Foreign Perspectives

We moved on to the pigments section today.

For the morning, each group chose a plant from the selection to extract and identify the various photosynthetic pigments in their plant. We chose the tobacco plant which it turned out was the most reliable one to use for the thin layer chromatography (TLC) that was being used. For the second part of that experiment we shared our extract with another group and we each went on to do a spectrophotometric analysis of a different pigment to confirm that it was what we thought it was.

Just before lunch each group picked a flower to begin the analysis of the various pigments in them. That takes a while longer, hence the pre-lunch start on dissolving the flower before looking separately at the flavones and anthrocyanidins that it contained which it turned out takes quite a long sequence of operations before you get to the point where you’re doing the TLC and even then you may need to check it out under ultraviolet light. As you might expect when a long series of operations is involved, not all of the groups got the expected results first time around.

The evening saw two lectures. The compulsory one was on photosynthesis or rather on a number of aspects that our experiments covered along with some pointers as to what we should consider including in the ECA. The optional one was on reading scientific literature and mainly looked in some details about the good and bad points of two of the pre-reading papers that they’d provided. It turns out that the one that none of us could really make head or tail of was considered pretty much rubbish which agreed with our interpretation of it too.

One notable point was that the stats on the computer marked assignment (CMA) are now in and we’ve all passed. No word on grades but it means that we “only” need to pass the ECA now to pass the course.

We were split into two large groups yesterday with one group doing experiments whilst we were looking at some aspects of stress responses in the algae.

What we were doing initially was examining the response to light of two initially identical algae, one of which was exposed to a bright light and one of which wasn’t. In principle, they should each have shown an adaptation to the different lighting conditions. As always with plant experiments though there are lots of variables that can affect the result of any experiment so some of the groups doing the main experiment found what was expected, some found aspects that were expected and others found something entirely different. Why that was so seemed to be down to some variables that we’d inadvertently introduced (taking the algae from different regions of the flask mainly) and one that couldn’t be avoided (turning off the light over the weekend). Anyway, that took most of the day working with the oxygen electrode and the light box and then plotting the results.

Towards the end we managed to fit in another experiment looking at the concentration of malondialdehyde and another group did an ascorbate assay which I think we’re doing on Tuesday.

Together those took us neatly up to 5pm when they like us to leave the lab which leaves a bit of a gap before teatime at a quarter to six.

Two evening lectures this evening. The first compulsory one was basically a run-through of a range of mini case-studies on the various pigments talked about in the preparatory reading ie chlorophyll, cartenoids and flavonoids. Quite interesting and useful background to get us a bit more fired up about this residential which the majority of people are on simply because they have to do it for the life sciences degree.

The second one was notionally optional but probably useful to a lot of people as it was on the presentation which we have to prepare on Thursday afternoon and do on Friday morning. In previous years you’d to present to an audience comprised of what was then three different residential courses. This time around we’ve only to present to those doing our own course which reduces the time required somewhat and means that the course breaks up at 1pm rather than 3pm which suits a lot of people.

Quite a good day on the whole and one which gave us a chance to use a range of tools and techniques.

Heading off at 8am got me to the Nottingham campus not too much after 11am so it was quite quiet to begin with and the numbers of students are really only starting to build up now, just after lunch.

Registration runs on ’til after 3pm with the introductory lecture in the biology building just after 4pm so I’ve hours to fiddle around. As expected, the shopping centre on campus is closed over the weekend which meant a long trek down to the little shop in the hospital this afternoon.

Surprisingly the taxi was the same price as last year (Lenton on 0115 9 781 781 do the airport pickups for £19.50, just over half the price of the airport taxis; it’s best to arrange for them to collect you at the petrol station just outside the airport parking area as otherwise they charge for the airport parking.

I’ve acquired a green dot already which presumably has some significance for the division up into groups for the lab sessions that start tomorrow but hasn’t been mentioned in anything so far today.

