Kirsty Kiezebrink
I am a senior lecturer with the University of Aberdeen. My main areas of interest are research methods and postgraduate skills development. I have a particular interest in digital learning
Location Scotland
Activity
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Margaret McGregor
You are correct the majority of our breathing occurs within the nose , the mouth plays a very minor role in this, however in some situations the use of the mouth for exhaling can be beneficial ( ie for helping to slow down the rate of breathing during hyperventilation)
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Nicola B
I love it....haven't come across the muscle song before, thanks for sharing
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Renato Kishi
certainly not! we don't want you to waste time memorising things that you can easily look up. the idea is that you instead look to understand the key learning points
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Martin Gillham
@MartinGillham I totally agree that terms such as apical and basolateral etc are great suggestions for students to add to the glossary. We only gave some initial suggestion of terms for the the glossary and have left it up to each individual to choose what others words are useful for them to include. Many of the words you will come acro in the course are...
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@FrancescaL This is fascinating area..and way out of my knowledge field as I am very much a human biologist..however my husband is a plant scientist so i am going to ask him if he has any info on this and will get back to you
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jean M
@JeanM It is complex, but the good thing is you can dive in as deep as you are comfortable with, so no need to get to worried about getting out of your depth.
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Hi Skye, great to have you join us
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Paul Birch
Unfortunately the futurelearn platform wont allow me to upload word documents it only accepts pdfs. However it is super easy to convert the pdf...you don't need a lot of IT skills. You just go to the adobe site and drag the pdf into the drop box then it will convert it and you can save it. https://www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/online/pdf-to-word.html
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thank you for the new piece of info on E140..i didn't know that!
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This is a great response...we have run this MOOC 5 times and no one has yet selected esters..great to have a new one to think about. Thank you
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kirsty Kiezebrink
@MartinGillham Interesting thought...my guess would be that you are correct there must be maximum distance away from the centre that will allow the element to be able to still "hold on" to the outer electrons, but I don't have any scientific evidence to support that..its a bit outside of my field of expertise
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Kirsty Kiezebrink made a comment
If you want to give yourself an earworm try searching for periodic table songs this is currently my favourite https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7swai6EdQY
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Margaret McGregor
@MargaretMcGregor Sorry about that we have updated the link to a new video. Thanks for letting us know
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Francesca L
You might find this video interesting if you want to understand a little more about symmetry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3VfhLHrYR4
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I am the same as you and find the structural easiest to visualise. Interestingly though I actually find real ball and stick models just as confusing as the 2d on screen versions..I don't know why..It might juts be to do with the way I first learnt about these way back in history!
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Lillian Kay
you will find a copy of it in section 1.5 ( the section after the glossary)
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Elvira Kagan
the good new sis science is seen as super cool these days so you get loads of funky things with the periodic table printed on..you can get mugs, mouse mats, wrapping paper!
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Hi Nasim, glad to have you join us
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alexandra Oguz
yes this is the easiest way to remember it
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Faith Gand
I suppose its not incorrect, i just have never heard anyone try to describe it that way
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psychological hunger can also be a mis-cue for thirst, so sometime late in the evening when we are at our lowest coginitive strength, we may also be dehydrated and we think I am hungry, this is particular true when what we crave is something sweet rather than savoury...when actually we may well be thirsty..many people have lost the ability to determine between...
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but how do you decide if you are hungry...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jutta We
I think we have to be bait careful here as it's not as simple as saying that even if you have the genetics you can still control your weight through diet. There are certain genetic factors which make it impossible for a person to remain slim. I think to date there are 9 mongenteic causes of obesity and each of these cases it is almost impossible for the...
