Uncertainty about ethics has been a major factor in societal rejection of biotechnology. Six factors help create a societal "perfect storm" regarding ethics and biotechnology: Social demand for ethical discussion; societal scientific illiteracy; poor social understanding of ethics; a "Gresham's Law for Ethics;" Scientific…

Clinical guidelines recommend chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) for all children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We explored the test's perceived usefulness among parents of children with ASD who had undergone CMA, and received a result categorized as pathogenic, variant of uncertain significance, or negative. Fifty-seven parents…

To promote rich discourse around scientific and engineering practices, teachers may turn to engineering design-based science curricula; however, this has discursive demands which have yet to be examined in a unit focused on integration of engineering and science. To investigate these discursive demands, we expand on the definition of discourse to…

The fruit fly ("Drosophila melanogaster") is an ideal subject for studying inheritance patterns, Mendel's laws, meiosis, Punnett squares, and other aspects of genetics. Much of what we know about genetics dates to evolutionary biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan's work with mutated fruit flies in the early 1900s. Many genetic laboratories…

The ability of students to understand the relationship between genotype and phenotype, and the mechanisms by which genotypes and phenotypes can change is essential for students studying genetics. To this end, we have developed a four-week laboratory called Blue Genes, which is designed to help novice students discriminate between two mechanisms by…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to clarify the prevalence, type, severity, and age-dependency of hearing loss in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Method: Extensive audiological measurements were conducted in 40 persons with proven 22q11.2 deletion (aged 6-36 years). Besides air and bone conduction thresholds in the frequency range between 0.125…

Epigenetics provides the opportunity to revolutionize our understanding of the role of genetics and the environment in explaining human behavior, although the use of epigenetics to study human behavior is just beginning. In this introduction, the authors present the basics of epigenetics in a way that is designed to make this exciting field…

The aim of this study was to disentangle pervasive from situational antisocial behaviors using multiple informants, and to investigate their genetic and environmental etiologies in preadolescence and across time. Antisocial behaviors were assessed in 2,232 twins from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study at ages 5 and 12.…

In recent decades, Science & Technology Studies (STS) have revealed the dynamic interaction between science and technology and society. Technology development is not an autonomous process and its artifacts are not socially inert. Society and technology shape each other. Technologies often have "soft impacts" in terms of unpredicted…

The accessibility of learning media is one of the determining factor of student skills in dealing with the 21st-century demands. This study aimed at developing the online-discussion-forum-based Gen-21cs application. This Design Development Research (DDR) used the Richey and Klein Model which comprised of six phases, namely, 1) identifying the…

With the ever-increasing push towards authentic learning within post-secondary institutions, many approaches are being explored. One such method with a particular focus on real-world applications has been the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition program. At the University of Calgary, the iGEM program sees teams of…

The study determined the effect of instructional scaffolding strategy on senior secondary school Biology Students' academic achievement and retention of concepts. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated for the study. Quasi-experimental research design involving pre-test, the post-test control group was employed. The population…

Family communication environments can be a facilitator or barrier to family cooperation and communication in collecting family health history (FHH) information, which can facilitate disease prevention. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of family communicative environments on whether individuals actively collected FHH information,…

The academic study of "race" varies from discipline to discipline. "Race" is placed in quotes in this instance because historically race was considered a biological category that denoted unalterable biological characteristics between races. There is a long intellectual history of documenting phenotypic differences between…

Process evaluations provide insight into the implementation of complex interventions. This study is a process evaluation for the implementation of a parent-led physical activity intervention at home with youth with a rare neurodevelopmental disorder (Prader-Willi syndrome, PWS) and youth with non-syndromal obesity (NSO). Participants included 42…