| "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein |
Supplementary videos
Pied kingfisher: high energy hovering and diving
Extra credit readings
- The Largest Organism on Earth Is a Fungus Scientific American 10/4/07
- Microbes Turn Electricity Directly To Methane ScienceDaily 3/30/09
- Landfill's bioreactor is a source of pride in Polk County St. Petersburg Times 1/31/09
| "Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits." - Charles Darwin |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Darwin's theory of atoll formation The voyage of the Beagle 1839
- Darwin's study on barnacles Living Cirripedia 1954
- Darwin's experiments on mud on birds' feet The Origin of Species 1859
- Darwin's sexual selection theory best explanation for gender differences Mizzou Weekly 4/22/10
- Darwin's study on plant hormones The Power of Movement of Plants 1881
- Darwin's Earthworm Experiments Broke New Ground NPR 2/12/09
- Did Darwin get it wrong? Searching for the ancestor of Darwin's finches On Science 2005
- Origin and Evolutionary Relationships of Giant Galapagos Tortoises PNAS 11/9/99
- New Twist on Origin of Human Species PhysOrg.com 5/17/06
| "Biology is applied chemistry." - Anon. |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- How an Evaporative Cooler Works California Energy Commission 2006
- How lizards walk on water BBC News 11/24/04
- Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense Quackwatch 1/11/09
| "I am not fat, I am lipid." - the walrus |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Gigantic Spider Webs Made of Silk Tougher Than Kevlar Wired.com 9/20/10
- Sixty percent of adults can't digest milk USATODAY 9/15/09
- History of starching fabric OldandInteresting 7/21/10
- Chitin From Lobster Shell Shows Great Healing And Bio-Stimulant Properties ScienceDaily 7/16/07
- State bans trans fats Los Angeles Times 7/26/08
| "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate." - Anon. |
Additional thoughts/exercises
- How many cells do you have (and how long are they)?
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- What's that stuff? soap bubbles Chemical & Engineering News 4/28/03
- Mitochondrial Inheritance Genetic Drift Winter/94
- 'Mitochondrial Eve': Mother of All Humans Lived 200,000 Years Ago ScienceDaily 8/17/10
- Reverse Osmosis Moves Forward. Environmental Health Perspectives Jan 2005
| "If you think things are a mess now, just wait." - Optimist view of second law of thermodynamics |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Enzyme Cleaners Eliminate Cat Urine Odor ArticleCity 8/27/05
- Phosphodiesterase Inhibitors Richard E. Klabunde, PhD 2/06/10
- Thermostable DNA Polymerases Colorado State University 12/27/99
- The use of enzymes in detergents London South Bank University 12/20/04
- What is Meat? Exploratorium
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Spinach Power Adds Muscle to Batteries New York Times 11/11/04
- A Prayerbook's Secret: Archimedes Lies Beneath NPR 7/27/06
- Cellulosic ethanol output could explode Reuters 1/9/09
- Flower power makes tropics cooler, wetter University of Chicago 6/16/10
- Plant Pigments Paint a Rainbow of Antioxidants USDA 1/22/07
- Why Are Flamingos Pink? webexhibits.org
| "When you breathe, you respire. When you do not breathe, you expire." - Anon. |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- An Introduction to Probiotics National Institutes of Health Aug 2008
- New Risks for Nexium and Other Proton Pump Inhibitors Wall Street Journal 5/11/10
- Corn Plastic to the Rescue Smithsonian Magazine August/06
- How to Use Glycogen Loading to Avoid Getting Fat or Flat Ori Hofmekler
| "Biology is the only science where division means the same thing as multiplication." - Anon. |
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Proto-Oncogenes and Normal Cell Growth National Cancer Institute 09/01/06
- Brain cell regeneration sniffed out in adult humans New Scientist 2/15/07
- Ghost heart has a tiny beat Nature News 1/13/08
| "Polyploidy is everywhere." - Scott Jackson |
Additional thoughts/exercises
- How many times have your cells divided to reach 100 trillion?