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If you are interested in learning more about this then you might want to look up some information on epigentics, a great deal of work has been done on epigentics and cancer in particular. you might find this an interesting article to get started with https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/epigenetic-influences-and-disease-895/
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jutta We
@JuttaWe you have stumbled into a very large field of research. the role of fasting in health is a hotly debated topic with lost of variables, The key one being different types of fasting with some people talking about intermittent fasting which refers to the idea of reducing the length of each day that you eat so only eating between say a 8 hour window each...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Lisa Poort
Chromosomes are sort of like arranging all your books into 23 different shelves in a bookcase, each shelf or chromosome hold a collection of information (DNA). The replication process is how each part of the DNA is copied to make new copies or to be expressed to make the protein that is needed to do things...you don't need to worry to much about this at the...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Nicola Crockett
@NicolaCrockett you are completely correct the shivering is the bodies way of deliberately generating heat to protect our essential organ function when our body temperature drops, that is why you should be very worried when some who is very cold stops shivering as this the body running out of energy to maintain life
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Mamoona Saeed
its probably not as simple as the genotype only being visible in the phenotype if the environment is also correct, as some genotypes have limited or no interaction withe environment so for example if you carry 2 copies of the gene for blue eyes, there is nothing that I am aware of in the environment that will change this appearing in your phenotype, whereas...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Manish Thakur
I am not sure I understand the question but I think what you are asking about is how does a mutation occur in offspring. we cover mutations a little bit further into the course but generally mutations, are permanent changes to the DNA sequence within the gene, these can then be passed on through hereditary means to the offspring, but you can also have some...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
The telomere loss is due to the way the lagging strand is created using many small pieces called Okazaki fragments, each of which begins with its own RNA primer. Then the Okazaki fragments are replaced with DNA and the fragments connected to form an continuous strand. When the replication fork reaches the end of the chromosome a short stretch of DNA that does...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
you are correct we did not specifically mention the exonuclease enzyme. Exonuclease enzymes always work on the end ( exo - external) part of the chain and their role is to cut nucleotides out one at a time. there is also endonucleases (within) which work in the middle of the chain.
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you are welcome
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Helena Hardy
what is it about the names you don't like
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Hamish Hall
glad to have you join us, hopefully you will find some useful things in the course to help pass the locked up time
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Omar J
@OmarJ I am not an expert on immunonutrition, and have only very superficial knowledge of its use in a clinical setting rather than its role in sports nutrition. there does seem to be reasonable evidence that carefully controlled imunonutrition can be beneficial in recovery form surgery you may be interested in this paper...
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of course, i hadn't thought about that, it is definitely worth doing once you are allowed to go shopping again!
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alyson Kelman
this is the dominant trait, and is associated with being right handed
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alyson Kelman
I also cross my right over my left
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Kirsty Kiezebrink made a comment
so how many people on this course can you find that are a perfect match to you and how many are complete opposites?
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alyson Kelman
Alyson that is amazing, well done
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Manish Thakur
You are correct that the phenotype is the part we see whilst the genotype is the code behind what we see, bu the terms dominant and recessive are a bit more complicated, so a recessive trait can be expressed only when there are 2 copies of that gene..so for example red hair is a recessive trait..so we do see it even although it is recessive
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jutta We
Thanks for this Jutta, i will check this out and look at switching these for future courses
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Omar J
thanks for the paper @OmarJ as the paper highlights..there doesn't seem to be any clear evidence either way for the use of AA's taken as a supplemental form. One of the problems I have with this is that it tends to compare supplementation with current dietary recommendations and ignore that in most developed countries protein consumption is way above...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Omar J
It would depend on the length of the fast... each day you need to consume your protein requirement from the diet which are tn broken down to the constituent Amino acids and then reconfigured to make the proteins that your body needs for that day. The body can cope with short periods of fasting but anything over 24 hours would mean that it would start to break...
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@DavidGamon I agree that we certainly need all of them...but that doesn't mean we cant also have a preference for one.
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
within this context residue refers to the amino acids
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Viren Ranawana
welcome @MariaInesBadilloCampos its great to have you join us, I love the use of language and you will see throughout this course we try and explain where the science words come from, as many people say understanding science is like learning a new language...so I am super keen to hear about how you use this type of resource to also actually help others learn...
