UoM General Chat

[REBORN]

It's not hard as so much it is so boring. How can you love proteins. Just. how.

[hobbitle]

Are you talking about BCMB20002? I'm so pumped for that subject!

[LeviLamp]

Yes, BCMB20002. The Biomed kids are obviously talking about something different.
I don't actually dislike Biochem, I think it was more the prospect of sitting through a slightly-too-fast lecture on 20 amino acids on 3 hrs of sleep and on a day I forgot my notebook (it's hard to type molecules out) that made me miserable, especially after looking at the past exams.
On a positive note, CEDB20003 and ZOOL20004 are really great :3

[mark_alec]

Friends I have a question.
I need to supply a referee for my UROP application, presumably an academic from my science course not my previous arts course.
I didn't actually 'get to know' any of my lecturers or tutors on any sort of level where they would even know my name, so I'm not sure what to do about this?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Kind of random to ask for a reference from someone who literally only knows what grade I got for the subject of theirs that I took last year.

I used one of my high-school teachers as a referee.

[ChickenCh0wM1en]

Biochemistry amino acid lecture is NOT fascinating, I gave up on notes 5 minutes in. Hello, textbook.

sif anyone can find memorising the 20 amino acids amazingggggggggggggg >_>

[lzxnl]

Hey I somehow managed to memorise their structures while on the train somehow. Pair the amino acids together if possible as some have very similar structures. Asparagine is an amide with the same side chain length as aspartatic acid. Same for glutamine and glutamic acid. Then, aspartine has one less carbon in its R group than glutamine. That's four amino acids done.

Cysteine has a terminal SH group. Methionine is cysteine except the S is bonded to a CH3 not H. That's another 2

Phenylalanine is alanine plus a phenyl group or a benzene ring. Alanine is glycine plus methyl group. That's another 3.

Serine is just a CH2OH group, nothing scary. Threonine has an extra methyl group on the carbon attached to the hydroxyl group. Proline has a ring. Tyrosine is like serine except with a benzene ring between the CH2 and the OH. Another 4 down. We've already done 13.

Tryptophan is crazy unfortunately. You'll have to find a way to remember that ):
But it is sort of similar to histidine

Lysine is just 4 carbons then an amine group

Valine is an isopropyl group. Leucine has an extra carbon in the side group. Isoleucine branches out on carbon 2 not 3. 19 down?

Argimine is the last one. 3 carbons, then a weird group with a carbon bonded to three nitrogens

That's sort of how I remember them

[LeviLamp]

lzxnl are you my lecturer but secretly not it's like I'm hearing 50 minutes of my life again

[vox nihili]

There are just so many pointless details to remember. Remembering the structures of the amino acids doesn't point to who the better students are, just who has a better memory. Not a very good way to get creative people into your field!

[lzxnl]

lzxnl are you my lecturer but secretly not it's like I'm hearing 50 minutes of my life again

Well I'm sorry but you seemed to not like remembering these things and I was only trying to make it easier.

There are just so many pointless details to remember. Remembering the structures of the amino acids doesn't point to who the better students are, just who has a better memory. Not a very good way to get creative people into your field!

Agreed. Remembering these IS pointless. I've heard though that you have to remember the acidity constants for each amino acid dissociation for biochem too...I'm hoping that's not the case. So much ROTE learning...

[REBORN]

Biomed students are talking about BIOM20001, Molecular and Cellular Biomedicine (MCB) which covers the Biochemistry pre-requisite.

[M-D]

Just a quick question of those of you doing GENE20001 (Principles of Genetics), can you guys access the Echo Lecture Recording because i have been trying since Monday and i just can't get it to work.

[Belgarion]

Just a quick question of those of you doing GENE20001 (Principles of Genetics), can you guys access the Echo Lecture Recording because i have been trying since Monday and i just can't get it to work.

Is working fine for me.

[simpak]

Friends I have a question.
I need to supply a referee for my UROP application, presumably an academic from my science course not my previous arts course.
I didn't actually 'get to know' any of my lecturers or tutors on any sort of level where they would even know my name, so I'm not sure what to do about this?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Kind of random to ask for a reference from someone who literally only knows what grade I got for the subject of theirs that I took last year.

You could do what mark_alec suggested but i feel like maybe it's been a little too long since you went to high school for you to do that?
When I went on exchange I used D Gleeson as a referee but she didn't know me at all, but she gave me that first year biology H1 letter thing so I was like w/e at least she knows I have good grades in her field.
For UROP I used a second year teacher as a referee that had met me a few times and that had notified me of awards I got in the subjects she taught so again, same kind of reasoning.

If you got any H1 related letters in your first year subject you could use one of those lecturers.  Or you could wait a couple more weeks before submitting (I think you have until end of March, no?) and see if you can get to know an academic in one of your current courses better/ask them to be your UROP reference.  Not sure exactly what subjects you're taking atm but if you even just go up to one after class and explain you're interested in UROP but you need a relevant reference to help you out and 'SHOW UR PASSION' for research they should be happy to be your reference.  Especially because they don't actually have to provide anything in writing they just have to be contactable which they usually don't mind as much.  I know it feels awkward but you have to start somewhere!

Alternatively you can do both of the things I listed above and have more than one reference!  Or you can do none of those things.

[simpak]

I'm double posting don't shoot me.  Re: biochem you need to know ROUGH pH and acidity constant information.  The way lzxnl described remembering the structures is a good way to go about it especially since they might ask you a 'decide what amino acid you should substitute in to see if this AA is crucial for function' or something and you have to know that you need to substitute something similar size with different properties so you keep more variables constant.

But, the way I remembered is simple.  Write them out 50000 times to the following within the timing of the song make sure you can write each of them out in full once!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOrnUquxtwA

And oh yeah I wouldn't recommend relating histidine and tryp when you're trying to remember because it's easy to get properties about where the ring members and double bond positions confused.  They're similar but nonidentical and I felt it was easier to treat them completely sep. to avoid making more mistakes.

[Inside Out]

TO ALL ENGINEERING MECHANICS STUDENTS WHO'S THE BETTER LECTURER DAVID OR JOE? I CAN'T TELL