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Guide to writing lab reports.  Share with 11th graders taking college credit.

This interrupted case study was inspired by and uses data from one of the largest commercial restaurant associated outbreaks of norovirus reported in the literature. It applies basic principles of epidemiology and outbreak investigation to a shellfish-linked norovirus outbreak at a Michelin star restaurant in the UK in 2009. The details of the case are taken directly from the report that was produced by the health protection agency and publications that followed. Students take on the role of an infection control team (ICT) that is responsible for identifying the extent and source of the outbreak. They are taken through different stages of the outbreak investigation and at each stage asked what their team would do in response to given pieces of information. Specifically, students uncover the scope and source of the outbreak using descriptive and basic analytical epidemiology methods. The case is suitable for first or second year introductory courses in microbiology, epidemiology, or other infectious disease related topics.

2013 report on climate change

 Do the principles of the Belmont Report address all the ethical issues that arise in evolving research scenarios? (November, 2013) Watch the full video - http://www.peopleandperspectives.org/... People & Perspectives (P&P) is a digital oral history library supported by Public Responsibility in Medicine & Research (PRIM&R). Visit http://www.peopleandperspectives.org to learn more. P&P features stories of those working in research ethics, many of whom were involved in the early years of the field. Those featured include IRB and IACUC professionals, research staff, committee members, institutional officials, researchers, subjects, advocates, regulators, industry representatives, ethicists, and others who consider themselves part of the human subjects and animal care and use enterprise.

WEDNESDAY, April 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- In a step toward personalized vaccines against cancer, scientists report they have developed an immune-system therapy that knocks out several types of aggressive tumors in mice. German researchers said the findings, reported April 22 in the journal Nature, could lead to a "blueprint" for developing tailored vaccines for a range of cancers. Such vaccines would be designed for individual patients, based on the specific genetic mutations in their tumors.

EPA is working with many other organizations to collect and communicate data about climate change. With help from these partners, EPA has compiled the third edition of this report, presenting 30 indicators to help readers understand observed long-term trends related to the causes and effects of climate change. In a manner accessible to all audiences, the report describes the significance of these trends and their possible consequences for people, the environment, and society.

Welcome to the HealthStats Indicator Report Categorized Index. This categorized index provides a selection menu in the form of an explorer type hierarchical folder tree and is organized by topic or subject area. These menu selections are used to navigate to the system's various indicator reports. Listed below are the most general categorized index menu sections. After selecting one of these general category sections, a page will be presented which will allow the folder's sub items to be shown and selected.

Squirrels are frequent and beloved residents of college campuses throughout the United States, but oftentimes less welcomed by campus maintenance officials who report squirrels nesting in buildings, interfering with airflow from heating and cooling units, and destroying gutters. In this laboratory case, students act as members of a fictitious "squirrel task force" appointed by their campus administrators to provide recommendations for how to manage their school's squirrel population.  Students work in groups to assess the habitat suitability of their campus for squirrels by identifying and measuring trees that provide seasonal food for squirrels, and by identifying desirable hunting perches for common squirrel predators.  Students conduct squirrel surveys in designated campus zones to calculate the number of squirrels per acre on their campus and compare it with mean squirrel densities reported in forested areas and at a rival institution.  Students then compile and synthesize class data to provide management recommendations for university maintenance officials for either increasing or decreasing campus squirrel populations. Originally developed for an undergraduate wildlife biology course, the case could also be used in a lower-division biology or environmental studies course.

Reporting on a small preliminary study, Johns Hopkins researchers say a simple blood test based on detection of tiny epigenetic alterations may reveal the earliest signs of pancreatic cancer, a disease that is nearly always fatal because it isn't usually discovered until it has spread to other parts of the body.

12 main findings of the Climate Change report

STEM initiatives EOC state list

Students use DNA profiling to determine who robbed a bank. After they learn how the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is used to match crime scene DNA with tissue sample DNA, students use CODIS principles and sample DNA fragments to determine which of three suspects matches evidence obtain at a crime location. They communicate their results as if they were biomedical engineers reporting to a police crime scene investigation.

Taylor must write a report about a natural toxin while she is home from college on break. After a family dinner conversation about the latest attempt to poison a politician via a letter, Taylor decides to explore how ricin acts as a poison. Students work in small groups to help Taylor by working through figures from primary literature papers and exploring the use of an in vitro translation system, sucrose gradient fractionation and the effect of inhibiting various steps of translation.  A shorter, second day activity involves students looking further at the effect of ricin upon ribosome function and at the ricin protein itself.  Students individually complete a cumulative assignment of writing a letter back to Mom and Dad about how ricin has its effects. This case was designed for use in a second semester biochemistry course or a molecular biology course that incorporates the mechanism of transcription. Prerequisite knowledge includes a general understanding of the steps of translation and the ability to interpret data from agarose gels.

It concludes that the so-called stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency (STAP) stem cells, as well as the chimeric mice and teratomas supposedly derived from those cells, "all originated in cultures contaminated with (embryonic stem) cells, a fact that refutes all of the main conclusions of the two papers" that reported the the supposed breakthrough method of reprogramming adult cells. Those two papers, an article and a letter, appeared online in Nature on 29 January.

This interactive infographic from the National Academies Press highlights essential practices for K-12 science classrooms from A Framework for K-12 Science Education with references to the contents of the full report.

ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - If drug-resistant infections in people and animals are allowed to spread unchecked, some 28 million people will fall into poverty by 2050, and a century of progress in health will be reversed, the World Bank said on Monday. By 2050, annual global GDP would fall by at least 1.1 percent, although the loss could be as much as 3.8 percent - the equivalent of the 2008 financial crisis - the Bank said in a report released ahead of a high-level meeting on the issue at the United Nations in New York this week.

Plant species belonging to divergent branches of the evolutionary tree are known to have independently evolved caffeine production. According to scientists at Western Michigan University, caffeine-producing plants have taken a number of different biochemical routes to synthesize the stimulant. Coffee, tea, cocoa, orange, and guaraná plants make caffeine using an array of enzymes and substrates, the researchers reported in PNAS this week (September 20).

Sometimes, a genetic tweak can make a really big difference in an animal's appearance. That's what likely happened when the predecessors of modern snakes lost their legs, a process that started some 150 million years ago, two separate groups of scientists have discovered. Although the teams took very different approaches to solve the mystery of how those limbs vanished, both came up with similar results: Mutations in DNA located near a gene key to limb formation keep that gene from ever turning on, they report today.

The Ebola epidemic that tore through West Africa in 2014 claimed 11,310 lives, far more than any previous outbreak. A combination of factors contributed to its savagery, among them a mobile population, crumbling public health systems, official neglect and hazardous burial practices. But new research suggests another impetus: The virus may have evolved a new weapon against its human hosts. In studies published on Thursday in the journal Cell, two teams of scientists report that a genetic mutation may have made Ebola more deadly by improving the virus's ability to enter human cells.

A soft brush that feels like prickly thorns. A vibrating tuning fork that produces no vibration. Not being able to tell which direction body joints are moving without looking at them. Those are some of the bizarre sensations reported by a 9-year-old girl and 19-year-old woman in a new study. The duo, researchers say, shares an extremely rare genetic mutation that may shed light on a so-called "sixth sense" in humans: proprioception, or the body's awareness of where it is in space. The new work may even explain why some of us are klutzier than others.