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there is a debate about which is worse for health trans fats of saturated fats..I think at the moment the view is trans fats are worse than sat fats, the suggestion is we avoid trans fats and limit sat fats
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Lara Mooney
You might really like the second course in this programme which explains how we move from DNA to protein and how amino acids are built, which ones are essential etc. the course is called How does the body use DNA as a blueprint https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/the-body-and-dna/4/todo/65835
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It is actually the neural system. However there are different pathways involved depending on the reason that perspiration is required so you have thermal and non thermal reasons for perspiration. This is a nice summary article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866164/
if you cant access this link due to a paywall then the authors final version... -
Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Anna D
@AnnaD they really are the same word...in Greek Eruthros means red and cyte means cell so erythrocyte is the Greek for red cells, and yes you guessed it Leuk means white
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Vipul Dattani
@VipulDattani There are opportunities for you to constitute studying with the university either through our on demand entry route which allows you to select individual courses which are credit bearing, or depending on what other experience and or qualification you have you could enrol in one of our full degrees. I am happy to discus your options with you...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
The tern visceral fat denotes the location rather than the fat cell type, so subcutaneous fat is that which is just under the skin, and visceral is the deeper stores, however in most case when describing these it is the white fact cells that we are talking about. We only really talk about visceral fat when there is too much of it ie it is the excess stored...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
@د.رشيدمحمدرشيد sorry I don't know an awfull lot about pigment cells,but I can happily look up the literature for you if there is something specific you are interested in
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Natalya Shynhera
doesnt it just amaze you how smart nature is..then how smart the scientist are who finally worked out how to arrange all of these into the periodic table. If you are interested in the history of the table this is a good article https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/history/about
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
I have been trying to get a good web based list to share..I have an excellent one in a text book..but that's not easy to share...I think the most comprehensive list have found is in wikipedia( just be careful as not all the info in the list has been fact checked). But it is a pretty good list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organs_of_the_human_body
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
yes the eye is part of the sensory organ system along with the ear, the tongue, skin and the olifactory organ
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Natalie Eadie
you are correct..depending on the classification you use there is somewhere between 70 and 100 organs in the human body..so we have not listed them all ...but we do pick on some of these again when we talk about organ systems in the next section
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jutta We
@JuttaWe you are correct we have only just touched on the immune system in this course, its always really hard deciding what to leave out! Sometimes we decide based on what else is already available so if you are interested in taking this further you might want to consider one of the other futurelearn course that specialise in this such as
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kiana Siino
@KianaSiino I am not an expert in this but what I have been able to find in the literature is that it has been shown that clinically used topical anti-inflammatory adrenal steroids inhibit skin collagen synthesis. However the newer novel prednisolone derivatives do not inhibit normal skin collagen synthesis. So yes long term use of some steroids can have an...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kiana Siino
bone marrow - is broadly split into 2 types - red which is involved in making the blood cells, and yellow which is involved in energy storage ( fat cells) ,yellow also contains the stem cells which are the cells that are used to develop into other cells as required
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
in most youtube videos if you go to just below the video then click on teh three little dots you should get the option to open the transcript...deosn't work with all videos but manywill have this
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Mujahid Bilal
@MujahidBilal I think you make a good point, which is that when we use the word tissue we think of something flexible or soft which doesn't really describe a bone!
So the origin of the word is from latin for texere meaning to weave..and described intricate of rich materials. I guess when it started being used in the biology sense, it would have been to... -
Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Mia M
there is also the nervous system, working to tell the muscles which ones to move to provide power and how to balance so you don't fall off
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
what might be best is as we move on to organ systems....then you will learn the organs as they are grouped together by functions rather than just a very long list of all the organs
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
@RyanSteven its even worse than not being able to move...we wouldn't be alive as the neural tissue is also the part that signals for the lungs to breathe , the heart to beat and everything else to function. You are right that it affects our ability to move, are you aware of the term neural tube defects which are birth defects which result in the neural tube...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
collagen is an amazing protein...some interesting facts the name collagen comes from the Greek Kolla ( glue) and gen (producing) and it was named this because of the process of making glue from rendering down animal skin and bones to form glue. So it was named really before we new what it was. It is basically a protein ( so lots of amino acids) which makes...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Sara Taylor-Balls
@SaraTaylor-Balls well spotted, so in a healthy person you only have the fat stores that you need, the brown fat cells are located around the organs, and the reason they are brown in appearance is that they contain a high umber of mitochondria ( which contains iron...and gives the cells the brown appearance) these have the function of producing energy for the...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alyson Kelman
@AlysonKelman I agree..also just really like the way the word pluripotent sounds...try saying out out loud. It just sounds like a really magical and powerful word
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jutta We
Th liver is certainly a pretty "busy" organ, as you say it has lots of different functions. I find it totally amazing that we can transplant just a small part of it as a living donor, https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets-corp/15438/29825-606mv-could-i-be-a-living-liver-donor-web-olc286-1.pdf
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Therese Grace
absolutely correct...did you know that about 10% of people have a second small spleen which is called an accessory spleen.
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welcome @ChristineMcQueen I think there are a large number of people who are using this crisis to find a but of time to do some self development.
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Vika Golovina
@VikaGolovina my higher biology teacher had a very strong Welsh accent, it took my till at least 3rd year at University to realise that the way I had been taught was not exactly the standard pronunciation
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Jay F.
I love the hydrophillic / hydrophobic components...I remember when I first learnt how dish soap work ...I volunteered to do the dishes for at least 3 days before i got bored with that!
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Kirsty Kiezebrink made a comment
I like the structural formula when just looking at a single molecule, but I do prefer the molecular if i am trying to work out reactions ie what happen when you combine two or more molecules
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
I agree I love the structural formulas, they just seem so much more real, and interesting
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Ryan Steven
I find this version really hard to visualise and as you say as soon as you note a soon as you have a ring format it becomes harder..but for linear a slight adaption would be to include hyphens CH3-CH2-OH (just realised when I typed this I cant cope if its lower case ..it just looked so wrong and I had to change it to upper case ...this is probably because...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kirsten T
I am not sure @KirstenT what other ways are you thinking of, so you mean through something like a physical pressure / impact sort of thing?
