Conspicuous Consumption, Conspicuous Waste: Thorsten Veblens Theory of the Leisure Class
One of South Africa's most prominent sociologists, Professor Deborah Posel, gave this Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA) Great TextsBig Questions lecture, discussing "Conspicuous Consumption, Conspicuous Waste". Thorsten Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class' conspicuous consumption of keeping up with the Joneses' describes the purchase of goods to show status or display wealt. Once more apparent within the nouveau riche or upper-income groups, recent research has indicate
Chris Nagel SMArchS Colloquium October 7, 2011
Starting with psychology
The most ‘important and greatest puzzle’ we face as humans is ourselves (Boring, 1950, p. 56). Humans are a puzzle – one that is complex, subtle and multi-layered, and it gets even more complicated as we evolve over time and change in different contexts.
When answering the question ‘What makes us who we are?’, psychologists put forward a range of explanations about why people feel, think and behave the way they do. Just when psychologists seem to understand one bit of ‘who we are’
7 Next steps
We all know that the heart is very important but what exactly does the heart do? Why is the blood so important? What functions do the lungs perform? In this unit, we will try to provide at least a basic understanding so we can answer these questions and begin to understand why knowing about the heart is important for all sports people. Before that we will take a look at the human body.
Biotic Indices of Stream Macroinvertebrates for Fun and (Educational) Profit
Water quality monitoring activities can support student inquiry into ecological concepts and pollution issues, as well as offer insight into integrating field and lab work. This exercise provides students with practice in identification (to order or family level) of stream macroinvertebrates that they've previously collected. Provided information indicates water pollution tolerance of the various taxa. Students use the data to calculate several different biotic indices for the macroinvertebrates
Phylogenetic analysis
This exercise introduces students to analysis of evolutionary relationships both by analysis of molecular similarity and by cladistic techniques. The molecular analysis uses both paper-and-pencil and bioinformatics comparison of the amino acid sequence of the hemoglobin beta chain of eight vertebrates. The cladistic exercises introduce students to cladistic principles, and then allow students to solve hypothetical problems both with and without homoplasy. Students then test their cladistic abili
Experimental Design and Testing: Hatching and Development in Brine Shrimp
This scientific investigation uses hatching and development in brine shrimp as the biological system in which to demonstrate the laboratory model of teaching experimental design.
Plant Hormones: Bioassay for Gibberellin
This simple assay makes use of the ability of the plant hormone GA3 to induce starch breakdown in the endosperm of a barley seed from which the embryo has been removed. The effect of the hormone is clear and repeatable. This exercise can be used in introductory biology courses to demonstrate a basic plant process, or can be modified and used to investigate more sophisticated questions in a developmental biology course.
Living in a globalised world
meta intro required
Caecilian
One reason why caecilians are considered to be amphibians is because they go through metamorphosis to reach adulthood. Caecilians are unique amphibians because some of them lay eggs, but some of them give birth to live young.
Female Artemia closeup
Close-up full body view of a female Artemia under one quarter-inch in size.
Land Snail
Land snails are invertebrates because they do not have a backbone. They are related to water snails, but they do not live in water.
EPTOMS Ozone (7-26-96 - 12-4-00)
This animation shows the total ozone as measured by Earth Probe TOMS since the earliest measurements by that instrument. Days on which no data was taken appear as blank.
A 3-Dimensional Model of the Magnetosphere (WMS)
The earths magnetosphere protects the earth from high-energy charged particles coming from the sun. Some charged particles are deflected by the magnetosphere, while others become trapped and produce the aurora. This presentation shows a 3-dimensional model of the magnetosphere. The features that it highlights are flat ribbons representing the paths of charged particles deflected by the magnetosphere, triangular ribbons representing magnetic field lines, and colored surfaces representing constant
Pearl River, China (with window)
Zoom down to land reclamation from the river delta. Dissolve between data collected in 1988, 1992, and 1995.
Ozone Layer Shielding Our Planet
An animation showing the ozone layer shielding our planet from the suns intense ultraviolet radiation. Ozone absorbs nearly all of the biologically damaging UV radiation from the sun.
1992 Daily Ozone from Nimbus-7
In this animation of total ozone, the luminance values of the colors bounding areas of missing data are used in interpolating over these regions. The missing data are mapped to the grayscale portion of the color map.
Clouds over Florida from GOES-11: August 4, 2000
This animation is one of a series showing the first data from GOES-11. The data shown was taken at one-minute intervals.
Ethics of Human Subject Research
Ethics of Human Subject Research (2 credits) is offered by the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Distance Education Division, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The Phoebe R. Berman Bioethics Institute, Johns Hopkins University. The course introduces students to the ethics of human subject research. Ethical theory and principles are introduced, followed by a brief history of research ethics. Topics covered in lectures and moderated discussions include informed c
Statistical Reasoning I
Statistical Reasoning in Public Health provides an introduction to selected important topics in biostatistical concepts and reasoning through lectures, exercises, and bulletin board discussions. It represents an introduction to the field and provides a survey of data and data types. Specific topics include tools for describing central tendency and variability in data; methods for performing inference on population means and proportions via sample data; statistical hypothesis testing and its appl
