S366: Evolution - first steps.

Well two things have happened since the original S366 materials arrived.

I've started working through the course, which involves quite a lot of cladograms and phylogenies. Making by hand, by computer and so on.

I find the course difficult to get to grips with in some ways, but this is mostly the way it is constructed. There is the very solid book Evolution by Futuyma, at 540 odd pages, but then there is the commentary on it written by the course team at over 300 pages that directs you which pages to read. So its read 2 pages of the course guide, which tells you to read 4 pages of Futuyma, and then run a program to generate a cladogram, or maybe watch a DVD.

I like to get stuck into the reading and absorb stuff, but the chopping and changing of books I find a bit disruptive. I mean they are big and heavy enough you can't just balance them somewhere while you flip to a page in the other. So I'm running a 3 bookmark system - one the place in the course guide where I'm at, another in Futuyma and another at the back of the course guide where the answers to the inline questions are.

The second was the exciting arrival of the practical kit. This comprises of a lot of fossils casts and some vernier callipers to allow you to measure them.

That at least looks fun. Though I suspect when it comes down to it, there will be a fair bit of tedious work involved.

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S377: Book 1 - From Molecules to Cells

Book 1, being the first book therein, is, as indeed is conventional, is the first book in the course. So its where you start into this course. At just over 300 pages its a reasonably large book - but one of four that make up this course. So - plunging in what do we find inside.

Chapter 1, Evolution of the cell, is really a sort of introduction, but describes the probable evolution of the biological cell. It's a nice short chapter with plenty of familiar terminology and concepts - so is a reasonable introduction into things.

Chapter 2, The foundations of life, is a tad more involved. It considers a lot of chemistry that makes up the cell, including the chemistry of water, biological carbon compounds and ions. There is a fair bit on different types of bonding, chemical equilibria, stereochemistry, pH and pK factors, and the interaction between molecules. There is also a section on molecular modelling and getting you to use the 3-d programs that display molecules to become familiar with it and its abilities. So quite a lot of chemistry in this chapter, which would be a lot of new things to contend with if I hadn't done the S205 course.

Chapter 3, Proteins, goes into a lot of detail about proteins. It looks at electrical interactions of the side chains of amino acids, protein domains and families. There is more on molecular modelling 3-d program too and its ability to show the tertiary and quaternary structures of proteins - as well as the atoms.

Chapter 4, Thermodynamics and Bioenergetics, looks in detail at some of the thermodynamic principles as to whether reactions will proceed or not. This culminates in discussions of Gibbs free energy and entropy/enthalpy, which is second nature after S205 - although the application to biological molecules is a little more complex.

Chapter 5, Nucleic acids and chromatin, considers the key genetic molecules and spends some time looking at their structures. DNA can be found in its traditional double helix, but also in two other forms. It also looks at other forms of the nucleic acids and how their packaging in increasingly complex structures which reduce potential damage. Again some chemistry comes into this as it looks at energetically favourable states.

Chapter 6, Membranes, looks at the structure of membranes and the various components they can be made of. It considers the different types of fatty acids and what they bring to membrane structure. It also looks at the proteins that attach to membranes in their various forms.

Also at points in this book you are directed to read some scientific papers, including the original Watson and Crick DNA paper, and their follow up which gives detail of the proposed structure.

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S366: Evolution - arrival

Well guess what arrived just now! I checked the site only yesterday, and it said it wasn't scheduled to start being delivered until next month, but here it is - and a heavy box full it is too!

So - what do you get in this box?

• Text book - Evolution by Futuyma - which accounts for most of the weight!
• A companion book to the text book
• A bookmark with some handy diagrams on
• An introduction and guide to the course
• A practical booklet
• A TMA form - hoping these are eTMAs.
• A DVD pack
• Checklist and Welcome note

Its quite a tome is old Futuyma, I don't know how much of it we'll have to read!

Anyway - something to do over the holidays, as if Christmas, kids parties and stuff weren't enough.

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S377: Molecular and Cell Biology - Arrival

The next course arrives - it doesn't start until February, but I'm doing two courses together, so I'm glad of the head start. This is only the first of two mailings, but has some good stuff in it.

