Experimental Design

Experimental design questions. They've not mentioned them all term, but a few turned up on our sample exam paper (and a few is a significant amount when you have to write 3 essays out of only 6 titles - just read about what interests you indeed! Pfff!), and I haven't got a clue about how to answer them. I went along to Sidney today for a chat with some other people doing this module (which apparently is not being run next year - it seems we are the 1st, and last to do the making babies module), and we spoke about a few ideas for some practice questions. Unfortunately, they have all done experimental projects (in fact, I think only 2 out of the 11 people doing Mod4 did theory projects, me included), and so as a result they know loads about experimental procedures. Apparently grafting experiments cannot be done in Zebrafish as they're not robust enough - do it in chicks instead. These questions seem a little biased towards those who did experimental projects. Now I find out!

Anyway - that's what's bugging me at the moment, and is the reason I can't sleep... maybe writing it down will have helped. Goodnight!

currently listening, Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius. Ahhhh.. better.

Dev Bio Saviour.

I'm posting this for anyone who may happen to study developmental biology at any point. It will seem daunting, it will seem nigh-on impossible, with genes rushing about all over the place. I hope this post will help you. I hope it'll end up on google, like most of my pages do and will direct you to this book in your time of need. PDN dev bio, Cambridge... here you go...

Instant Notes, Developmental Biology

you may think pfff instant notes, what an undetailed waste of time. Nope. This book will clarify everything - in fact, I'm regretting ever going to lectures. Instead I should have just read this book time and time again. It's really brilliant.

Ccccold

Cambridge Has gone really cold - Freezing no less. The sky has been clear for about 6 days now, and as such all the warmth that was ever in this town, either residue from the Summer, geothermal energy from the deep crust, or warmth from the collective brain that is the PDN department has left...

Brrrr...

My Apologies

Finding time to post is surprisingly tough. Most of my time has been taken up with doing chores, eating, working or having fun with friends - whenever I come back to my room there is work pressing and so I've not posted yet. Maybe that is a little excessive - this is supposedly the "doss" third year after all.

So far, PDN has been a varied bunch. The first few lectures in "Fetal and Placental Physiology" (here after known as FPP) were amazing (if a little speedy), and the papers I've been reading have been really interesting. Making a Vertebrate (MAV), that I thought would be really good fun turned out to be a bit of a haul, as the first few lectures we've had have been a little poor to say the least, and I spent alot of yesterday translating them. I've spent alot of time in libraries so far, rooting through hard-bound copies of age-old scientific journals. I even ventured into the UL (And as everyone has to, found many books with crazy titles. "The Correspondence of Rubens, Tomes I-VI" entertained me most, though "Mammals of the Soviet Union, Vols I and II" was pretty shocking). Almost makes me feel like an arts student, but not quite.

Alex has dived headlong into a world of Biological Anthropology, and is just about picking through the mounds of species and behaviours she has to get her head round. She keeps piping out interesting facts like "female chimpanzees have pink bums", and "infanticide is selected for sexually". It's all very interesting really.

Tom Taylor is now an Engling, and as such is to be found in the Braeside reading Pope, Wordsworth or whatever else takes his fancy, occasionally piping up with some fascinating, but incomprehensible quote. He's really enjoying it though, which is fantastic.

Well, that's a quick summary - perhaps I should maybe go back an backdate some stuff... How much more convenient it is to keep this going regularly.

Tom
xxx

p.s. Today is my Dad's birthday, so if he's reading, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Rollercoaster...

This week has been an emotional rollercoaster. We have a wonderful internet system for applying for Part II (3^rd Year) subjects if you wish to go for natsci tripos subjects (Vets at Cambridge do an intercalated year so we can do whatever we want in our 3^rd year. I considered Geography, but thought that the jump to a slightly more artsy subject would probably break my brain). I applied to the PDN department (Physiology, Development and Neuroscience) to do 4 modules in “Development and Reproduction”, mostly as our Veterinary Reproductive Module we did this year was so fascinating! My second choice was pathology and my third choice genetics.

So, it was all going along nicely, and I was getting suitably excited about PDN, assuming I’d get it as I got a good 2.1 last year, but was rejected. The 2^nd choice allocations were 5 days later so I had to wait and see what I got (I swapped path and genetics though, as revising path was painful). So, I came to terms with the fact that I’d be doing genetics next year, and was quite looking forward to it. Then, on the day of 2^nd choice allocations I was told by the internet site that I had been allocated a place on PDN. I was understandably over-excited, and relieved to have got my place. However, the following day I checked my emails I was told that I had been given a substitute place on the, which had really bad modules; so I was back to genetics. Then, a few days later I was told they’d messed up my application and I infact should have had my 1^st choice. So, I am now doing PDN – so far so good :S.