Category Archives: Biology

A biology professor has claimed that the mass trauma of Donald Trumps presidency will bring about permanent changes to the human genome. Peter Ward, an academic at the University of Washington, predicted an evolutionary consequence because of the stress Trumps term in the White House is causing the American population. He asserted that the process by which human genetics could change is analogous to post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers or the the victims of domestic abuse. The unconventional view came in a discussion of human capacity to mutate with the science blog (andGawker offshott)Gizmodo. Ward was one of seven academics asked to bring their expertise to bear on the question of whether and how X-Men-stylesuperhuman mutants could develop. After speculating about using gene therapy to develop super-soldiers, Ward went on to posit that permanent genetic changes canoccur as a result of horrendous episodes people go through. He was not asked about Trump, but brought him up as an example, alongside combat trauma and violence at home: Were finding more and more that, for instance, people who have gone through combat, or women who have been abusedwhen you have these horrendous episodes in life, it causes permanent change, which is then … Continue reading →

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is immune from having bad days because he is not a woman. Hollywood director Oliver Stones new Showtime documentary, The Putin Interviews, includes frank exchanges that are likely to upset women and LGBT activists, among others. The Russian fielded questions on both issues during a wide-ranging interview with Mr. Stone. I am not a woman, so I dont have bad days, Mr. Putin says at one point during a Kremlin tour, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday. I am not trying to insult anyone. Thats just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles. The four-part documentary also features a defense of Russias 2013 anti-gay propaganda laws aimed at protecting minors. Human Rights Watch described them at the time as profoundly discriminatory and dangerous. There are no restrictions whatsoever, the leader told Mr. Stone. When asked if he would ever take a shower in a submarine near a gay sailor, he laughed. Well, I prefer not to go to the shower with him. Why provoke him? But you know, Im a judo master, Mr. Putin said, Bloomberg reported. The Putin Interviews premieres on Showtime June 12-15 at 9 p.m. EST. See the original post here: … Continue reading →

What should we call the disturbing trend on American college campuses with students of the hard left angrily devouring their terrified and older liberal professors? No, they don't eat human flesh, but students of the hard left are devouring just the same, shutting down free speech and free inquiry, and targeting liberal professors for silencing and revenge for offering up liberal notions of equality. We've seen it at Yale with two liberal professors denounced as racists, shamed and driven off for daring to tell students there may be more important things to worry about than vetting Halloween costumes through the lens of racial identity politics. And we see it now at Evergreen State College, a left leaning school where Bret Weinstein, a professor of biology, is under siege for daring to suggest that racism, even when practiced by minorities, is no virtue. You can't truly study a thing until you call it what it is. So what to call it? Many haven't had the time, preoccupied instead with the low-hanging fruit of President Donald Trump's ridiculous Twitter account. I get it. Headline: Trump Tweets Stupid Things. His foolish social media tantrums reinforce his narcissism. They undercut his administration's policies. The … Continue reading →

June 7, 2017 by Peter Regg ETH researchers scrutinized the conceptual knowledge of Swiss high school graduates. Credit: Annie Champagne Queloz / ETH Zurich ETH biology lecturers have tested secondary school leavers and students to determine their knowledge of biological concepts. And they have drawn some sobering conclusions: many misunderstand the concepts, such as the importance of chance in biology. Now, the lecturers are taking action. In biology lessons, pupils learn a great deal of factual knowledge, but the underlying biological concepts of evolution, genetics and molecular interrelations are often forgotten or treated as marginal subjects. Secondary school pupils and students therefore often misunderstand these concepts if they understand them at all and it takes a great deal of effort and expense to correct these misconceptions at a later stage. These are the findings of a group of ETH researchers from the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, who recently published a study in the journal PLOS One. Targeted testing of conceptual knowledge Annie Queloz Champagne, a biology doctoral student, used a special questionnaire to test the conceptual knowledge of 475 secondary school pupils before their Matura (school-leaving examination). The pupils had to answer 24 questions, relating primarily to concepts of … Continue reading →

A legislative tie-up over biology... OLYMPIA, Wash. - A tie-up in the Washington State Legislature could delay diplomas for thousands of graduating high school seniors. Students are tested in several subjects before they graduate. (For full information, see the OSPI website.) Among the more major categories: Math, language arts, and biology. The first two have consistently been included as part of graduation requirement. The biology End of Course exam seems to be more challenging for students, and the legislature has gone back and forth on whether or not the test should be linked as a requirement. "There were a diversity of opinions in the legislature so what they decided to do was instead of stop it completely or just continue it they decided to suspend it, said Ben Rarick, the executive director of Washington's Board of Education. That suspension, enacted two years ago, has reached its expiration. Legislation has been introduced in both the state House and the Senate, but a cross-chamber compromise has yet to be reached. The legislature has a number of different issues on their plate, and I think some of us thought that they would be able to resolve this issue earlier in the spring, Rarick … Continue reading →

