Scientific Speculation

Many students feel biology is just a bunch of facts to be memorized. We've worked hard at College Prep to change that sort of thinking (although there are a lot of facts to know). Here's an interesting blog by Olivia Judson from the NY Times - License to Wonder - Since we've been studying DNA, Judson's comments about Rosalind Franklin are especially timely- any comments?

Snoopy! Help is available!

Here's a little article that might help out Snoopy! What do you think?!
Amazing the things you can learn in biology at College Prep!!!

Building a Better Leaf

At UC Berkeley, scientists studying how to feed our growing need for energy have turned to a surprising source. As Lauren Sommer reports, researchers there are trying to produce the next generation of green power by mimicking something every weekend gardener works to clean up.

This is a super cool application of what we learned last quarter about photosynthesis. Check it out!!

Car maker develops its own flower species

Toyota has created a new plant species designed to offset the CO2 created by its Prius assembly operations. By RICHARD BLACKBURN.

Read about it HERE

What do you think these plants are doing to use MORE CO2?

Do you think we should be planting these all over high-polluting cities?

What do you think about what these engineers have done?

A Singing Professor Espousing the Joys of Photosynthesis

I found a sort of silly, but actually very well done, YouTube video on Photosynthesis...some of you might find it a nice change of pace to the computer-generated drone of the textbook animation. It's a bit long, but you can watch it in segments. Enjoy!

I also posted the links to a few other teacher-approved videos in the sidebar. If you find any others that you think are good, send them to me or one of the other bio teachers and we can post them for others to see!

What the heck is that?!

Just when you thought you knew everything about cell organelles it turns out scientists are still studying them and winning Nobel Prizes to boot! Check out the article: Nobel Prize for Ribosomes

This just in from Edgar!

Before Lucy came Ardi
Since we began the year discussing evolution a new human ancestor even older than "Lucy" has been discovered in Ethiopia - meet "Ardi!"