Category Archives: IBDP Biology
The End of AIDS?
World AIDS Day is almost upon us again: 1st December. This video was tweeted by @StephenFry today – give it a look over to see how ARV drugs may be used in prevention as well as treatment.
[vimeo 32317889]To find out more, visit the End to AIDS website, where you can also read a history of World AIDS Day.
Science Stunts for Parties
Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and author of Quirkology, the Curious Science of Everyday Lives. He also has a YouTube channel loaded with illusions and tricks. As dinner-party season approaches, here are some collections of little science tricks to impress your granny. Be careful with flames.
Movember 2011 – sponsorship links
It’s Mo-vember again and the facial foliage is taking shape. It also just happens to be mid-way through right after the November 2011 session Biology exams. A perfect time to launch an appeal for sponsorship from teachers and students who have used this site in their studies.
My MoVember page
Movember is simple – grow a mo’ for the month of Movember to raise money and awareness of oft-ignored men’s health issues, such as testicular cancer, prostate cancer and depression.
November sessioners (and others), here is a chance to pay it forwards by giving to something seasonal and topical: please make a donation at my MoSpace page! Please get on board or show your support for all the free resources posted here by making a small donation.
In other appeals so far, i-Biology has raised around GBP300 for various charities through my Biology4Good donations page.
Here’s a curriculum link for good measure: 2.5 Cell Division (tumours and cancer).
Mo yeah.
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Movember videos:
First up – some of the real impacts made by Movember fundraising – with real science.
And here are the rules of Movember:
Command Terms and Drawing Skills
My class need to review the definitions and the way we approach some of these command terms, so here is the Command Terms presentation as a reminder. November sessioners – your exam is in one week! Maybe these resources will help.
Get practicing with those calculators, too.
Using your IB Bio GoogleSite
This is for my IB Bio SL class: keep the site updated using these tips:
(Go fullscreen and HD)
Hans Rosling’s Joy of Stats
Now available in full, this one-hour documentary is on Hans Rosling’s GapMinder website.
A brilliant, visual and entertaining view of 1.1 Statistical Analysis, using real datasets and graphics to highlight statistics, means, distributions, graphical representation, correlation and cause. It is most relevant to us from the start up to 37:30.
Here is a neat clip from the show when it aired on the BBC.
Jae Rhim Lee’s Mushroom Burial Suit
It’s Halloween!
In topic 5.1 we learn that energy flows… but nutrients recycle. We are made of organic molecules – nutrients. So why not truly go green?
Watch the TED talk below and think about how many connections across the course we can make so far.
I want one!
For more on how saprotrophs such as fungi can be harnessed to solve pollutant problems, check out Paul Stamet’s talk: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world.
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In other grisly news, a UK taxi-driver has donated his body to science – to become a mummy (in the ancient Egyptian sense).
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Mummy image courtesy of halloweenclipart.com.
The Language Gap – TOK, Language & Sciences
The Language Gap - Word with different meanings to scientists and the public. Click to open.
This GoogleDoc has been doing the rounds this week, based on an AGU article by Callan Bentley. It links well to the “Just a Theory?” Evolution lesson we had a few weeks back, where the basis of much confusion can be rooted in the different uses of a word within and without the scientific context.
Although not an exhaustive or authoritative list of terms, it could be a good discussion starter. It would be good to pick out some of the words we use in our class and compare what we think we know with the ‘public’ and ‘scientific’ definitions.
New posts now should appear on the facebook page and on twitter (@IBiologyStephen, #ibbio).
Imagine Science Film Festival
This visualisation of the role of breast stem cells was the winner of the award for Visual Science at this year’s Imagine Science Film Festival. Carl Zimmer was one of the judges and has posted more of the winning videos to his Discover blog.
For lots more quality visualisations, visit the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s YouTube channel.
The Imagine festival includes a $500 Budding Scientist award, open to High School students. Get working!
Here is a cute video called Do You Know What a Nano Is?
RSA Animate – The Divided Brain
I love these video clips. Here they animate Iain McGilchrist‘s RSA lecture on the nature of the divided brain.
The full talk is here:
i-Biology 