In a new video on her YouTube channel, Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik revealed that she does not get open relationships and polyamory, particularly when it comes to women. We arent biologically wired to be monogamous. Men especially, she admitted in the video, but then went on to suggest that while open relationships might seem to place men and women on equal scales, if you ask science, that isnt the case. She continued, The notion of men spreading their seed is kind of an over-simplified and misogynistic take on our species, and with open relationships, women too can spread their seed. Its liberating for women to be seen as equal sexual participants, rather than the object of mens whims. I get that, too. Heres what I dont get about open relationships, though: people in open relationships are exchanging one cultural construct for another that of equating male and female sexuality. But as a scientist, Im here to ruin everybodys good time and to tell you that the assumption that male and female sexuality can be treated pretty much the same is in direct opposition to our biology. It goes against millions of years of evolution. The male body produces … Continue reading →

Evergreen State College, the site of viral student protests over the past two weeks, offers multiple courses in its biology department that veer dramatically from the hard sciences,with themes like feminism, race and power. While the school offersmore traditional biology courses like General Biology and Anatomy and Physiology, it also hasclasses that provide more details about feminism and social movements than with the study of human or plant life. Evergreen State Colleges Biology Department will offer a course during the 2017 fall semester and 2018 spring semester entitled,Reproduction: Gender, Race, and Power. The course will provide students with an overview of human reproduction, but will pay attention to gender and race as vectors of power that affect how reproduction is discussed, legislated, and experienced in the United States. The course description claims that biology is shaped and defined by cultural norms. One of the primary goals of the course is to collectively dismantle the idea that women are defined as such by an innate reproductive capacity. To achieve this end, students will be required to read texts that address the experiences of trans and gender-nonconforming individuals, and discuss the ways in which contraception, abortion, forced sterilization, genetic testing, and other … Continue reading →

Plant scientists have issued two retractions after noticing several images had been duplicated within and across the papers. The papers both appeared in March 2002 in The Plant Cell and The Plant Journal. The last author on both papers Jonathan Jones, a professor and group leader at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK took responsibility for the duplications. He told us: As last author I was responsible for checking the papers but did not notice the similarities between figures in the different papers. I regret this and took action as soon as I realized there was an issue. Both papers went through peer review and the issue was not picked up at that point either. Susana Rivas, the first author on both papers, has collaborated with beleaguered plant scientistOliver Voinnet and was a second author on one of his eight retractions(which wecoveredhere). The editor-in-chief of TPJ Christoph Benning said that, after the authors contacted them, the journals looked into the issue, confirmed the duplications and then retracted the papers: The authors contacted TPJ and TPC at about the same time. TPJ and TPC launched independent investigations into the matter that led to the findings described in the two retraction notices. … Continue reading →

June 5, 2017 St. Marys University Biological Sciences Professor Colette Daubner, Ph.D., recently received a $29,985 grant from the National Science Foundation to further enhance the Universitys Biology curriculum. Starting in fall 2017, the grant will fund the implementation and assessment of a new laboratory curriculum, Daubner said. Daubner said the grant will help St. Marys students gain valuable scientific research experience early in their academic careers all while working on something original. Very often, undergraduate laboratories are designed to expose students to exercises that are known to work every time, she said. My curriculum is truly research-based. In the Biochemistry course funded by this grant, students pick a crystallized protein of unknown function to work on, and try to identify what its function is. The grant also will support teaching assistant salaries, computer software to analyze protein structures, and travel costs to attend conferences. Winston Erevelles, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Science, Engineering and Technology, said the grant is crucial to students because it will support training them on how to propose hypotheses, design experiments, analyze data, draw conclusions and communicate with other scientists. Erevelles also said resources from the grant will allow St. Marys students and faculty … Continue reading →

Mid-Atlantic Christian University anticipates its largest enrollment ever this coming academic year as it unveils its new biology major. John Maurice, who will serve as MACUs interim president after the departure of President Clay Perkins on June 30, said Friday the university could have its largest-ever full-time equivalency, or FTE, enrollment in 2017-18. Projections discussed at a recent meeting of MACU's Board of Trustees put the FTE around 195-205 and the actual head count of students around 210-220, according to Maurice. The projected record enrollment is especially heartening given that MACU's FTE this academic year dropped to 174 after the university last year enrolled only 40 percent of the applicants it accepted down from its typical acceptance rate of 60-65 percent. Maurice attributed the dip in enrollment this year to students who initially expressed an interest in the nursing program at MACU but then opted instead for schools that offered a bachelor of science degree in the discipline. The university's new bachelor of science degree in biology, which will debut in the fall, will likely account for about 21 percent of MACUs new enrollment, Maurice said. Students majoring in business administration will make up the largest percentage of MACUs enrollment … Continue reading →