I’m not sure if any of you are the same but I have found it difficult to know what to say when blogging. If it is before I have done the reading I obviously don’t know the topic yet and if it is after the reading my head usually hurts =P. I find it difficult to just post questions on the blog as I think better when bouncing ideas off people and often better understand the answers I get if I can hear them in person and clarify what people are saying. It is also easier to realize you don’t quite understand something when talking a topic through with someone.
This said in an attempt to make blogging something I can do more successfully I am going to do a running blog as I go thought this week’s reading writing my thoughts as I go. This means either this post could get very long or the more likely option this post will be heavy with content from the beginning of the chapter and slowly decrease as my stamina dwindles.
Machines in Membranes
Initial thoughts from intro: Oh good I have done quite a bit on this subject before but I wonder what slant this chapter will take on the topic.
The brief historical recap is quite interesting and left me wondering if I would have going into science if I have been born back in those days.
11.1.2 is good to know but at the same time I have done a lot of it before and no offence to the authors but how can they manage to make something which is interesting and rather simple in principal soooo boring. – on an side note I was most disappointed when I eventually realized many of my subjects were talking about the “squid giant axon” and not the GIANT SQUID AXON which my mind had hoped for.
11.1.3 Surprisingly the term Donnan equilibrium doesn’t pop to mind when I think about this topic and I don’t really remember it being mentioned in other subjects. From what I understand it is due to charged macromolecules trapped within cells and is a description of an equilibrium state which could be representative of non neuronal cells…? We can talk about this in the tute.
N.B. Considering the number of times chapter 11 references chapter 7 maybe it was a bad choice to skip it hehehe =P.
11.2.1 Wow just found the section talking about osmotic pressure providing plants with their rigidity really cool! I would also not have remembered to say this if I had written this blog later on. I really haven’t done much plant biology mostly animal maybe I should. Then I can create some SUPERHUMAN PLANT HYBRID harnessing the POWER of OSMOSIS . . . oops side track.
I like the phrases “equilibrium is not life; its death”, and the one I want to see in a movie “Entropic forces can kill.”
Like I predicted, despite this method creating a better blog entry it has taken me a couple hours to get only half way through the chapter. Realizing this I just read ahead without blogging every thought. The rest of the chapter is also quite cool, the way in which the body really does function as a factory on so many different levels. This is a concept I am quite familiar with from my biochemistry courses so not many things caught my attention.
With that I think I might end this post as it is taking up an A4 page in word and I imagine it will be significantly larger than that on the actually blog.
See you all on Tue. Michael.
Bonus points for the use of alliteration in the title right?
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Michael. It is helpful to know what you are thinking and it is good you are experimenting with ways to use the blog.
ReplyDeleteOn condensedconcepts I have posted my chapter "summary".
see you tomorrow..
Yep, sweet title :)
ReplyDeletegood use of blog mate. I need to try something similiar... maybe after the hols
You're lucky your name starts with an M. I think I would have a hard time coming up with an alliterative title with the first letter of my name!
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that you were left wondering whether you would have gone into science if you had been born a long time ago. If you don't mind, may I ask why you would have hesitations that you don't have now?
I had also never heard of Donnan equilibrium before reading this chapter. I think it's main purpose was to illustrate the point that if we model the system the way we would expect the system to be (at equilibrium) that it turns out we get the wrong answer - which leads to that idea that equilibrium is death for biological systems. I think, though, that you're on the right track and that it describes relationships between the concentrations of charge across a membrane at equilibrium.