Every week I am amazed at all of the applications and connections I can make between physics, chemistry and biology. I am convinced that all science education should be as integrative as the lessons provided in this course. My glossary term, micro-cantilevers, just blew my away. How this simple physics phenomenon is utilized by insects to increase their sensitivity to the environment. INGENIOUS!! The use of antibody-linked artificial carbon nanobube assemblies to fight cancer just turned me on!! For those of us AP Biology teachers who have to teach signal transduction cascades and cell communication, this is for you!! Engineers are looking to create sensors to nanorobots that bind to cancer cells via surface receptions to either deliver an anto-cancer drug or directly destroy the cell membrane.
Another topic from this week's lecture notes was the use of magnetoreception. I do a mini-unit on colloidal ferrofluids at the end of the year in my chemistry and AP Biology classes. This week's lecture notes on magnetoreception provided me some possible topics and extensions of this chemical phenomenon in the biological world. See the link to the article on birds and magnetic compasses below:
Another topic from this week's lecture notes was the use of magnetoreception. I do a mini-unit on colloidal ferrofluids at the end of the year in my chemistry and AP Biology classes. This week's lecture notes on magnetoreception provided me some possible topics and extensions of this chemical phenomenon in the biological world. See the link to the article on birds and magnetic compasses below:
I found an interesting you tube video on magnetoception. A grad student explains the correlation between the Earth's magnetic field and what a bird might see in response to this field (Towards the end of the video). I think this is an excellent reference one may use in their biology class that would tie in physical phenomena with animal behavior.
IF I were to sum up this week, I would say that this week provided affirmation that biology and physics are deeply intertwined. I found an introductory video to BIOPHYSCIS that I thought might be useful to help other students understand that biology is really interactions of molecules and physics controls those interactions. This unit really got me thinking about how I can tie in all science disciplines in my own instruction. This short video shows grad students attempting to explain bioophysics. The video reminded me of the lecture notes....molecules interacting, the motion of which can be sensed by an organism.