Lab Out Loud®

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Griff Jones

Griff Jones is an award-winning science teacher plucked from teaching high school to work with UFTeach – a program with the University of Florida designed to increase the quantity and quality of secondary mathematics and science teachers.  Griff was also selected to work with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to make two videos about understanding the science behind car crashes: Understanding Car Crashes: When Physics Meets Biology & Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics.  Griff talks to us about the videos, the IIHS, and their many resources for science teachers.

Make sure to visit Griff and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety at the 2010 NSTA Conference on Science Education in Philadephia.

Links:

• (IIHS) Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
• IIHS Vehicle Ratings
• IIHS Videos: “Understanding Car Crashes: When Physics Meets Biology” & “Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics”
• 50th Anniversary crash test video: 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air & 2009 Chevrolet Malibu
• 2010 NSTA Conference on Science Education in Philadephia
• UFTeach
• Griff Jones – UFTeach Biography (pdf)
• Griff Jones – Products from Science Kit
• ‘Galileo’ Subs for Instructor in UFTeach Lab
• UF Today: Two former high school teachers show their college students how to teach math and science. The first lesson is to have fun

From Paul G. Hewitt, the developer of the “Conceptual Physics” curriculum and author of the best selling text book by the same name: “The video “Understanding Car Crashes: It’s Basic Physics” and accompanying teacher’s guide are wonderful. The pacing is excellent, the coverage fascinating, and most importantly, the physics is correct. It’s a first rate teaching package. I give it five stars!” (www.iihs.org/videos/default.html)

Direct download: LOL44.mp3

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Nicholas Wade

This week we talk with Nicholas Wade, author and science writer for the New York Times.  Nicholas talks with us about his new book (The Faith Instinct), recent science breakthroughs and what to expect in the coming year.

Links:

• Articles by Nicholas Wade from the NY Times
• nicholas-wade.com
  
• Wikipedia Entry on Nicholas Wade
• The Faith Instinct (on Amazon.com)
• Before the Dawn (on Amazon.com)
• An Interview with Nicholas Wade from PLoS Genetics
• An Interview with Nicholas Wade from the Scientist
• Listen to our Interview with Nicholas Wade about his book “Before the Dawn” (from our previous podcast: Periodicity)
• See Nicholas Wade on The Colbert Report

Direct download: LOL41.mp3

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Sean Carroll (physicist) and Sean B. Carroll (biologist) talk to us about their respective science fields, science education and being Sean Carroll.  (NOTE: Scientists displayed below in alphabetical order)

Links:

• “Sean” data from Wolfram Alpha
• “Sean Carroll” Google Search
• Sean Carroll on Google News

Sean B Carroll

Sean B. Carroll (biologist)

• seanbcarroll.com
• Sean B. Carroll’s Lab
• About Sean B. Carroll
• HHMI Investigator Bio
• Remarkable Creatures – NY Times Column
• The Science of Evolution (video from the New York Times)
• What Darwin Never Knew (PBS)
• “Year of Darwin” You Tube Video
• Lecture Video from Q2C Festival
• Sean B Carroll at Scientific Commons
• Sean B Carroll Author Page at Amazon.com
• Lab Out Loud, Episode 2: Sean B. Carroll
• Lab Out Loud, Episode 26: Stories of Evolution
• Sean B. Carroll on Resurrecting the Extinct
  (60 Minutes – 01/10/10)

Sean M Carroll

Sean M Carroll (physicist)

• Preposterous Universe
• About Sean Carroll
• Sean M Carroll at Caltech
• Sean M Carroll (Wikipedia Entry)
• Blog / Cosmic Variance (Discover Magazine)
• Upcoming Book: From Eternity to Here
• Textbook: Spacetime and Geometry
• Lecture Video from Q2C Festival
• Lecture Notes on General Relativity
• Cosmology Primer
• Video Lecture on DVD: Dark Matter, Dark Energy
• Sean M Carroll at Scientific Commons
• Sean M Carroll Author Page at Amazon.com

Direct download: LOL40.mp3

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Dr. Bonnie Bassler

With the upcoming 2009 HHMI Holiday Lecture on Science in December (Exploring Biodiversity), we decided to talk with one of the presenters – Dr. Bonnie Bassler.  The focus of Dr. Bassler’s research is on how bacteria communicate with each other in a process called quorum sensing.  This research has earned her a MacArthur fellowship in 2002, and her work is being carefully watched for the development of new antimicrobial drugs.  Dr. Bassler inspires us with her curiosity, her research, and science education.

