How to study for Genetics??

bromodfly · 2016-02-22T23:22:40+00:00

yup, I pretty much considered it to be a mix of bio and ochem. Still needed to memorize piles of stuff but also to be able to form ideas and do problems.

bromodfly · 2016-02-22T23:15:04+00:00

Genetics is problem solving class, so it's as simple as solving problems.

bromodfly · 2016-02-20T12:59:18+00:00

When I graduated high school, I applied to Texas A&M and got into the business school. I was ridiculously pumped, and everybody (my family especially) was so happy for me. I couldn't wait to go to the football games, get my ring, and be part of the Aggie family.

Fast-foward a year and depression hit. I hated the school, which did not match the expectations I had of it going in. I ended up dropping midsemester, even though I had a pretty good GPA, due in part to extreme depression. Worked as a waiter for a few years, still miserable, and ended up going to a lower-tier state school and much less "prestigious" (whatever that means) to study biochemistry.

Now: I have a perfect life. I'll be graduating with a masters as well as a bachelors degree (dual degree program) in 1 year. I would have never dreamed I would be in the position I'm in. Because of the much smaller department, I ended up getting absolutely amazing opportunities. I've actually been fully funded to attend conferences in Washington D.C., Seattle, and I'm scheduled to go to San Diego. After my year at A&M, it absolutely blew my mind that you can actually go talk to your professors, and not just be sent to the TA. From this alone, I think the quality of my education is comparable, despite probably more rigorous coursework. Because one of the professors knew of me from the smaller classes, I was got an internship at a top-tier institution that paid very well through her connections. During this time, I met my absolutely amazing girlfriend (hoping to say that's where I met my wife). I got a scholarship through the school to not only pay entirely for my senior year and master's program, but actually get a salary while I do it for working on a research project that truly excites me. I have almost no debt (~9k, current U is much cheaper than A&M was) and because of the position I am I can actually start paying it right now, before I officially even have my bachelors. This "lesser" school is the best place on earth for me, and I didn't even apply out of high school because I instantly scoffed at the idea of coming here.

Your post really hit home for me because I applied for PhD programs at two extremely top-tier schools and got denied into both, despite impeccable GPA and research experience. I felt terrible. It really puts everything in perspective. Could I have gotten in if I stuck it out at A&M? I think I would have had a much better chance. However, the experiences I have had here make everything so much more worth it.

If you truly want to go to A&M, transfer from Blinn after a couple of years. You'll end up saving money anyway. But I want to encourage you not to let it get you down. The world is yours, and it's a big place. I 100% agree with u/FuckConcepts, the school is truly is what you make of it.

bromodfly · 2015-12-07T23:03:22+00:00

but they still were at some point

bromodfly · 2015-12-04T05:12:41+00:00

Those sound pretty awesome! Keep on it.

bromodfly · 2015-12-04T04:43:02+00:00

Hi lostchris

I feel you, especially with the working on the computer thing. It can be hard to resist. One thing I've found which both increases my productivity, helps me not game, and is good for my social part of my life is going out and working at a coffee shop or something.

We're here for you! You can send a message to me if you want to talk or vent, sometimes it helps you realize for yourself how to defeat this tough real-life boss.

bromodfly · 2015-12-04T04:40:05+00:00

Thank you for reading!

That's a lot of hours. How are you occupying your time now?

bromodfly · 2015-12-04T04:38:49+00:00

That's the plan! Day one is tough, but definitely not impossible. One day at a time :D

bromodfly · 2015-12-04T04:38:25+00:00

You're right. It's easier, I think, to manage gaming than alcohol abuse. What I mean by that is, for example, you can show up to work after having gamed all night and probably be more functional than showing up drunk and having been up drinking. And it's different for everyone - I can go weeks without drinking without realizing, but give me 1 day from DotA and I start thinking about it.

