…and this is a 
Developmental Biology 4181: Week 2
Category: Development • Science • db4181
Posted on: September 12, 2006 7:21 PM, by PZ Myers
This week, my students are thinking about SIDS, aging, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, oncogenes, hunger, individuality, worm movies, obesity, sunscreen, and whether to divide or die. A fairly typical set of undergraduate concerns, right?
They've all also been reading chapters 3 and 4 of Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful, and their summaries are here: α, β, γ, δ, ε, and ζ.
If you missed it, here's Last week's digest and a brief explanation of what it's all about.
Comments
To be a scientist in this day & age is to know how to type greek letters into a computer.
Posted by: dcb | September 12, 2006 10:56 PM
My DevBio class just covered inducers, responders, paracrine/juxtaposed/autocrine pathways (wnt, notch, hedgehog, etc.), and differential gene expression. It's our 2nd week, too. Interesting how profs differ in topic and what the assignments are; my class will be forming groups and doing paper research and class presentations/debates on stem cells.
Posted by: Jenna | September 13, 2006 12:14 AM
Thanks. I enjoy the opportunity to sit in on your students' work.
Posted by: Kaethe | September 13, 2006 8:49 AM
I am so jealous of your students.
Posted by: Kate Lee | September 13, 2006 8:53 AM
When will your students think about mitochondrial bioenergetics?
"Teachers and critics
All dance the poot"
Good course and Devo anyway. :)
Posted by: Attila Csordas | September 13, 2006 8:59 AM
Perhaps a little tedious.
Posted by: Ian Menzies | September 13, 2006 9:22 AM
I was very disappointed to read the following:
This statement is not only incorrect, it misses the point. Shame upon Nusslein-Volhard.
Posted by: Caledonian | September 13, 2006 9:56 AM
Greek letters are easy generally (any good symbol font, or a font that supports unicode, has them). Greek letters with all the ancient-style diacritical marks and accents is often extremely annoying.
PZ: Speaking of entering things, do your students have facilities to submit drawings to the course web page? All the bioscience courses I've done have been big on drawings ...
Posted by: Keith Douglas | September 13, 2006 4:34 PM