along the Earth's magnetic field lines to direct themselves to the side where there is oxygen.

• Microbes that requires oxygen to survive is called "microaerophile".

• Magnetosomes can be in chain form, diamond or bullet. ONLY ONE or TWO chain!
• Other function of magnetosome is to protect the cell against hydrogen peroxide accumulation.

• Why do the cell want to prevent from hydrogen peroxide? (Chew, one of my classmate asked that to Dr Wan, and Dr Wan asked us back. Haha. But of course we remained silent. Hehe.)

• Some fact about hydrogen peroxide that was mentioned by Dr Wan that day.

1. Hydrogen peroxide contained in hair dye.
2. Aerobic organism are able to neutralise the toxicity of H
   2O
   2 because they have the enzyme that help degrade H
   2O
   2.
3. On the other hand, bacteria have magnetosome to protect themselves. While bacteria that don't have magnetosomes, have enzyme peroxidase instead.

• When bacteria face a harsh environmental condition, it will trigger the formation of endospores.  (vegetative cell -----> endospore)
• When bacteria face a favourable condition, it will germinate again into vegetative cell.

• When endospore is stained with malachite green (the only stain that can detect endospore), positive result will stained green, while negative result will stained red or pink or white.

• Desiccation = extreme dryness

• Bacteria that can live in extreme dryness is called "xerophilic".

• "Dipicolinic acid" is an acid that prevent from desiccation in bacteria.

• Chew asked Dr Wan if endospore can be destroyed? Dr Wan said that certain radiation can kill it, but only radiation, no chemical can destroy it yet.

That's all for today. This is all what I can tell for today's (Monday class) journal. This is solely what Dr Wan said during class. Haha. Maybe there are some of them I have missed or didn't jot it down. Or maybe I have heard it wrongly... I hope not O_O And I didn't do any further Google-ing because the internet connection is very poor nowadays, here,at college. Hmm I don't think I can even consider it as "poor" but I couldn't even connect to the internet at all x'D We're having a bit of a problem here with the internet connection, I guess. So, there's not much information that I can share.. 

In between class, we stopped for a break. We ate the rendang and fried rice that Dr Wan brought!! It was delicious!! :D :D While on break, she asked us to "submit" what microbe that we have decided to adopt :D So... after searching and also discussing with my older sister (since she studied Medicine before, she studied Microbiology too) and she suggested some microbes but at last I picked Shigella dysenteriae after further research about some of the microbes.

I even considered diatom and volvox, like I said before (wayyy earlier, in my first or second post, maybe? x'D) but Shigella dysentriae won my heart. Keke.

And Dr Wan also introduced us to a new website, "Socrates" for us to answer some questions. It's a "pretty" website!  It's a good method to... attract our interest to answer the questions. Hehe. I'm telling this from my point of view as a student! :D

Oh and also! We can check daily news or updates about microbes on this website 

www.sciencedaily.com

Adieu!

:D