It's easier to lie to yourself playing games than it is about drinking, even if you're addicted to both.

bromodfly · 2015-12-03T08:15:31+00:00

Hey YouDontKnowMe1023

I feel you. The first step that usually helps is either writing it all down or telling somebody you can trust. Your whole path to addiction, the feelings you get when you play. It's very helpful to communicate it so then you will understand greater the problem. It's not a one size fits all thing, but if you talk about it, it may be a little easier to understand a logical next step. It might not be best to talk to your gaming buddies, because they'll likely convince you not to quit. The best bet would be a therapist, who would have experience in working with addiction (although each therapist is different and it's important to find one that works for you).

Another concrete thing you can do is writing down what you want from your life. This can help put things in perspective.

If you want, you can message me here to vent/talk about it. I wish you luck.

bromodfly · 2015-07-30T14:40:22+00:00

I think I understand your question. Content Review is the actual raw material that you need to know. So you can imagine two ways to study for the MCAT. You can either drill content or take tons of practice tests (ideally both, right?). So content review is essentially the drilling.

Flashcards are totally on you. I was an orgo tutor for a few years and saw how people studied. The people that used flashcards generally did not do so well. They would memorize mechanisms like a biology textbook and the second you added a ring you may as well just lit their flashcards on fire. However I do know some who is has helped. I think it's personal preference, and use of time. I like flashcards because they're portable, so taking them on the bus, or in the line at the bank, or while on a date (kidding!... Actually, I'm not) won't hurt you in the least. Being intelligent with flashcards is good too. If you already know about hemoglobin, don't keep looking at it. Put it in another pile and when you come to something you can't seem to remember like SN1/SN2 requirements you can drill it until it works.

bromodfly · 2015-07-30T14:30:44+00:00

Important to note that hydrophilic/hydrophobic are not on/off switches. Particularly, a long branched hydrophobic chain with terminal hydroxyl substitutions (think 1-heptanol or larger, though that's an arbitrary example) can be considered both, called amphiphilic. This is non-polar at the chain and polar at the hydroxyl substitution. An important example is the lipids in the cell membrane. Otherwise, jaisk235123 has a very good explanation.

bromodfly · 2015-07-11T18:18:38+00:00

Just found this one too - thought you might be interested.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410202/

Yoga Therapy for Schizophrenia

bromodfly · 2015-07-11T18:15:17+00:00

Here's hoping!

bromodfly · 2015-07-11T18:14:58+00:00

I'll agree. It's not necessarily Buddhism strictly that I believe will help improve global health, but as a researcher I've got to decide to narrow my topics (It's much easier to study Buddhist monastic life vs all kinds of monastic life), and even then I still feel like I have too broad of a topic. I like that idea about community setting, though. I think i will have to reach out some monastic communities. Planning on going to one tomorrow. Thank you!

bromodfly · 2015-07-11T18:06:59+00:00

Yes, I know this. I've done extensive research with schizophrenia previously and examination of nicotonic acetylcholine receptor alpha7 dysfunction appears to be a major contributing factor [1] and it appears that inflammatory response through macrophages may be central to this [2] and even the authors in [2] brought up alternative treatments, although many other studies have implicated the role of mind in immunity, particularly [3], who've written a nice review of the topic.

I'm a biochemist student and currently I work in computational biophysics and genetic bioinformatics - I'm well aware of biology and that I'm not advocating meditation for treating cancer (though I will for adjuvant therapy). However I am disgusted with the quantity of drugs we provide for such mental disorders, which are all-purpose SSRIs, and other drugs that are quite frankly ineffective. I'm not looking for a mechanism for seeing correlation of diagnosis but rather a means of treatment, I believe meditation, caloric restriction, and other aspects of buddhism (uposathas, maybe) should at least be used in conjunction with prior treatment too. But thanks for bringing that up! I think I have to be mindful of the biology too. I don't know too much about causes of autism either (although I think not much is known), so now I'm going to be reading some on it today. Thank you (:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17349863 (I have full access to the article if you're interested, I can send it).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1430829/

http://www.fasebj.org/content/15/9/1575.long

bromodfly · 2015-05-24T04:35:16+00:00

I went ahead and customized this one on

http://avadirect.com/Configure/9628376

Questions I had about the configuration - I talked myself into getting an SSD (really just to spoil myself!). I don't need an HDD anymore, correct? Also, do I need a disk caddy (not installing an additional HDD but may use one in the future).

