Okay, so the most adorable gene name ever is "Tinman", which is involved in heart development in chordate embryos. Why "Tinman"? Because in the Wizard of Oz, the Tinman wished he had a heart. D'awwwww~.

And did you know that you can fit a 4-year-old kid in a whale's aorta? That's hilarious.

I dissected my first cadaver today. Thankfully, her face was covered. I don't think I'm ready to get acquainted with her just yet.

Day 1 of unit 2. The notes look very promising, it's only half the amount we got in unit 1.

We went to have tea with Dave Williams, the awesome astronaut physician! http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/universitycity/archive/2010/09/16/nasa-astronaut-dave-williams-returns-to-mcgill.aspx

He gave a very inspiring speech and showed us beautiful pictures taken from space. I wonder what it's like up there. I really really want to go too, but also really really don't.

Random fact I learnt today: the retina was actually formed from the brain, so if there's a problem with the retina, the same problem probably exists in the brain. How neat is that?

Maaan. I've been doing 12-14 hours of studying every day for the past 3 days, but it's still not enough. Final tomorrow, wish me luck :<

P.S.: There are apparently more obese people in the world than starving people.

I did around 10 hours of studying today, I'm very proud of myself! Except I've only covered about 5% of the material.
I also did some exam practice problems, and wth! Some questions are so specific, like asking us about the structures of random molecules that were mentioned once in the notes. I wish I had photographic memory ;_;

Final on Friday. 1050 pages of notes. FML.

P.S. That was sum guud Merlin episode eh.

Macrophages are seriously the most badass thingies ever. Apparently, when they detect a large foreign substance (like a splinter going into your fingertip), they realize that they can't overtake it alone so hundred/thousands of them merge together to form these huge ass complexes called "Foreign Body Giant Cells". Like Power Rangers.

It usually doesn't do much, but it's the thought that counts.

And if I understood the prof correctly today (since I was half dozing off, as usual), without DNA repair mechanisms, we would be getting around 200 different types of cancers per day (with the large number of mutations the cells need to invade and migrate already taken into account). Creepy.

So they named the protein "Sonic Hedgehog" because without it, the embryo ended up covered with tiny bumps (probably primitive limbs or something that couldn't be formed) which made it look like a hedgehog. What a brilliant name.

And Sos stands for "Son of Sevenless"? Who knew! Sounds like the title of some epic fantasy novel, but nope. Juuust another signalling protein.

I think the best name ever though is still Pikachurin, for a "lightning-fast" protein involved in vision.

Second place would be the oncogene called "Pokemon" for (POK Erythroid Myeloid ONtogenic factor). Buuuut they got sued by Nintendo for making Pokemon cause cancer, so they changed it to Zbtb7. It's tragic, really.

The classes and readings are so long, but so interesting!

Yesterday, we attempted to cure cancer.
Today, I learnt that you can get penis cancer from smoking, so if you're a guy, you better quit now.

You remember the first time you played Sims (back when you didn't use that money cheat and had to worry about expenses and robbery)? How hard it was to get the characters to wake up in the morning to catch the carpool, or squeeze in the time for a meal and shower? You tried to keep all the stats up, but before you could do anything, it was bed time for them already and you wished that there were more hours in their day. I feel like that right now. Somehow, the day just doesn't seem long enough for me to go through a hundred pages of material. Maybe I'm just trying too hard!