Is an attenuated physiological response to family conflict, seen in some youth exposed to early adversity, protective or problematic? A longitudinal study including 54 youth (average age 15.2 years) found that those with higher cumulative family aggression exposure showed lower cortisol output during a laboratory-based conflict discussion with…

As research-based, active learning approaches become more common in biochemistry classrooms, the large lecture course remains the most challenging to transform. Here, we provide a case study demonstrating how process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) can be implemented in a large class taught in a traditional lecture hall. Course structure…

The use of lecture capture in higher education is becoming increasingly widespread, with many instructors now providing digital videos of lecture content that can be used by students as learning resources in a variety of ways, including to catch up on material after a class absence. Despite accumulating research regarding the relationship between…

This two-stage study focused on the undergraduate nursing course that covers topics in general, organic, and biological (GOB) chemistry. In the first stage, the central objective was to identify the main concepts of GOB chemistry relevant to the clinical practice of nursing. The collection of data was based on open-ended interviews of both nursing…

We present a multiweek laboratory exercise that exposes students to the fundamental techniques of bacterial expression and protein purification through the preparation of sperm whale myoglobin. Myoglobin, a robust oxygen-binding protein, contains a single heme that gives the protein a reddish color, making it an ideal subject for the teaching…

A loss in total body mass during an ultraendurance performance is usually attributed to dehydration. We identified the changes in total body mass, fat mass, skeletal muscle mass, and selected markers of hydration status in 31 male nonprofessional ultratriathletes participating in a Triple Iron triathlon involving 11.4 km swimming, 540 km cycling…

In the present study, we investigated the effect of a long-term mountain expedition on glucose tolerance and insulin action. Twelve registered mountaineers ages 31 years (SD = 1.1) participated in a 25-day expedition at a 2,200-3,800-m altitude with an average duration of 8 hr per day. Arterial oxygen saturation (SaO[subscript 2]) was…

Brewing beer provides a straightforward and robust laboratory counterpart to classroom discussions of fermentation, a staple of the biochemistry curriculum. An exercise is described that provides several connections between lecture and laboratory content. Students first extract fermentable carbohydrates from whole grains, then ferment these with…

The mathematical Lambert function W[a exp(a - bt)] is used to find integrated rate laws for several examples, including simple enzyme and Lindemann-Christiansen-Hinshelwood (LCH) unimolecular decay kinetics. The results derived here for the well-known LCH mechanism as well as for a dimer-monomer reaction mechanism appear to be novel. A nonlinear…

Teaching metabolism to a biochemistry class with diverse academic backgrounds is a challenging task. Often students lack the global perspective that is needed to understand how different metabolic pathways are reciprocally regulated. The classroom activity presented in this article is designed to facilitate the learning of metabolism by having the…

Diverse biological data may be used to create illustrations of molecules in their cellular context. I describe the scientific results that support a recent textbook illustration of a mitochondrion. The image magnifies a portion of the mitochondrion by one million times, showing the location and form of membranes and individual macromolecules,…

The objective of the termite experiment is to walk students through the process of designing and conducting an experiment while allowing them to use inquiry-based methods to infer why, in this lab, termites follow the line of blue Bic or Paper Mate brand ballpoint pens. This experiment also reinforces the concept of observation versus inference…

Microorganisms can be used to produce a variety of chemicals such as drugs, enzymes, and fuels from different sugars. Traditionally, these processes have involved a single feedstock, most often glucose. More recently, significant effort has been devoted towards developing processes that directly use plant-based material as the feedstock. One…

Serotonin is a fundamental neuromodulator in both vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems, with a suspected role in many human mental disorders. Yet, because of the complexity of serotonergic function, researchers have been unable to agree on a general theory. One function suggested for serotonin systems is the avoidance of threat. We propose…

Since the topic of the role of the kidneys in the regulation of acid base balance was last reviewed from a teaching perspective (Koeppen BM. Renal regulation of acid-base balance. Adv Physiol Educ 20: 132-141, 1998), our understanding of the specific membrane transporters involved in H+, HCO , and NH transport, and especially how these…