Links:

• Profile from the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
• The Bassler Lab at Princeton
• Wikipedia Entry
• HHMI Investigator Bio
• 2009 HHMI Holiday Lectures on Science: Exploring Biodiversity
• Request Past HHMI Holiday Lectures on DVD
• TED Talks Video, Profile
• NOVA Science Now Profile & Video
• NPR All Things Considered: A Biologist’s Listening Guide to Bacteria
• Review: “The languages of bacteria” (Genes & Development)
• iBioSeminars: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria
• Wikipedia entry for Lewis Thomas
• Appleton College Avenue Bridge Opens

Direct download: LOL36.mp3

It was early spring of 1998 and I was student teaching in a 7th grade Life Science class. Now, I’m not a biology person – not certified to teacher it at all – but here I was trying to teach kids about the parts of the cell to the tune of Gilligan’s Island. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

The nucleus is the control center,
the ribosomes make proteins
The endoplasmic reticulum,
is the cell’s transport system

The lysosomes are the clean-up crew,
they break down the cell’s waste,
The mitochondria are powerhouses,
they make the cell’s energy
they make the cell’s energy

Vacuoles are storage tanks,
the cell membrane lets things in and out
These parts float in the cytoplasm,
it’s a jelly-like material
—— a jelly-like material

These were the parts of an animal cell,
plants have a few things different,
There’s a cell wall—– for their support,
They have chloroplast—– to make food,
no lysosomes,
usually one vacuole and it’s real large,
In a plant cell

Not only did I write the song but I also recorded myself singing it. Here is the oldest audio recording of me ever posted online. (I think my voice even had more hair back then.)

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Download the audio directly: gilliganscell.mp3

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Dr. Mike Heithaus

Our guest this week is Dr. Mike Heithaus.  Dr. Heithaus is the director of the Marine Sciences Program at Florida International University in Miami.  He has also worked with National Geographic’s Crittercam, and you might recognize his name as the author of Holt Biology (the cheetah book).

Dr. Heithaus talks to us about his research, his interest in science, and how there’s more science than you might realize in marine science.

• Mike Heithaus Homepage
• Biography from FIU
• FIU Marine Sciences
• Heithaus Lab Research
• Shark Bay Ecosystem Research Project
• National Geographic Crittercam Home
• Crittercam Biography
• Interview for Crittercam
• Video from the Discovery Channel: Great White Down Under: Tiger Tagging
• Article in Oberlin Alumni Magazine
• Interview with SEEDS
  

Direct download: LOL30.mp3

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Dr. Jeffrey Kahn

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Kahn reminds us of the importance of ethics in science – from the classroom to public policy.

Ethics Resources:
Bioethics.net
Kennedy Institute of Ethics
High School Bioethics Curriculum Project
Bioethics in the News (Google News)

Molly Nash Case:
The Nash Family: Breaking New Ground in Medicine
Making Lives to Save Lives by Dr. Jeffrey Kahn
Genetic Testing of Embryoes Raises Ethical Questions (CNN)
Genetic Selection Gives Girl a Brother and a Second Change (CNN)
Designer Babies from Salon.com
Adam’s Gift from People.com
A Design for Life (BBC)

This episode is sponsored by Frey Scientific

Frey Scientific has offered science educators quality science products and dependable service for nearly 50 years. Working with leading educators and manufacturers, Frey provides the required equipment and supplies for your science classrooms and laboratories, as well as being leaders in Lab Planning and Renovation. Frey Scientific is part of the School Specialty family of science companies that includes Neo/SCI, Delta Education, and CPO Science.

