Biology resources for teachers

A team of marine biologists has published a paper describing a new method for determining the human impact on the oceans: blue whale earwax removal and analysis

Although this brain hemisphere hat is primarily intended for primary schools, it's designer, Ellen McHenry mentions that it has also been used successfully with College students. Click on the link for the free downloadable.

STOCKHOLM - Americans James Rothman and Randy Schekman and German-born researcher Thomas Suedhof won the 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries on how hormones, enzymes and other key substances are transported within cells.

This traffic control system keeps activities inside cells from descending into chaos and has helped researchers gain a better understanding of a range of diseases including diabetes and disorders affecting the immune system, the committee said.

Zoos may have to choose between keeping the animals we most want to see and saving the ones we may never see again.

" Dr. Terri Roth got into her scrubs, pinned her long brown hair up in a bun, and pulled on a clear plastic glove that stretched over her right forearm, past the elbow, and almost to her shoulder. Her 1,500-pound patient, a rhinoceros named Suci, was maneuvered into a narrow stall. While one of her colleagues fed Suci apple slices out of a pail, Roth pulled a second glove over the first and grabbed what looked like a video game remote. Then she stuck her arm deep into the rhino’s rectum."

Is personalized medicine for individual bodies in our future? Possibly -- with the use of stem cells, undifferentiated cells with the power to become any tissue in our bodies. Craig A. Kohn describes the role of these incredible, transforming cells and how scientists are harnessing their medical potential.

A Texas man was reportedly getting drunk from the microbes in his gut fermenting his meals.

So the team searched the man's belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

September 21 - Nearly 700 rhinos have been killed for their horns so far this year. And more than 200 suspected poachers have been arrested.

Johannesburg, September 13 -- Dressing dung beetles have earned a Wits University professor and his colleagues one of science's weirdest awards -- an Ig Nobel prize. The annual ceremony recognises innovative research that makes you think out the box.

Google has added the Galapagos Islands to Google Street View and is encouraging users to explore and document the plant and animal life there using the Darwin For a Day web app. All of the data collected through the Darwin For a Day website will be submitted to the iNaturalist community and the Charles Darwin Foundation to further research of the Galapagos Islands. For behind-the-scenes information on how Google captured the new Street View imagery, head over to Street View Treks: Galapagos Islands.

The carcass of a bizarre-looking creature that once spawned tales of sea monsters has been found by a snorkeler in a bay at Santa Catalina Island off Southern California.

The 18-foot-long oarfish was discovered Sunday afternoon by Jasmine Santana, a marine science instructor at the Catalina Island Marine Institute. The oarfish was dead but its slender, snake-like body was intact.

In his latest video, Henry Reich of MinuteEarth discusses candidates for the title of “The Biggest Organism on Earth.” If we’re talking weight, the biggest known organism is Pando, a clonal colony of a single quaking aspen tree that includes some 40,000 stems, weighs 6,600 short tons, and spans 106 acres in Utah.

Cape vultures in southern Africa are using expanding networks of pylons and power lines to extend their range, say scientists. The power lines also put the birds at risk for collision with overhead wires. (BBC) Use our resources to learn all about Cape vultures.

A man-made reservoir in Thailand has given biologists the opportunity to measure the speed of mammal extinctions and to watch them happen, quickly.

In 1987, the government of Thailand launched a huge, unplanned experiment. They built a dam across the Khlong Saeng river, creating a 60-square-mile reservoir. As the Chiew Larn reservoir rose, it drowned the river valley, transforming 150 forested hilltops into islands, each with its own isolated menagerie of wildlife.

Nearly 200 species of songbirds migrate south for winter, some traveling up to 7,000 miles. No easy task, the annual journey is dangerous to birds due to landscape change -- so much so, that only half the birds that migrate south will return home for spring. Alyssa Klavans details why bird migration is so taxing and how we can assist our chirping friends.

Vietnam, September 20 -- The war against poaching has the full support of a nation notorious for the use of rhino horn. Vietnamese officials have vowed to crack down on the illegal practice. They've returned home after a trip to South Africa, where they witnessed in person the effects of poaching.

Johannesburg, September 18 -- In a first for Africa, the entire human genome has been broken down and analysed on South African soil. It comes 10 years after the International Genome Project was completed. The genome contains all the body's hereditary information, including genes and DNA.

Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown of AsapSCIENCE look at the world of optical illusions in "Can You Trust Your Eyes?