Supplementary videos
- Geometry in nature: fractals and Fibonacci rabbits
- Polyploidy everywhere 3:00-4:40 sugar cane, banana, cotton, cacoa, wheat, strawberry; oysters
- Evolution of Y chromosome: adventures of crossing-over
- Genetic recombination in flu virus (Note: no crossing over)
Extra credit readings
- 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology: In Vitro Fertilization Scientific American 10/4/10
- Seedless Watermelon University of Arkansas 8/29/03
- Are Males Genetically Doomed? Futurist Mar/Apr 05
- The XX Brain and the XY Brain Psychiatric Times Aug 05
Supplementary videos
- How many carpels does a banana have? (a pea has one)
- Blood groups and blood compatibility
- Calico cat and X inactivation (random deactivation of an X chromosome)
Extra credit readings
- The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana Damn Interesting, 8/24/09
- Baby Mix-Up Times Online 10/10/07
- The Effect of Female Hormone Fluctuations on the Incidence of Trisomy in Humans FGCU 98
- A Sweet Remedy for Huntington's? New Scientist 1/21/04
| "Biology has at least 50 more interesting years." - James Watson |
Additional thoughts/exercises
- Photo 51: interpreting the X-ray diffraction
- How much DNA do you have?
- How many mutations do your cells have?
- Base substitution mutation mechanism: tautomeric shift
Supplementary videos
- Rosalind Franklin: the "dark lady"
- Topoisomerase: the knotty problem of unwinding a double helix
- DNA replication animation: DNA polymerase acts as a dimer
- DNA replication animation: 3-D view
- Proofreading of DNA polymerase corrects replication errors
- Telomeres and telomerase: replication problem of linear DNA
- A mutation story: why can dogs synthesize vitamin C, but not humans?
- Chromosome mutations: translocation & Inversion
- Jumping genes: the perfect parasite?
Extra credit readings
- 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Telomeres Scientific American 12/5/09
- Telomerase's New Talent Science Now 8/17/05
- 'Jumping Genes' Create Diversity In Human Brain Cells ScienceDaily 8/6/09
- Sleeping Beauty Plays a Significant Role in Identifying Cancer Genes National Cancer Institute 7/13/05
| "The gene is dead; long live the gene." - Jerry A. Coyne |
Supplementary videos
- Reverse transcriptase: making DNA from RNA
- Transcription animation
- Eukaryotic Transcription: RNA Polymerase and friends at the TATA box
- RNA can fold like a protein and act as a catalyst
- Translation animation
Extra credit readings
- The Sea Change That's Challenging Biology's Central Dogma Discover Magazine 11/3/09
- Ribozymes & the RNA World Exploring Life's Origins
| "Madam, I'm Adam." - Adam (to Eve) |
Additional thoughts/exercises
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Mosquito with glowing gonads to help battle malaria Science News 10/10/05
- Glow in the dark pigs BBC News 1/12/06
- Roundup Ready Corn Versus Roundup Ready Weeds U of Illinois extension 2/13/06
- Ear today, gone tomorrow? USA Today 6/19/03
- Eating plants with animal genes does not make you a carnivore. Reason Magazine 11/27/02
Supplementary videos
- Sanger sequencing of DNA
- Repetitive DNA: LINEs, SINEs, and ALUs (transposons); whales and hippos, oh my
- Chromosome 11 Flyover: see how little actually encodes protein
- Eating Fugu: the pufferfish
- Platypus genome: evolution of monotremes 180 MYA
- Evolution of Cytochrome C gene (on Chromosome: 7)
- Doggy genes and human diseases
- Making a DNA microarray like a computer chip
- Personal DNA testing: 4:30 - 10:30 What are your genetic risk factors?