School Specialty Science: Helping educators engage and inspire students of all ages and abilities to learn. To learn more, visit www.freyscientific.com.

Direct download: LOL19.mp3

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Dr. Eugenie Scott

In response to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, we decided to talk with someone who has invested her life defending evolution. Dr. Eugenie Scott, Director for the National Center for Science Education, talks to us about the movie, the NCSE response, and the place of evolution in science education.

• National Center for Science Education
• Expelled Exposed: Flunked, Not Expelled – What Ben Stein isn’t telling you about Intelligent Design
• Ben Stein: “Science Leads you to Killing People”
• Doonesbury Comic regarding medicine and Intelligent Design
• The Post-Crescent: It’s Your Call

• PZ Myers (Pharyngula) gets expelled from Expelled
• Boston Globe: No Intelligence Allowed in ‘Expelled’
• Scientific American: Expelled Explained
• Expelled Producers Accused of Copyright Infringement

Direct download: nstalol15.mp3

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Nature Magazine

On this week’s episode, we talk with Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov. Dr. Mitalipov is an Assistant Scientist and a Co-Director of the Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Embryonic Stem Cell Core Laboratory at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University. We talk with Dr. Mitalipov about his recent breakthrough in cloning monkey embryos and the scientific methods that got him there.

• Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007 (see #9)
• Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell nuclear transfer (Nature)
• Scientists Use Monkey Clones to Extract Stem Cells (NY Times)
• Researchers Clone Monkeys for Stem Cells (Reuters)
• Stem-Cell Researchers Clone Monkey Embryo (NPR)
• Scientists claim to clone monkey embryos (MSNBC)
• Scientists Claim to Clone Monkey Embryos (ABC News)
• Scientists Claim to Clone Monkey Embryos (CBC)
• Oregon Scientists Say They’ve Cloned First Primate and Generated Stem Cells (Wired Blog Network)
• If Cloning Humans is Wrong, So Is Cloning Monkeys (Wired Blog Network)

Direct download: nsta_lol7.mp3

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DNA Fingerprint

Professor Sir Alec Jeffries talks to us about the discovery of DNA fingerprinting, its uses/abuses and its impact on society.

Preview from the Show:

I’ve been called the father of DNA fingerprinting – I think grandfather is more appropriate. So basically the baby has grown up and spawned its own offspring – so I’m now granddad – and they are thriving. …But obviously I keep a very, very great interest in watching… just how it’s being used, and indeed, on occasion how it’s being misused, or potentially misused. And on that point, I will certainly stand up and raise these issues.

BARTEL: Can you tell us a little bit about how you discovered the technology?
By glorious accident. The last thing on my mind in the lead up work to developing that first DNA fingerprint was any thought of forensic investigation.

[Later]: I went back that evening to my home and sat down with my wife Sue – very excited – and said, look this is what we’ve come up with; I think we can use it for this, that, and the other. And she said “yeah – that’s great, but you’ve forgotten one thing.” I said “what’s that”, and she said “immigration disputes.”…And at that point, I remember my blood running cold. Because I suddenly thought “immigration – that is seriously political; this not science anymore. This is getting dangerously into the world of politics.” But as history would have it, the very first case was an immigration dispute, and the first application was in immigration.

First, DNA fingerprinting wouldn’t have happened without basic blue skies research; it came out of nowhere – it was unpredictable. And secondly, science is a lot of fun. Without that sense of fun, I wouldn’t have come up with this either. I think those are two important messages for the policy makers, but certainly for the young people of today – tomorrow’s future scientists.

Links:

• Professor Sir Alec Jeffries, University of Leicester
• The Gene Genius (publication from the University of Leicester)
• Sir Alec Jeffries entry on Wikipedia
• Discovering DNA Fingerprinting from the Wellcome Trust
• Pioneering DNA Forensics (from NPR)
• Privacy Fears Over DNA (article from BBC News)
• The Informer in your Blood (article from The First Post)

Direct download: nsta_lol5.mp3