Week #1:
The end of this week marks the
beginning of a new semester and with a new semester starts new classes. One class
in particular to which I will focus throughout this blog is Developmental
Biology. This is my first “upper level class” so I am both excited and nervous.
However, I assure my interests in the material and a willingness to learn will
keep me motivated to do well. Also, I just need to get used to this called an
essay. Apparently, biologists have to demonstrate their knowledge by writing… My
aim for this class (and any class for that matter) is to learn as much as I
can. I want to do more than scratch the surface of Biology (which is what I
have done so far in my intro Bio classes) so hopefully an upper-level class can
live up to my expectations and I can make sense of it all!
So besides having class and spending
time trying to decipher a $100,000 microscope without breaking it, my week was
still an eventful one. I had the pleasure of attending a seminar by Randy
Daughters’ a UMM Biology candidate. His presentation related to cell potency of
skeletal muscle stem cells, developmental plasticity and much more. His
research was quite interesting. I looked up more about it that night. I mean, it
is really humbling to know how much you actually don’t know! I didn’t know that
“the induction of Noggin in dorsolateral explants from HGEM-Noggin transgenic
neurulae will block formation of satellite cells (Daughters & Slack).” It
makes me wonder what are the limits to what can be done and what still can be
discovered!
http://experts.umn.edu/pubDetail.asp?t=pm&id=79951534491&n=Randy+S+Daughters&u_id=578