If you’re involved in BUCS you’ll know it takes over your every Wednesday. Train twice week. Lose. Drown your sorrows at the social. Repeat.
What makes it worth it? The people you meet and the friends you make along the way.
BUCS history
Founded in 1918, with the first athletics meet taking place only a year later. In 1922, new sports were introduced such as, football, hockey and swimming. Until 2008, BUCS was not unified under one governing body. It consisted of the UCS (University and college sport) and the BUSA (British University sport association) which became BUCS on the 31st of October 2008.
As a third-year natural sciences student here at Southampton, I am assessed in a variety of ways, including essays, scientific reports and presentations. However, being assessed in this way is new to me, and it is one of the things that is exciting me about this module. Another key part of my degree is the focus on interdisciplinary learning across a wide range of modules, which this module will allow me to develop. The content covered in this module is all new to me and looks incredibly interesting, especially the content on prostheses and stem cell ethics. As well as just being interesting, I believe that discussions about the ethics of stem cells in research are crucial in preparing the next generation for leaps and bounds in scientific discovery.
Within the Natural Sciences degree programme you get a large amount of choice, and I mainly focus on organic chemistry and some aspects of biology, including immunotherapy. I also have compulsory NATS modules which I always enjoy, which are accessible to all of us despite all being from different scientific backgrounds. One that particularly resonated with me was about climate chemistry, and was assessed by individual presentations about a chosen topic. The topic I chose was about the impact of shipping on the air quality in port cities, and this is now the basis for my third year project which I am currently working on. The NATS modules are assessed in a way that builds skills outside of written essays and timed examinations, which I believe is really important in preparing us for a life outside of education. This Engineering Replacement Body Parts will build on these skills, including giving presentations, working within a team and expanding knowledge beyond the lecture content.
Coming from a physics background, this module was something completely new and different for me. Where I’m used to everything from blackholes to quantum wave functions, this module is a way to step outside my comfort zone and explore how physics and engineering can be applied to help people. One way that physics and biomed appear to overlap (from my limited research) is in the world of nanomedicine. Defined as ‘a branch of medicine that applies the knowledge and tools of nanotechnology to the prevention and treatment of disease.’ nanomedicine seems like it may be future of targeted drug delivery. Utilizing things within the nano dimensions such as sensors and robots it can be used for delivery and sensing purposes of live cells, nanomedicine may in future provide a cleaner, safer and more accurate future for internal medicine.
The concepts and assessment methods in this module are very different from my degree course which is Physics. Last semester I studied nano-physics this really interested me. I thought it would be interesting to get the chance to explore other disciplines than pure physics as many of the limitations of nano and micro physics are only apparent when looking through the lens of another subject, like many imaging techniques being destructive due to high energies required or needing thin or conducting substrates or very low temperatures due to thermal noise.
Hello, my name is Evan Masters, I’m 19 years old and am in my second year of Biomedical science. In what little spare time I have I enjoy running, gaming, gym and procrastinating. In terms of societies, I’m a bit lazy, though I do play esports for Southampton University and am playing in the qualifiers for a £10000 tournament tonight (02/02/2023), so wish me luck.
Me (Pictured left) and Professional Rocket league player Kyle “torment“ Storer (Pictured right), he may be a millionaire from videogames, but I’m taller.
Why did I choose this module? First and foremost, this actually looks fun and interesting, especially when my other option was Protein Structure and Function. This also is mostly assessed by coursework which really helps with the stress of exam period. I also might be able to understand some amount of the module, unlike Protein Structure and Function, I really didn’t want to do that module.
I find stem cell research really interesting, initially I was going to do an integrated masters with placement in Scotland in stem cell Embryonics, but alas I did not have a chemistry A level which was required. My brother is also missing a lung so growing him a new one would give me irreputable leverage over him and strengthening my position as favourite child.
Other than that, I tend to enjoy learning outside my field so doing an interdisciplinary module, especially one involving engineering aspects, should be an enjoyable time :).
I’m Florrie, I am an exchange student from New Zealand. My university in NZ is called Victoria University of Wellington. I am doing a whole year here in Southampton. I study Biomedical Science and am in my final year. Although I live in NZ I am originally from the UK, I moved to NZ when I was 5 years old. I have also lived in Sydney, Australia. I live in Wellington, which is the capital city. New Zealand is a beautiful country, it has a similar land mass to UK but only has a population of 5 million. One of the coolest things about New Zealand is that we have serval active volcanoes. I have attached a video below of things to do in New Zealand.
