Biology and biotechnology are increasingly ubiquitous and genome research will define the 21st century as the century of biology (Venter & Cohen, 2004). Comprehension of biology is needed to engage with major public policy issues and to make informed decisions (Barton & Uphadyay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2003; NRC, 2012; Walker, 2021).…

In this paper, we are interested in the notion of multiple ways of thinking, knowing and transforming life, namely an increasing capacity to intervene in "life" as a "molecular biopolitics," and the changing ways in which "life" can be understood computationally. We identify and speculate on the ways different ideas…

In this article, we begin to unpack the phenomenon of representational competence by exploring how arrow symbols are used in introductory biology textbook figures. Out of 1214 figures in an introductory biology textbook, 632 (52%) of them contained arrows that were used to represent many different concepts or processes. Analysis of these figures…

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to gain information from parents in the United States about their children with albinism. The article focuses on information and services related to medical care and low vision care. Methods: An online questionnaire was used to collect data, and parents had opportunities to submit additional information.…

A critical thinking assessment was used to compare biology students in a nonmajors course who participated in either a multisemester research program or in a one-semester lab study. Initially, it was thought the former would be more effective in promoting critical thinking improvement than the latter. Data from nine biology classes with pre- and…

Symptoms of anxiety and depression are commonly comorbid and partially share a genetic etiology. Mean levels of anxiety and depression increase over the transition to adolescence, particularly in girls, suggesting a possible role of pubertal development in the activation of underlying genetic risks. The current study examined how genetic and…

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a critical role in complex brain functions including decision-making, integration of emotional, and cognitive aspects in memory processing and memory consolidation. Because relatively little is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying its development, we quantified rat mPFC basal expression levels…

New skills may be learned by active experience (experiential learning or learning by doing) or by observation of others' experience (learning by observation). In general, learning by observation reduces the time and the attempts needed to learn complex actions and behaviors. The present research aimed to compare learning by observation and…

Shared reading is an engaging activity that can be used to facilitate communication between parents and their children. This is true for children with and without disabilities. The current study describes the communication that mothers used during shared reading with their daughters with Rett syndrome when reading unfamiliar books before and after…

Maternal experience of childhood abuse has been associated with offspring autism. To explore whether familial tendency towards autistic traits--presumably related to genetic predisposition--accounts for this association, we examined whether women who experienced childhood abuse were more likely to select mates with high levels of autistic traits,…

Purpose: Oxytocin and arginine vasopressin are associated with different aspects of the stress response. As stress is regarded as a risk factor for vocal symptoms, we wanted to explore the association between the oxytocin receptor gene ("OXTR") and arginine vasopressin 1A receptor gene ("AVPR1A") single-nucleotide polymorphisms…

To determine what knowledge of genetics is needed for decision-making on genetic-related issues, a consensus-reaching approach was used. An international group of 57 experts, involved in teaching, studying, or developing genetic education and communication or working with genetic applications in medicine, agriculture, or forensics, answered the…

CHARGE syndrome, although a low incidence condition, is now recognised as a leading cause of congenital deafblindness among genetic conditions. Anecdotal reporting has suggested that learners with CHARGE syndrome are distinct from the wider deafblind population. This study investigates the education of learners with CHARGE syndrome, while also…

Nonprotein coding dendritic BC1 RNA regulates translation of mRNAs in neurons. We examined two lines of BC1 knockout mice and report that loss of BC1 RNA exaggerates group I mGluR-stimulated LTD of the Schaffer collateral synapse, with one of the lines showing a much more enhanced DHPG-induced LTD than the other. When the animals were given the…

Learning to recognize a stimulus category requires experience with its many natural variations. However, the mechanisms that allow a category's sensorineural representation to be updated after experiencing new exemplars are not well understood, particularly at the molecular level. Here we investigate how a natural vocal category induces expression…