The introductory spiel from the admin people, learning advisor, OUSA and the course director was a joint one for both SXR375 and SXR376 kicking off just after 4pm and running on to almost 5pm. That was immediately followed by the course specific stuff in our respective laboratories. Just one lab for the course this year as there are only 29 of us but we’ve been split up into two groups to do the experiments over the next two days, which we’ll be doing in groups of three.

They seem quite keen on evening lectures although a number of them are optional, including the one on Populations and polymorphism this evening. It was quite well attended but I’m not sure that a lot was taken in as a lot of people seemed quite tired from the days travelling.

In the room is a phone (free internal calls), wired internet connection (you need a cable for this which you can get (free) in the Cripps security office; the wifi varies from poor to non-existent in the rooms), desk, tea/coffee tray with kettle, sink, wardrobe, towels (with soap & shampoos) and a single bed. The shower-room and toilet is shared  by about half a dozen rooms.

It hardly seems like two months have passed since the course materials for this arrived at the end of April.

It’s been quite a busy time although I don’t think I did anything remotely close to the 60 hours preparation that the course is supposed to take. Still, the CMA is out of the way and I may even complete the reading for the S204 plants book before I go. Also on the cards is scanning the relevant pages of the set book to save carting that along this year (not that it was opened during the summer school last year).

I’m not bringing any of the lab notes as the whole lot are on the ASUS already which combined with not bringing the set book makes for a much lighter case. I’ll probably bring along the baby computer too as the wifi is rather flaky in the university. The lab coat will get its second outing and there’s the sometimes used calculator as well. You sort-of feel that you need to bring along a notebook but in reality not much gets written in it as you’ve to write everything in the lab book. New for this year is a USB key to bring back the data from the experiments.

What’s most important to remember is that there’s a heap of handouts to be brought back. They’ll all be on the course website but not until after the final week which means mid-August this year.

Seems like less packing than last year but I’m sure that’ll change before I reach the plane.

After much debate as to the best tablet to get I finally settled on the ASUS transformer.

Why that one? Well, my first criteria was that I wanted a bigger ebook reader which eliminated all the 7″ tablets. In practice it seemed to leave the Motorola Xoom and the ASUS transformer. Ignoring the price difference (quite substantial) the Motorola has a non functional microSD slot which doesn’t strike me with confidence for the rest of it.

Anyway, the move to the ASUS went really smoothly. First up was a PDF reader which would normally be the Adobe one but it’s not really a runner if you’re reading more than the odd brochure so I’ve opted for Repligo ($5) which has all the facilities that the Adobe one should have had. In many ways, it’s the equivalent of the Sony reader software but for Android ie you can do the essentials like jumping to a page number and enlarge the font which are features generally absent from PDF readers on tablets.

Also essential is the Screen Filter (free) application which turns down the brightness to a more appropriate level. You might think that you’d want something that sets the screen brightness directly but leaving it on automatic with the filter means that it adjusts automatically for changing light conditions but with a dimmer backlight than the standard setting gives you. Not only does this bump up the battery life somewhat but it saves on eyestrain.

The ASUS comes with Polaris office which, in theory, is handy if you feel the urge to run up a document with the onscreen keyboard but would probably be a lot more useful with the optional keyboard attachment. It includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation packages, all of which seem fairly basic.

Sketchbook Express (free) combined with a capacitative pen (£5 from Maplin) is proving to be very handy in running up illustrations for the assignments. Whilst the capacitative screen is very nice when doing the finger swiping, it would be a lot more convenient to be able to use a normal stylus and certainly more accurate when drawing.

Playing videos isn’t as easy as it should be as the supplied player doesn’t currently support a whole lot. Adding Moboplayer (free) sorted out the majority of those with the rather flaky VPlayer (free) adding the final piece. Moai FLV (free) handles FLV files. Incidently, although the BBC iPlayer won’t run, you can just go to the iPlayer site and play the videos from there.

Overall, it’s a very nice tablet that does all that I was wanting it to do plus a lot more besides.