Extra credit readings
- Judge Invalidates Human Gene Patent New York Times 3/29/10
- How Alu Jumps Dolan DNA Learning Center
- Genome analysis of the platypus reveals unique signatures of evolution Nature 5/8/08
- Evolution's human and chimp twist BBC News 5/18/06
- Spot Your Genes - An Overview Of The Microarray Science Creative Quarterly August 04
Additional thoughts/exercises
Supplementary videos
- Therapeutic cloning I : nuclear transfer
- Therapeutic cloning II : making a blastocyst
- Therapeutic cloning III : blastocyst development
- Therapeutic cloning IV : growing stem cells
- Epigenetic inheritance (you are what your grandmother ate) 3:00-7:10 agouti mice and epigenome
- Stem Cells Breakthrough 5:30-10:30 IPS cells from skin
- Gene therapy treatment for immune disorder: 1990
Extra credit readings
- Dolly Was Lucky Science News 01
- Cloning world's first copy-cat NewScientist 2/15/02
- Induced pluripotent stem cells retain an inactive X chromosome UCLA 9/08/10
- Milestone In The Regeneration Of Brain Cells ScienceDaily 8/22/07
- Cancer risk clouds miracle gene cures New Scientist 3/15/03
- Adenovirus Tamed To Destroy Cancer Cells ScienceDaily 5/25/09
Supplementary videos
- Scarlet Hawaiian Honeycreeper calling
- Evolution of the Peppered Moth: natural selection driven by air pollution (What Darwin Didn't Know)
- How the giraffe got its neck: Lamarck's acquired characteristics theory (0:00-2:00 What Darwin Didn't Know)
- Whales and hippos, oh my: DNA and fossil evidence (0:00-3:00 What Darwin Didn't Know)
- Whales and hippos, oh my: show me the intermediate fossils (University of Nebraska State Museum)
- Analogous bird beaks: convergent evolution
- Homologous structures: Hox gene in embryos (0:00-3:20 What Darwin Didn't Know)
Extra credit readings
- Survival of the Weak and Scrawny Newsweek 1/12/09
- Updating Evolution Evidence - The Peppered Moth The Naked Scientists June 2008
- Ancient Walking Whales National Geographic News 9/19/01
Additional thoughts/exercises
Supplementary videos
- What is a Robin? What is an American Robin doing in London? (Mary Poppins)
- Sea lamprey: Great Lakes invasive species
- A "bipedal" lizard that can walk on water
- Cyanobacteria: "algal" blooms
- Algae to produce hydrogen fuel 20:15-25:00 (Hydrogen Hopes)
- Algae to produce biofuel (CNN)
- Coral endosymbiosis: they like it warm - well, not TOO warm
Extra credit readings
- Birds that make teeth EurekAlert 2/21/06
- Algae: Biofuel Of The Future? ScienceDaily 8/19/08
- Pond Scum Biodiesel Biodiesel 2/3/07
- Purple Bacteria Best for Harvesting Solar Energy ScienceDaily 5/5/10
Supplementary videos
- HIV life cycle: reverse transcriptase, integrase, protease (44 MB)
- HIV treatment: AZT blocks reverse transcriptase
- HIV treatment: Ritonavir protease inhibitor
- Endogenous retroviruses: life cycle and ancestral implications
Extra credit readings
- Herpes Virus Used As Nanomachines For Cancer Treatment ScienceDaily ScienceDaily
- Influenza virus RNA genome Virology Blog 5/1/09
- RNA virus replication strategies University of South Carolina 4/26/10
- Hunting Fossil Viruses in Human DNA New York Times 1/11/10
- Endogenous retroviruses Retrovirology 10/3/06
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Social hierarchies: Size and growth modification in clownfish Nature 7/10/03
- Mouth-brooding frog is Species of the Day! Zoological Society of London 4/12/10
- Indonesia's birth control pill for men GlobalPost 2/27/11
- What Fixes Low Testosterone Best: Meds or Porn? Newsweek 5/20/09
- In Ducks, War of the Sexes Plays Out in the Evolution of Genitalia New York Times 5/1/07
- Study links estrogen exposure to fish kills, disease Greenwire 6/4/09
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- Parasite Infection May Benefit Multiple Sclerosis Patients ScienceDaily 1/18/07
- Magnificent anemone [Heteractis magnifica] wildsingapore Jan 09
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- NZ flatulence tax outrages farmers BBC News 6/20/03
- Cow Power Could Generate Electricity For Millions ScienceDaily 7/25/08
- Dishes Still Dirty? Blame Phosphate-Free Detergent NPR 12/15/10
- Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' to grow dramatically Mother Nature Network 9/16/09
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- As Autumn Approaches, This Chickadee's Brain Begins To Expand ScienceDaily 9/12/03
- Looks Matter Science News 10/1/05
- Why katydid girls fight over boys CBC News 10/7/11
- Waggle Dance Controversy Resolved By Radar ScienceDaily 5/12/05
- Oxytocin increases trust in humans Nature 6/2/05
- Pill Users Choose 'Wrong' Sex Partners WebMD 8/12/08
Additional thoughts/exercises
Supplementary videos
Extra credit readings
- The Story of the Stephens Island Wren BBC 6/2/06
- Shipwreck Rat Fears For St Kilda Birds Scottish Daily Record 2/2/08
- Trapped like vermin Times Online, UK 2/9/08
- Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site dropped Times Online 2/3/10
- Gribble could hold key to biofuel breakthrough Daily Mail 3/10/10
