BIOL398-01/S11:Class Journal Week 8

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The easiest part was understanding general concepts in Chapter 4 and answering the questions based on what the book said. I really appreciated the author's tone, personal connections, and easy to understand explanations.
I am least confident with my second to last answer.
I am struggling with the significance of saying an expression level has changed over time. It's not a matter of understanding that red/green indicate changes, but rather that those changes relate to other influences.
I would like to understand more about the uses of microarrays and how the results can factor into a larger experiment. I think this would help me connect all the dots in my head from class and the reading.

Sarah Carratt 00:03, 17 March 2011 (EDT)

The easiest part of the assignment was trying to follow th math behind the math corner and the description of ratios and comparing the similarities.
The most challenging part of the assignment was reading it and answering the questions because I had to continuously stop and try to figure out what exactly it was talking about or look up terms I didn't know.
I'm still wrapping my mind arround the idea of microarrays. At the moment I'm very confused with the coloring because I felt like they were talking about different things being represented by green and red. So I;m trying to figure out the relationship between one thing and the next and how that would indicate what color it got assigned.
I would like to know more things that would help me understand how the coloring works. I would like a clearer explanation between the relationship of genes and their functions in the cell and how they are presented in the microarray. Everything seems kind of fuzzy at the moment.

--Carmen E. Castaneda 03:04, 17 March 2011 (EDT)

Interpreting the Microarray data came most easily to me.
Coming up with good controls for the last questions was the most difficult part for me.
I still don't entirely understand the effects on a microaray from deleting genes.
I'd like to know more about the manufacturing process for microarrays.

James C. Clements 00:58, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

The easiest thing that came to me during this assignment was reading through the paper and the graphs to find the answers to the questions.
The thing that came hardest to me was making sense of the paper as I read through it.
One thing that still confuses me is when the microarray dots are green and when they are red, I have to read back through the explanation every time to figure it out.
One aspect of microarrays that I would like to know more about is some other applications that they can be used for. I understand that they can be used to map out a genome, but I want to know if there are other uses.

Nicholas A. Rohacz 02:34, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

The aspect that came most easily to me was reading through the paper. It was not a boring chapter at all, so it was an enjoyable read. Also, there were some questions that came easy to me.
The most challenging were questions 1 and 2. Those took me awhile to think about and I am still not sure if I interpreted the graphs correctly.
What I do not understand is how to make the graphs that show the transcription over time.
Microarrays are really interesting and I believe that anything else I learn will be cool. I would like to know how the first people were able to deduce that this was an acceptable method and why they chose the color scheme. Also I am interested in learning the methodology of the microarray system and how long it took them to come up with this system.

Alondra Vega 23:22, 16 March 2011 (EDT)