Via biosingularity, four excellent short stem cell videos from YouTube. If you teach the stem cell topic, this could be quite useful to you in class! The portrayal of the morula - blastocyst stages and the differences in gene expression in the early embryo is very effective, although you’ll have to define some of the terms (like “trophectodermal”) in advance to avoid glazed eyes.
Now that I think about it, are there any biology profs who don’t teach the stem cell topic? It must be pretty pervasive by now. Back in 2002, I had to create a class on stem cells from scratch, and it was considered somewhat “out there.” It was also hard to find accurate teaching materials that didn’t dumb it down obscenely. Fortunately, the political controversy on this topic and resulting hype have translated into better educational tools.
One of the four videos (head to Biosingularity for links to the other three):
Neurophilosophy does bioephemera the honor of a tag with the Thinking Blog meme! Ironically, I’ve been traveling for the past two weeks, and (since an hour’s work on a post about framing science disappeared irrevocably into the aether of unreliable hotel wi-fi) I haven’t posted much of anything, that would make anyone think!
So which blogs make me think? It’s hard to pick only five. Many (like Neurophilosophy) have already been tagged. Some high-volume blogs, like 3quarksdaily, make me think so hard it hurts - but should that be rewarded?
As far as I know, these blogs have not been tagged yet; apologies if they are. They’re also relatively manageable feeds - so you have time to think about each post without rushing. I think that’s a big plus.