The topic I am most excited about in this module is stem cells and research ethics. I am looking forward to learning about how stem cells can be used to help cure diseases and aid in medicine. It will be interesting to learn about how ethics affect the work that can be done and how they are used in regulating research. I have done some lab work with Henrietta lacks cells back at my uni at home which was really interesting seeing how they develop depending on what chemical they are exposed to. It was also comparing the growth of cancerous stem cells to normal ones.
This is David Aguilar, he was born with Poland Syndrome which is a condition that affects the chest muscles, causing them to under develop at birth. Blockage of blood vessels in the womb can lead to this and other conditions such as Brachydactyly.
David Aguilar with his Lego prosthetic arm.
David had an interest as a child for Lego which lead to his development of his prosthetic arm. He used Lego Technic to create his model the ‘MK-1’ (iron man reference) which involved motors and his adaptation of fine motor movement with fingers and pressure sensors.
David is still evolving his prosthesis and creating new updated models using cables to contract to simulate muscle contraction. There is a book, documentary and many more articles about Davids story, including his youtube ‘Hand Solo’.
This video explains more about Davids story from himself
As a Lego employee myself it is amazing to see the extent to which Lego can go and not only be a bit of fun for kids. It is amazing how life changing it really is and the possibilities there are with it.
I believe Lego technic could be explored more in the world of prosthesis not only for function but to help introduce the topics to children to allow them to explore the world of STEM and possibly aid children who have conditions where prosthesis are an option, Lego may make this seem less daunting and allow them to explore this whilst having fun.
I do natural sciences, and this is a compulsory module in the third year. At first I was a bit confused why I had to do this module, since it doesn’t have a lot to do with what I usually study. In fact, up until a couple of months ago I thought the compulsory module would be ‘Life in the Cosmos’ which I was really excited to do. However, after attending the introductionary lecture, I am beginning to appreciate that this module will draw from a variety of disciplines and will give me insights into other subjects. I am particularly interested in the ethics lectures since this is not something that I have studied before.
In Natural Sciences I am free to choose modules from a variety of courses- for me that’s mainly biology and marine biology. Right now I am doing a project looking at the protein prophenoloxidase in crustaceans, which is part of their immune system.
One type of replacement body part that I have seen in practice is lens replacement surgery which my mum had a few years ago to treat cataracts. It was really cool to watch how someone who had relied heavily on glasses and contact lenses for over forty years suddenly be able to have the freedom to be able to see clearly without anything. Even something as simple as washing her face without having to worry about getting her contact lens wet has made a huge difference to her life.
My name is Yifan, and the course I take is Business Management. There are two main reason for my choice of this module. First, limb prosthetic interests me the most from all the biology aspects of the module. Mainly deriving from the fictional works of all types I was exposed to. Moreover, thinking of the benefits of a limb prosthetic that is able to mimic the full functions of a real limb is beyond my imagination. The type of pain of a person’s daily life brought by accidents or genetic issues is imaginable. So if a seamless technology become available to offer to those in need, it would bring the world a ton more joy. Secondly, the ethical theory application to the module interested me as well. This is mainly because of the ethics module undertaken last semester. It would be interesting to make that connection and see how different theories debate with each other when applied to different situations. For example, if I am correct about the main content of the ethical part of this module, which is about consent, this can be applied to many ethical theories such as Kantian’s and JS Mill’s. Also, it would be interesting to see how some of the practices can be justified or condemned based on deontology and utilitarianism views.
dont rlly know what to write…anyways I’m so tired right now. Karaoke was fun last night WOOOOO!
why did i pick this module? probs coz its 40% exam lol (sike it actually sounds cool)
my hobbies are gaming, art, dance (street dance) and volleyball. basically any sport sounds fun i guess. LOVE mgmt and their music…low-key getting into nirvana at the moment.
This is an initially reflective and well researched blog showing how you have chosen to explore the emerging field of…
This is a good attempt at a blog, where you reflect on your recent learning at a lecture/workshop to describe…
This is a fair to good blog, reflecting on your recent learning in some of your modules. You provide a…
This is an engagingly written and reflective blog focussed in general on ethics in medicine. You might improve by citing…
This is a good and well written an presented blog on an original subject - biofilms on implants. You explain…