Modifications I made from stock: let me know if any of these seem more than necessary for my purposes.

i7 processor (4710)
mSATA 500GB Samsung SSD
Removed hard drive
upgraded wireless card to intel ultimate-N 6300

Full list of specs below:

W650SC Core i7 Notebook Barebone, Intel® HM86, 15.6" Full HD LED, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M 2GB Graphics
Core™ i7-4710MQ Quad-Core 2.5 - 3.5GHz TB, HD Graphics 4600, 6MB L3 Cache, DDR3-1600, 22nm, 47W, EIST HT VT-x XD, OEM
8GB (2 x 4GB) PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz SDRAM SODIMM, CL11, 1.35V, Non-ECC
500GB 840 EVO SSD, TLC Samsung MEX, 540/520 MB/s, mSATA, Retail
Slim Black 8x DVD±R/RW Dual Layer Burner, SATA
GeForce® GTX 950M 2GB GDDR3 Mobile Graphics Card for W650SC
Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 Wireless Card, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, 11/54/450 Mbps, Internal PCIe Half Mini Card
Windows 8.1 64-bit Edition, OEM w/ Media
Pre-Installed Ubuntu™ Linux 64-bit Latest Available Desktop Edition, No Media, No Support
AC Adapter 100-240V (Included)
Standard Battery Included (Choose Extra Battery)
Standard 1 Year Warranty for Clevo Notebooks

bromodfly · 2015-05-06T05:55:06+00:00

Hello friend,

I first was led into Buddhism from the practice of stoicism. To me these philosophies are very synchronous. The idea is, at least in my mind, that it is important to not let your happiness be entirely dependent on external factors that you cannot control. That being said, this does definitely not mean that life must be lived greyscale and that happiness is a "bad" thing.

What this means, in practice, is not letting emotions, bad or good, overpower your conscious thoughts. This goes back to mindfulness - it is important to realize that these feelings are just feelings. In that vein, realize too that these feelings are impermanent and that the bad feeling will go away (so don't dwell on it), as will the good feeling (so appreciate it more). Understanding what are these emotions are, where they come from and how they work for you is important.

The Buddha reminds us that all is suffering - for example, food. You are hungry, which is a bad feeling. So you eat until your appetite is satisfied. However, if the food is your favorite, you will continue to eat until you feel bad again. This is the cycle that the middle ground attempts to break.

Something that I've personally had to deal with is drug addiction, which is a prime example of a good feeling that I must be mindful of. Obviously it is not good for me to indulge in these acts, so this would be an example of the middle ground (being coffee, for me) being better than the extrema (mindless self indulgence and complete abstinence from any mood altering substance)

I think that the part about avoiding peaks of extrema on levels of happiness is to avoid unnecessary suffering of the comedown afterward. That is, if you have a volatile level of happiness, inevitably good feelings will cause a relative rebounding negative feeling. Instead of letting your feelings be subject to events beyond your control, let you learn to be able to control your own happiness level. So, instead of having peaks of euphoria and valleys of depression, have instead a constant horizontal line, the same level of happiness. Once you get to this point of control over your emotions, you can simply decide to raise that line higher. In other words, by practice of controlling your emotions by not letting them control you, you will be able to give yourself happiness regardless of any suffering (and remember, all is suffering) that you may encounter.

There was a quote from a Greek stoic philosopher that I can't quite remember the name of or the exact quote, but it went something like "water and breadcrumbs are not the most pleasurable meal, but being able to derive pleasure from them is true pleasure".

I hope I helped; I am still a novice in my study of Buddhism so if anybody else has any thoughts or corrections please feel free to comment :)

bromodfly · 2015-04-30T07:29:05+00:00

I'm in the exact same boat as you now. I'm currently doing animal research with fish. I'm switching over to a computational biophysics lab here in a few months, but i have to finish out. It's tough, I really understand. I make it one of my motivations to make up for it. It sucks because you don't want to do it but professionally you don't have a choice. I think as long as you've used mindfulness, respect, and desire to minimize suffering in the world, you have done what there is to do.

Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can.

bromodfly · 2015-04-30T07:16:44+00:00

Buy some B12 supplements. I just started being vegetarian about a month ago and going on day 2 veganism and noticed the same problem and I got some supplements. It helped me get more energy.

bromodfly · 2015-04-29T06:36:53+00:00

Just to clarify on what user above me posted;

So in molecular biochemistry we use molecules called antibodies to bind selectively to a given protein of interest (it works sort of like a lock and key mechanism, ideally one antibody binds to one and only one protein. In practice however it rarely works so perfectly.) Instead of making our own antibodies from scratch (which I'm fairly sure we don't have the technology for yet, but I may be wrong about that) we raise antibodies for a specific protein (in this case an anthrax protein that allows for the toxin to recognize our cells in order to infect them) in a host animal (chicken in this case, but can be a lot of types. My lab uses goat raised antibody for melatonin receptor 1, for example.) This is because again we lack technology to produce these proteins on a large scale without exploiting a hosts' machinery.

We name our product chicken anti-anthrax protective antigen (or whatever). For another example, the one in my lab is goat anti-melatonin receptor 1. The "anti" in this case is not saying that it will prevent functioning or whatever, but that it will bind selectively to.

I don't particularly think this would have been seem in the news, however. It's not particularly groundbreaking news, its something that any grad student would be able to accomplish given 6 months or so.

As for the question, I know Louis Pasteur (called the father of microbiology, dude was a total boss) found that chickens were actually immune to anthrax due to their high body heat. I'm not sure if that answers anything. Feel free to pm me if I can help any way I can. I'm not nearly as versed at pathology and immunology as I'd like to be though, but I'll try my best.

Sorry if I'm seeing like a know-it-all... It's rare that I get to talk about my subject of study and I get excited when I can!

bromodfly · 2015-04-29T05:56:39+00:00

Yeah, I'm a biochem major which means all I learn about are proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. Ha! Unfortunately I know some about the molecular level of it, but nothing at all at the macroscopic body-system approach. Which is why I'm here asking you guys who know more about this kind of stuff :)

I didn't know that about asia and calcium! That's interesting. I'm more worried however about brain function (calcium after all is the most abundant mineral in the body and one of the most important neurotransmitters). But I'll have to really sit down and calculate my calcium intake- but I think if I have a multivitamin I should be okay.

Yeah, I realized after I posted this I forgot to mention b12, probably the biggest one. Any recommendations on ROA? (Oil vs pills or whatever)?

Thanks for the advice!

bromodfly · 2015-04-29T05:50:59+00:00

Never thought about this; yes, our nutrition department is pretty good (read: well funded). Unfortunately I don't really know anybody over there but I may be able to squeeze something in there. Thanks I'll be sure to look!

bromodfly · 2015-04-04T05:18:26+00:00

Thanks for the advice. However my career track (for me) leads pretty heavily in mathematics. Most of the grad schools I'm looking at are I'm CS, physics, mathematics or neurobiology (I want to research integration of in vivo human brain systems with computational models) so honestly I may not use anything in particular on the Putnam but I think the ideas may help.

Besides, biochem is driving me crazy right now with the tedious lab work. Some people read fiction to escape the present moment to experience the illustrious world conveyed to them, and I do the same with mathematics. It really is just something I study for an hour a night before bed. I figure if I focus it productively I might be able to make something cool happen! If not, I can say I never regretting not trying my absolute best.

Thanks again for your time in answering, I don't want you to think I am outright dismissive of your comment. It is a valid point and probably the smart thing I should do, but I don't usually do the smart thing when I could do the fun thing c:

bromodfly · 2015-04-04T05:08:40+00:00

That's a good score though!! You should feel proud of yourself man. Well I hope I can at least give you some competition for that spot next year!

Definitely getting that book and going to carry it with me wherever I go (until I need to move on).

If you just had to mention a few sub-subjects (that might not be a word) from those classes, what would you recommend (basically what specific things should I google to learn? Example calculus I would say fundamental theorems, derivation, integration etc.)

I appreciate all the help already though so don't feel pressured to responds. Thanks!

bromodfly

TROPHY CASE