The HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology is a non-profit organization that opened it's doors in April, 2008. One of the great things about this institute is it's commitment to sharing biotech knowledge with the surrounding community.
For the general public, HudsonAlpha has a ongoing written series on biology topics called Biotech 101. Teachers will probably find this useful too. There's a great description of Copy Number Variation written by Dr. Neil Lamb, their director of ... Read more
Science education faculty don't get no respect
At least that's a strong conclusion from a paper in the December 19th issue of Science (1). According to the article almost 40% of the 59 science education specialists, surveyed in the California University system, were "seriously considering leaving" their current jobs and some (20%) were considering leaving the field entirely.
Why?
I just love this title! It's nerdy and cute, all at the same time.
I read about this in www.researchblogging.org and had to check out the paper and blog write up from The Beagle Project (BTW: some of you may be interested in knowing that The Beagle Project is not a blog about dogs.)
The paper describes a class where students from Marseilles University investigate the function of unidentified genes from a ... Read more
Why should professional scientists have all the fun?
Researchers have been engineering glowing cats, and selling glowing fish at pet stores. High school kids can do genetic engineering too, if ... Read more
Are you interested in global health?
The Washington Global Health Alliance is looking for an education professional, with a life science or science education background (BS or higher) to help train faculty and students at the high school level.
The complete announcement is below, the appointment would be at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute in the BioQuest program.
The Washington Global Health Alliance is pleased to announce the
commencement of the WGHA Ambassadors Program: a collaboration of leading
state global health institutions and four Washington State high schools ... Read more
ScienceBlogs and science bloggers, in general, have enthusiastically supported fund-raising efforts by DonorsChoose for the past two years, and we're doing it once again for 2008.
DonorsChoose works like this: teachers write descriptions of what they want and how they'll use it for teaching, and submit their proposals to DonorsChoose. We pick the projects we like and if you like them, too, you can help get these projects funded.
HealthMap is a great site that could be an excellent resource when teaching a biology, microbiology, or health class. Not to mention, I can picture people using it before they travel somewhere or even just for fun.
I learned about HealthMap awhile ago from Mike the Mad Biologist, but I didn't get time to play with the site until today.
Here's an example to see how it works.
How do I use HealthMap?
... Read more
One time, I suggested in a list-serve that science teachers make more use of primary scientific literature. Naturally, I learned all the reasons why teachers don't do this-lack of access being one of the biggies- but I also learned something surprising.
One teacher wrote that she re-writes a lot of research articles to make them easier for her students to read. I can understand that notion, in principle. My students struggle with scientific language, too, even those that have bachelor's degrees in biology.
What surprised me was thinking about the amount of time that activity ... Read more
Do mosquitoes get the mumps? Part V. A general method for finding interesting things in GenBank
This is the last in a five part series on an unexpected discovery of a paramyxovirus in mosquitoes and a general method for finding other interesting things.
In this last part, I discuss a general method for finding novel things in GenBank and how this kind of project could be a good sort of discovery, inquiry-based project for biology, microbiology, or bioinformatics students.
I. The back story ... Read more
Would you like to win a cash prize and maybe an expense paid trip to New York City?
If you're in grades 7-12 and like research, you might be interested in the 2009 Young Naturalist contest from the American Museum of Natural History.
Winners (2 from each grade) will receive cash awards, from $500 to $2,500, and an all-expense paid trip to New York City to attend the awards ceremony at the ... Read more
Researchers have been engineering 
If you're in grades 7-12 and like research, you might be interested in the 2009 Young Naturalist contest from the American Museum of Natural History.
Winners (2 from each grade) will receive cash awards, from $500 to $2,500, and an all-expense paid trip to New York City to attend the awards ceremony at the ...