Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Yep, you have mites living on your face. And in this episode of Gross Science, Anna Rothschild explains how they're eating, laying eggs, dying, and leaking feces. On your face. But don't worry because we've known this since 1841 and it appears to be completely normal?

myBrainshark is a superb tool that allows students to add a voiceover to PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, videos and photo albums -- or to simply produce podcasts. It then blends the visual and audio components together into a video presentation. In the classroom, your students can present completed projects using myBrainshark, rather than face-to-face, or they can use it for mock presentations allowing the teacher to give feedback before the real presentation. The former can help bolster the confidence and communication skills of introverted and/or passive learners. Teachers can also turn their PowerPoint presentations into narrated video presentations (e.g. explanation of concepts) that students can watch outside of school hours. The most immediate limitation of this tool is that presentations cannot be downloaded in the free version. If you are looking for a tool that also allows for video narratives along with PowerPoint presentations (instead of basic audio), I would suggest Present.me.

In 2015 the bees are still dying in masses. Which at first seems not very important until you realize that one third of all food humans consume would disappear with them. Millions could starve. The foes bees face are truly horrifying - some are a direct consequence of human greed. We need to help our small buzzing friends or we will face extremely unpleasant consequences.

This case study describes the daily osmotic struggle for survival faced by hummingbirds. The narrative is written from the viewpoint of a human observer who sees an Anna's hummingbird feeding on flowers outside of her window.  She notices that the birds mostly feed early in the morning and again in the evening at dusk; midday encounters are rare.  The case raises questions about floral nectar production, how this correlates to feeding bouts, and how this in turn correlates to the daily osmotic challenges faced by these nectarivorous birds and their allies (sunbirds). Students will learn about renal adaptations for survival and how they operate. Finally, since hummingbirds have a high metabolic rate and cannot feed overnight they undergo torpor during this time, an energy saving physiologic state.  Students read journal articles to answer case questions, which should lead them to a better understanding of the related physiological processes of osmoregulation, metabolic rate and torpor.

Although rabies still causes thousands of deaths globally every year, it has essentially been eradicated from most industrialized countries. Part of the success story is due to an unusual project undertaken by the Swiss prompted by a series of large outbreaks in the 1970s: the large-scale vaccination of wild foxes to stop the epidemic. In this directed case study, students use an easily accessible MS Excel-based model to understand key epidemiological parameters of rabies outbreaks in wild foxes. The simple model allows students also to predict what proportion of foxes needs to be vaccinated to eradicate the virus from the population. The case fits into both ecological and microbiological (epidemiological) courses and offers opportunities to explore zoonotic diseases and "One Health" questions. The mathematical basis of the differential equations in the models is explained, although prior knowledge of calculus is not essential. A key learning outcome is the critical understanding of both the power and limitations of simple epidemiological models. This case was written for an online course but could also be used as a face-to-face activity if students have access to computers in class.

This case study was developed to teach students the importance of understanding the behavior of wildlife, explore the difficulty in making management decisions when the public is invested in a species, and to help students develop critical thinking and public speaking skills. Students learn about the conservation status and behavior of the black rhinoceros by reading a primary literature article and answering a series of questions. They then listen to a Radiolab podcast that explores the moral dilemma of whether it is ethically appropriate to shoot an endangered rhinoceros if the purpose is to raise conservation funds. Students are assigned one of five positions and write essays to prepare for a town hall style debate in which they examine the pros and cons of such a decision. The Radiolab podcast is based on real events, and is also representative of many ethical dilemmas that wildlife managers regularly face. This case study is appropriate for several upper division biology courses.

CRISPR still has a long way to go before it can be used safely and effectively to repair-not just disrupt-genes in people. That is particularly true for most diseases, such as muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, which require correcting genes in a living person because if the cells were first removed and repaired then put back, too few would survive. And the need to treat cells inside the body means gene editing faces many of the same delivery challenges as gene transfer-researchers must devise efficient ways to get a working CRISPR into specific tissues in a person, for example. CRISPR also poses its own safety risks. Most often mentioned is that the Cas9 enzyme that CRISPR uses to cleave DNA at a specific location could also make cuts where it's not intended to, potentially causing cancer.

With its famous opening scene at a Harvard graduation, this classic of education research brings into sharp focus the dilemma facing all educators: Why don't even the brightest students truly grasp basic science concepts? This award-winning program traces the problem through interviews with Harvard graduates and their professors, as well as with a bright ninth-grader who has some confused ideas about the orbits of the planets.

Starfish can regrow lost arms, and salamanders can sprout new limbs. So why can't we? Sci Show explains the science of regeneration, and explores the limitations the humans face -- and are trying to go beyond.

