I have to admit, I love the Sasquatch DNA story. Growing up in British Columbia, I have a soft spot for the creature – and having someone claim to sequence the DNA added a genetic interest. Unfortunately, the sequencing results aren’t as clear cut as the authors claim. Last week, John Timmer wrote about some […]
Peek Into Science
Science is messy. Yet many students think science is a bunch of facts and/or experiments always work. I loved the #overlyhonestmethods hashtag because it gives a glimpse into the reality of experiments. In my jobs, I get to work with students starting their first science experiment. They are enthusiastic but also a bit intimidated. Not […]
Can high school students read primary research papers?
Reading scientific papers is difficult, especially when you are new to a field. At our program for high school students, Future Science Leaders, we are trying to give them useful tools for their future as scientists and innovators so reading primary research papers is an obvious choice. But how to do it? I don’t really […]
Adapted paper from students
As part of learning how to read primary research papers, students wrote the following adapted paper. The original paper is Sagiv et. al (2012) Prenatal Exposure to Mercury and Fish Consumption During Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder–Related Behavior in Children (PubMed – paywall). Note: the pieces of the paper are written by different groups with minimal edits so there may be […]
Scientific authorship
How do you decide who is an author on a paper? I teach in a course where medical students do some introductory research and they are thinking forward to publication. They were concerned about how to ensure some established faculty members got on the paper – and were flummoxed when I asked why those people […]
Scientific Papers as Movie Productions
Scientific papers are important and we encourage people to read the original source – but they can be boring. In fact, even our description of a paper seems dry and academic so I tried to come up with a new way to describe it. What if we used the parts of a movie to help […]
How do you date a pregnancy?
In the first case-based class of medical school, students are asked to answer a virtual patient’s question about the development of the fetus. These students are smart and they know all about betaHcG and are anxious to showcase their knowledge of the menstrual cycle with fluctuating levels of various hormones (FSH, progesterone, etc.). Yet one […]