CUBE Gazette: Premier Issue

1 MARCH 2015

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Editor’s note

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WHAT IS “UNDERSTANDING”, REALLY?

MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE WORD OF CAUTION FROM POSTDOC MAHUYA SINHA

CUBEIST VOICES EXPERIENCES OF CUBE STUDENTS

CUBE GAZETTE

What is understanding, really? How do you know you understand a concept? What is the feeling when you “get it”? Consider this example — in biology classes, we learned about the circulatory system, that the heart pumps blood to every nook & corner in the body. Understanding however, would entail also knowing that without the atmospheric pressure, your heart would pump the blood straight out of your body!

When done right, understanding a concept unleashes our curiosity Allows us to ask myriad of questions, fuelled by that curiosity

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If I asked you, what do you need to walk — may be your answer would be “a good pair of shoes”. Not an incorrect answer; but incomplete. Not a lot of us stop to wonder at the role of gravity in walking. When we step on the ground, we’re pushing the ground with our weight and Earth’s gravity pushes back. Without that, we could not walk! Understanding a concept then requires putting knowledge in context of a ‘big picture’. When that happens, it unleashes our curiosity, inspiring a million questions in the process. That is precisely what participants in CUBE (Collaborative Undergraduate Biology Education) do all over the country. The purpose is to put textbook Biology in the context of ‘real life’. The development of student-research projects is inspired by their curiosity and nurtured by collaborations with other CUBE groups.

Medium is the message Mahuya Sinha, a postdoctoral fellow at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, shares her experience — a word of caution for everyone at the bench:

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It was few months back, we noticed that the Drosophila had not been laying eggs for a few days. That got us very worried. After careful observation, we found that the colour of their media was looking off, a bit blackish. The person who had prepared the media told us he noticed the volume was higher after autoclaving, and the flask’s position seemed different — seems some water from outside had gotten in the flask. May be that’s the cause of the colour being off, I thought.

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So, naturally, we had to prepare a new lot of fly-media. As I was doing that, it looked very diluted to me. At first I thought I may have added more water by mistake. Turned out, the culprit was the setting on the weighing balance!

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Someone had changed the setting to “Ct”, carat. The thing to know is that 1 carat equals 0.2 gram. So I had less of everything in there, no wonder it looked diluted! Many thanks to one of the students in the lab, Imtiyaz, for pointing this out. I prepared the fly-media yet again, this time with the balance in “gram” mode.

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This is just but one of any number of things that can go wrong in media preparation. One other time, one of the students forgot to add yeast granules to the fly-media, which are vital for egg laying in Drosophila. In our lab’s record book I saw one

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All things CUBE

Postdoctoral fellow, Mahuya Sinha

Turned out, the culprit was the setting on the weighing balance ** This is just but one of any number of things that can go wrong in media preparation ** Media preparation & maintenance of model organisms are experiments in themselves **

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of the students mentioned there was problem with drosophila growth because he accidentally added more acid than the recommended amount. Next day he prepared fresh media and transfer the remaining flies and they’ve been growing happily since. Editor’s note: This is not an exhaustive list of all that can go wrong. But it does drive home a very powerful point: media preparation and maintenance of organism are experiments in themselves. THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE!

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Inviting contributions to “THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE” column.

CUBEists say…

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We asked some of CUBE students about what it’s like for them to be part of CUBE. This issue features Ritesh Chaudhary and Jaikishan Advani. Jai is at Sophia College, Mumbai, enrolled in M.Sc. Microbiology; & Ritesh is in B.Sc. IIIrd year in Microbiology at Smt Chandibai Himathmal Mansukhani College, University of Mumbai, in Ulhasnagar (suburban Mumbai). Q: How did you first hear about CUBE? JA: I was a student at VES College, Mumbai, at the time, and one of our lecturers, Dona Ma’am, introduced me to CUBE. RC: One of our faculty members in Zoology department in my college, Dr. Shashibhal Pandey, and from one of my colleagues, Varsha Singh, when we were in B.Sc. Ist year. Q: What are you currently working on? JA: When I first started, I was working on a project studying life cycle in fruit fly. We noticed that adult flies emerged from pupal case in the mornings. Thus we learned of the influence of light-dark cycle on this process, called eclosion. At one of the CUBE meets, we spoke with students from St. Xavier’s college in Mumbai, who were studying the effect of Cadmium on mitosis, using onion root tip as a model. Their observations indicated mitosis occurred in mornings too. As we were comparing notes from our respective systems, we realised how cell division is influenced by light-dark cycle. From that emerged the idea of examining the effects of altered light-dark cycle on mitosis. Could we develop that into a model for studying mechanisms behind cancer? RC: One of the projects involves tracking flowering pattern in Gulmohar & Copperpods throughout the country. All

From the top: CUBE students Ritesh Chaudhary, Jaikishan Advani; Gulmohar flowering project.

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participating CUBEists report flowering in their neighbourhoods. This project has made me more aware to notice my surroundings, to observe! Even when travelling, I find myself on the lookout for flowering in surrounding plants, to get more information about their flowering season and compare with our observations. I have also been very interested in regeneration mechanisms, which led me to pursue research using the earthworm model. Along with other CUBEists, I have been studying regeneration pattern of earthworms after amputing their segments. To assess the nerve chord regeneration, we use an assay called Rapid Escape Response(RER), which was actually developed by students in St. Xavier’s College. In collaboration with Centre for Converging Technologies in Jaipur, and VES college in Mumbai, our group presented a paper on our findings in earthworm regeneration at the Indian Academy of Neuroscience (IAN) conference in Allahabad last year. Working with fellow CUBEists on this project and putting together the presentation, while I had my exams — that was an unforgettable experience. Fortunately, our hard work paid off and we won the Best Paper Award at the IAN!

! Q: How has your experience with CUBE been so far? JA: the experience so far is amazing. I am learning how to put textbook knowledge in context of real questions, questions that we develop for CUBE projects. Our conversations with CUBEists at St. Xavier’s college, and emerging of a project idea organically from that — that was really incredible — realising this is how Science moves forward, it’s powerful! RC: I understand what it really means to develop a scientific attitude. In our lab practicals, we follow a series of pre-conceived steps to arrive at a pre-determined outcome. It feels good when you can get that working, but it’s nothing compared to now. We are setting up animal models and asking what seems relevant questions that arouse curiosity in us.

Reader’s Comments Q: Hi, I am a student of Wilson College, Mumbai. Is there an entrance test to get into CUBE? - Sanjana D. CG: Hi Sanjana, thanks for your question. There is NO ENTRANCE EXAM to join CUBE. All you need is your interest in science! Do join our mailing list (information below) to know about ongoing research projects, introduce yourself to the groups, post an update on the practicals/ projects you are doing, give & get feedback to other CUBists on their work. Note: Inviting regular contributions on matters that interest a science student, teacher, researcher or groups of them. - Editor

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To join CUBE’s mailing list, visit: http://gnowledge.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cube

Share your observations, pictures, documents and videos: http://www.metaStudio.org/cube/

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Editor: Reeteka Sud

! Many thanks to Mahuya Sinha for her article, and to Jaikishan Advani & Ritesh Chaudhary for their interviews. More CUBEist experiences to follow in future issues. Open call to all CUBE students and teachers: if you are interested to have your views featured in future issues, please let us know. WE ARE LOOKING FOR WRITERS ON ANY TOPIC PERTAINING TO UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH & EDUCATION.

! Please email the Editor: reeteka[at]gmail[dot]com to indicate your interest. We will follow up. Thank you!

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