In recent years, technological advances such as computers have been employed in teaching gross anatomy at all levels of education, even in professional schools such as medical and veterinary medical colleges. Benefits of computer based instructional tools for gross anatomy include the convenience of not having to physically view or dissect a…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of interactive multimedia simulations and virtual dissection software on depth of learning among students participating in biology and chemistry laboratory courses. By understanding more about how simulation and virtual dissection software changes depth of learning, educators will have the…

Research-based learning in a teaching environment is an effective way to help bring the excitement and experience of independent bench research to a large number of students. The program described here is the second of a two-semester biochemistry laboratory series. Here, students are empowered to design, execute and analyze their own experiments…

With some simple metal samples and common household liquids, teachers can build wet cell batteries and use them to teach students about batteries and how they work. In this article, the author offers information that is derived from some simple experiments he conducted in his basement workshop and can easily be applied in the classroom or lab. He…

An approximate scheme for obtaining the period of a simple pendulum for large-amplitude oscillations is analysed and discussed. When students express the exact frequency or the period of a simple pendulum as a function of the oscillation amplitude, and they are told to expand this function in a Taylor series, they always do so using the…

Western blot analysis, commonly known as "Western blotting," is a standard tool in every laboratory where proteins are analyzed. It involves the separation of polypeptides in polyacrylamide gels followed by the electrophoretic transfer of the separated polypeptides onto a nitrocellulose or polyvinylidene fluoride membrane. A replica of the…

In 1970, deposition of fly ash from a coal burning power plant in downtown Peoria produced minor damage in the vicinity of its smokestack, including runs in ladies nylon stockings. In this article, we review the historical event and discuss the chemistry behind the depolymerization of the nylon, as well as laboratory experiments demonstrating how…

Current undergraduate medical curricula provides relatively little time for cadaver dissection. The Department of Human Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Padova has organized a pilot project with the University Hospital for the donation of body parts that are surgically removed for therapeutic purposes and destined under Italian law for…

Single and double electromagnetically induced transparencies (EIT) in a medium, consisting of four-level atoms in the inverted-Y configuration, are discussed using mechanical and electrical analogies. A three-coupled spring-mass system subject to damping and driven by an external force is used to represent the four-level atom mechanically. The…

The electromagnetic field is determined for a time-varying electric dipole moving with a constant velocity that is parallel to its moment. Graphics are used to visualize this field in the rest frame of the dipole and in the laboratory frame when the dipole is moving at relativistic speed. Various phenomena from special relativity are clearly…

Compared with a single gravity pendulum, the spherical pendulum behaves more complicatedly in experiments, which makes it difficult to measure. In this paper, we present a method to visualize the trajectories of a spherical pendulum by employing a gravity ball with a lit LED and a digital camera. This new measurement is inexpensive and easy to…

Increasingly, the undergraduate chemistry curriculum includes nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Advanced NMR techniques are often taught including two-dimensional gradient-based experiments. An investigation of intermolecular forces including viscosity, by a variety of methods, is often integrated in the undergraduate physical and…

Most undergraduate physiology texts describe veins simply as reservoirs for blood and conduits for return of blood to the heart. This article describes a laboratory exercise that can be performed by students to demonstrate that veins are much more than reservoirs and conduits for blood flow: they possess a dynamic rhythmic contraction. In this…

The laboratory measurement of the magnetic force acting on a straight wire of length "l" carrying a current of intensity "i" in a magnetic field "B" is usually made using current balances, which are offered by various physics apparatus suppliers' catalogues. These balances require an adequate magnet and commonly allow only the measurement of the…

By adding a large quantity of Cl[superscript -] to an aqueous solution of CoCl[subscript 2][multiplied by]6H[subscript 2]O, a mixture containing a red octahedral cobalt complex and a blue tetrahedral complex is produced. When the solution temperature is modified, the equilibrium constant, K[subscript eq], of the complexation reaction is shifted…