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Alyson Kelman
@AlysonKelman or the very amusing anamaniacs ( Warner brothers) version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEn0XEPzHnA
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to kumkum Johri
we have lots of videos and pictures in the course but we are always looking to improve, so if there are any sections that you think could be explained better with more visuals just let us know
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Kirsty Kiezebrink made a comment
I have just been looking through the comments here, and am amazed and excited by the diversity of learners in this group, we have everything from complete beginners to people with years of experience in the field, we have people form all over the world and of all ages., for some this is their first MOOC for others the latest in a very long and interesting...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Viren Ranawana
@JuttaWe Just to add to this, in the mid of this crisis mentoring on this course is something which gives my day a sense of normality, whilst dealing with all the other issues it is really nice to pop in here and forget for a little while everything else that is rapidly changing around us. So a huge thank you to everyone who is finding the time to take this...
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i was about to respond to this when i realised that @Katie:-) has already provided an excellent summary of the process
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to muhammad ali
Muhammad, in this time of rapidly changing education, I believe we will be seeing a great deal of universities offering online programmes in almost every discipline. The reason why topics like genetics have not been so commonly taught online is that the equivalent on campus courses tend to have a great deal of practical components and these can be difficulty...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kay Irwin
this relates to a condition known as Mortons toe..there is an interesting discussion of this here https://owlcation.com/stem/Mortons-Toe-Dominant-or-Recessive
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Hina Nirmal
Hina I thought I was going to be a genetic match to you right up to question 10 my answer is no to this one...but we match on 9 out of 10
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Kirsty Kiezebrink made a comment
so a few of you have been posting your responses to this...have you found any one who is your genetic match...so the same response as you for all 10 factors or anyone who is your genetic opposite on all 10 factors?
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Kathleen Jackson
wow, I tend to forget about DNA being used in this was as much of what I do is looking at trying ti understand disease and behaviour and so have a habit of forgetting how DNA links us to our ancestors.
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Caroline Kemball
@CarolineKemball so the question I have to ask is that with such similar names...how genetically similar are you both....what traits do you share?
ps tongue rolling is the ability to roll the sides of the tongue into the middle..not font to back -
Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
yes, often people refer to the cleft chin as a dimple...you can also have dimples on the cheeks which are not linked to the cleft chin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Karen Knightley
didn't manage in the character limit....but in summary there is very strong evidence of a genetic component to Anorexia Nervosa, which then interact withe the environmental cue to present the phenotypic form of the eating disorder. Interestingly many of the genetic traits are also similar to those in obsessive compulsive disorder and additional behaviours
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Karen Knightley
I will try and summarise my Phd in the 1200 characters allowed here: Iooked at exploring the links between the phenotype of Anorexia Nervosa and the genotype. On the premise that in order to be able to investigate the genetic component we need to firstly characterise them well. We looked at 42 different genes that we believed may have a role in the disorder....
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Linda S
@LindaS maybe this could be one of the maths puzzle that radio 4 does in the morning!
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@n'nancocquotchrystellekouassi I don't know that you need to classify, I think it is great that you were able to list so many...well done
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you are correct, in addition BBQ meat or meat which has been burned on the outside is also believed to carcinogenic...so the choice is under-cooked meat on the BBQ- risk of food poisoning, or overcooked ( burnt) BBQ risk of cancer...interesting most people are more concerned with the immediate health risk ie the food poisoning...rather than the delayed impact...
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Kirsty Kiezebrink replied to Martin Gillham
@MartinGillham Was just wondering when you say the transcript are you using the link directly below the video or the downloadable link at the bottom of the page called "English transcript pdf". the English transcript I have created ( and included the imagery from the video) to make it usable off line...although I have made minor language changes to this to...
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that is a pretty extensive list!
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@GamalAkabani you are correct there are a huge number of techniques being used (and being developed) in this field, I am afraid it would be beyond the scope of this course to try and explain all of them. what I can recommend is the national human genome research institute - they produce some excellent fact sheets
here is the one for GWAS -... -
The prevailing thought on this is that Uracil is "cheaper" for the body to produce than thymine, however like many cheaper products it is not such good quality. Cytosine is easily degraded ( through deamination) to produce uracil) - so if the uracil was in the DAN the repair system would have to decide if it was there as a mutation ie a change of the...
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Short strands of the DNA will be uncoiled from around the histones to allow the DAN to be unzipped an d read, then it is re zipped and coiled again around the histones