What you get is:

• Book 1 - From molecule to cell
• Book 2 - The Dynamic Cell (Vol 1)
• A Bookmark with some useful data about amino acids on
• A ring binder
• A ring binder insert with pretty picture and title
• A set of folder dividers
• A glossary
• An introduction and guide
• A study skills pack for books 1 and 2
• A DVD containing molecular modelling programs, movies and other bits

Notable by their absence is a calendar, TMAs and the normal OU computer disk.

All looks nice and shiny, and I'm ready to go having not had any assignments to do for the last month or so. However as the course site doesn't open for a while yet, there are no assignments to contemplate, just books to read and exercises to do.

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S283: The Exam

It has to be done - another exam. Why do we go through this I wonder?
Well I'll tell you - well actually, I'll tell you why I think its good to do an exam.

• This is where the course really comes together. There is no avoiding it, you have to confront your weaknesses. You can't go back to the books in the exam and reread a subject and go "Oh yes, I must have skipped that the first time around". I find a lot of things become clearer when you have to be prepared to answer questions on it.
  
• You feel validated. I have this nagging feeling that others may be able to do the course, just by reading from the books and repeating stuff without understanding it. I expect this is not true, but if so - well you can't do that in exams. So though its stressful, you feel having done it you understand the subject.
• For those few weeks of revision - you are a real expert on the material. Sadly it fades sooner or later after the exam, but for a while, should someone make the mistake of asking you a simple question on the topic, they'll find themselves pinned to the wall for an hour or more as you hold forth.

What I don't like about exams is:

• Memory stuff. In this exam for instance, you really need to know the distance of the planets in AU for the exam. That's just wrote memory test, not much more.
• That feeling when you open the paper, read a question, and realise you don't know anything about this.
• All that revision

Anyway - this exam consists of
Part A - 8 multiple choice questions

• Q1 is about Venus, how far is it from the sun and whats in it atmosphere
• Q2 is about the structure of planetary bodies
• Q3 is about the structure of an unidentified planet.
• Q4 is about the orbit of an asteroid, and needs some of Keplers laws.
• Q5 is about the requirements for life.
• Q6 is about Titan and its environment
• Q7 is about Doppler spectroscopy for detecting exoplanets.
• Q8 is a graph you have to identify.

Part B - About the solar system and stuff - answer 3 questions from 4.

• Q9 gets you to normalise rock samples based on mineral components and plot a graph.
• Q10 is more an essay question about how planets form, where you have to write some of the steps in their formation.
• Q11 is about some craters on Mars, and how they form. Again you have to describe mechanisms.
• Q12 is about meteorites and their inclusions.
  

Part C - Astrobiology and the search for life - again 3 from 4.

• Q13 is about evolution, the requirements for life and Panspermia.
• Q14 looks at Europa and gets you to label images and say what is going on in resurfacing terms.
• Q15 is about habitable zones around stars, and is maths based, which you then have to comment on.
• Q16 is exoplanet detection using doppler and astrometry. Then follows this up by exploring what else you might find out.

I've had worse exams, I've also had better ones. I think I passed, but possibly not as well as I might have hoped. Oh well, nothing I can do now.

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S283: TMA-4

The last TMA. I need a big score to up my OCAS average on this one. Alas not to be, despite spending far too long on it, repeatedly reworking it. I'm just not putting what is in the marking template apparently.

Question 1 is about evidence for water flow on Mars. You have to download a paper discussing recent evidence for water flow on Mars and compare the paper with details in the book.

Question 2 concerns rainfall on Titan, and the atmospheric structure there.

Question 3 concerns the Drake equation, and asks you to calculate civilisations based on some given numbers.

Question 4 is about extra solar planet detection using the Doppler method. It also includes details about transit detection, what its probably density is in comparison to Jupiter, and so what sort of planet it is. Also how it might have got there through migration.

Question 5 is all about suitability for life based on IR and light spectrum. Discussing possible spectra and what they might tell you, and what you would hope to see in some cases. Also reasons the planet might be habitable but still nto show up on the spectrum results.

Last TMA, not the mark I was hoping for, and in general the marks for this course have been hard to get compared to all the other courses I have done with the OU. I still got reasonable scores, but found it very difficult to get a good score on a TMA, as it seems very picky about minutia of detail. If you answer is right, but not what is wanted, you score less than otherwise.

Anyway - now just the exam.

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