Take this course for free on edX: https://www.edx.org/course/introducti... Introduction to Bioethics explores some of the most difficult - and fascinating - moral challenges we face in health, medicine, and emerging technologies.

Within a year, Stein's team had designed a clinical trial protocol that turned standard research practices around 180 degrees, launching what it now calls the Signature Clinical Trial Program. Instead of a patient traveling to one of several research sites, Novartis would send the investigational drugs to his or her local oncologist's office. Instead of testing hundreds or thousands of genetically unscreened patients, the company would accept only patients who had the genetic markers the drugs were supposed to target. Instead of waiting months, patients could access the treatments in two or three weeks. Instead of running a large-scale trial to investigate one or two questions, clinicians could conduct smaller, rapid proof-of-concept studies to quickly rule out the tumor types that don't respond to a study agent and identify other tumor types that are potentially treatable with the drug and worthy of further study.

This laborious process did not result from any lack of talent on Buell's part - he's revered among illustrators. Rather, he faced a challenging task: drawing something no one ever had seen or ever could see. In addition to making science visually appealing and easier to understand, this is what science illustrators do. They make the invisible visible.

Our planet's diverse, thriving ecosystems may seem like permanent fixtures, but they're actually vulnerable to collapse. Jungles can become deserts, and reefs can become lifeless rocks. What makes one ecosystem strong and another weak in the face of change? Kim Preshoff details why the answer, to a large extent, is biodiversity.

With increasing U.S. government support for biofuel production in the late 2000s came increased pressure to convert more land to cornfields for ethanol. To make way for more corn, millions of acres of prairie grassland were plowed under, destroying an extremely diverse wildlife habitat that also served as a large carbon reservoir. This case study focuses on the reasons for and consequences of large carbon losses when prairie grasslands are converted to agricultural lands. Many students are challenged when faced with linking together energy flows, decomposition, and nutrient cycles.  This case gives students the opportunity to consider different pools in the carbon cycle and the fluxes between them in order to model (on paper) an integrated picture of why carbon is lost when prairie grasslands are plowed and planted to cornfields.  Students also consider ways that carbon loss from land conversion due to ethanol production might be avoided via government incentive programs or mitigated via changes to farming practices. This case study was developed for an introductory ecology, environmental science, soil science, or agriculture course.

Are we witnessing a sixth mass extinction? What factors threaten ecosystems on land and in the sea? What are researchers doing to try to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems such as tigers in Asia and coral reefs around the world? What tools do we have to avoid a global catastrophe? In six half-hour lectures, three leading scientists describe the state of biodiversity on our planet and how to face the great challenges that lie ahead.

15. That's all you need to know about the measles. OK, that's not true at all. There's no one weird trick that will give you a flat belly (besides lying face-down on something flat), and there's no one weird number that explains measles epidemiology. But the basic reproduction number, or R0, of a disease does shed some light on which diseases become epidemics and how we can keep them in check.

This video excerpt from NOVA examines the dilemma some people face when they are deciding whether to undergo genetic testing. Journalist Catherine Elton describes her decision to refuse a test for BRCA1, a mutation that signals an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers, despite the history of disease in her family. The video also explains that genetic testing results can help some individuals improve their wellness, prevent the onset of diseases they are at risk for, or lessen the harmfulness of diseases they do contract.

Biologists have long puzzled about how evolutionary selection, known for its ruthless requirement for efficiency, allows the existence of males - when in so many species their only contribution to reproduction are spermatozoa. But research published today in Nature shows that sexual selection - when males compete and females choose over reproduction - improves population health and protects against extinction, even in the face of genetic stress from high levels of inbreeding.

Want to know how much bacteria we host within our body and how many we encounter on a daily basis well check out this clip from Life On Us where we will see the different types of bacteria that inhabit us like Demodex Folliculorum which is a face mite...

This case study introduces students to the true story of Caster Semenya, an outstanding female mid-distance runner from South Africa.  Caster won the 800 m race at the 2009 Track and Field World Championships when she was just 18. Since then, she has faced scrutiny about her sex and gender. Due to her high levels of endogenous testosterone, she was banned from running for almost a year by the track and field governing body, the IAAF. In this case study, students use information from news reports and Caster's appearance to determine the possible biological underpinnings likely responsible for her anatomy and physiology.  Students are also asked to consider if using circulating testosterone levels to determine if a female can race is a valid method of exclusion. This case asks students to think about how sex and gender are related, and pushes them to discuss societal implications of labeling both of these constructs as binary when in fact they are much better described as spectra.