Author Archives: Stephen
HHMI Biointeractive: teach ahead of the textbook
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has produced some great, interactive resources for medicine and genetics, including a virtual ELISA test and a transgenic fly virtual lab. Go and have a look – there’re also plenty of animations, though even Flashcatcher can’t save them.
Download a worksheet for the ELISA here.
For a simple mock HIV test (using potassium iodide, lead nitrate and a bit of imaginitive labeling), visit the IB Biology Lab Bank
5,000 views and another Brainiac post
Thanks for the support.
Here are the Brainiacs looking at the differences between fat and thin people.
In these two clips, we can see the buoyant and thermal properties of lipids – ideal for the IBDP Bio statement on the properties of lipids.
The Theory of Everything?
Looks like the theory of etch-a-sketch*. I’m buggered if I understand it.
*or maybe Spirograph. Or that one with the colourful threads and the boards with holes in.
Hip-Hip-Hooray for DNA
I don’t know how sincere this is – it sounds like it might’ve been heavily influenced by Monty Python – but it’s catchy and I like it. Peter Weatherall has a few if these on YouTube, so go and have a look.
Another catchy one (this time about photosynthesis) after the jump.
Cell Respiration Animation – keeping it simple
Click here for a decent animation of the process of cellular respiration.
Earth: The Power of the Planet
Thanks to bogstandardcomp again for the idea for this one. Being out of the country, I miss a lot of the new shows.
The BBC series ‘Earth: The Power of the Planet’ looks like good craic. Scottish presenters always make things more interesting, I think (I’m not Scottish). This little clip of methane deposits throwing flames from ice is the only one I could find via google video so far. There are, however, more clips on the BBC Website.
Manky Mobiles
A nice news story about bacteria on cellphones. Must have been a slow week in Albuquerque.
ACD Labs: Chemsketch – free modelling software
It’s not really a video, but you can build molecular models and make them move around on the screen, so it just about qualifies. It takes a wee while to get used to, but is worth the effort.
Demo videos here. Manuals here.
DP Bio teachers can use it to satisfy the modeling software stipulation of the 4/PSOW form. Enjoy!
EDIT – there is a shareware ($24.95) gif to flv encoder available here. I haven’t found any free software that can convert gif animations to flv files, so if anyone can help out, please let us know.
I have put a simple Chemsketch tutorial on making and animating glycine (word 2007 doc and SMART Board notebook file) in the downloads box on the right of this blog.
EDIT AGAIN:
The joys of Chemsketch are almost limitless. Here is proof: 
Exploscience.com – Bangs on a Budget
Click on the link above to see a great collection of Chemistry demos on a budget. Must have been a lot of work, and the authors deserve the $24.95 for their ‘Bangs, Flashes and Explosions’ manual. I’ll be downloading one for Christmas…
Videos are wmv and quicktime, but right-clicks have been disabled – it looks like a DVD is on sale (maybe this comes with the lab manual? Not sure).
Thanks again to bogstandardcomp from the TES Boards for the link.
i-Biology 