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Book Review| August 01 2023 BioBrain: STEM Learning Platform for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Teachers and Students BioBrain: STEM Learning Platform for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Teachers and Students ©2020 https://biobrain.com.au/ and the app store Jeffrey D. Sack Jeffrey D. Sack Department Editor Science Education Consultant/Writer, Westbrook, CT 06498 sack.jeffrey@comcast.net Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar sack.jeffrey@comcast.net The American Biology Teacher (2023) 85 (6): 360. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2023.85.6.360 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Jeffrey D. Sack; BioBrain: STEM Learning Platform for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics Teachers and Students. The American Biology Teacher 1 August 2023; 85 (6): 360. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2023.85.6.360 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search Most textbooks and online review sources can be overwhelming for students because they provide enormous amounts of scientific content. They overload students with graphs, charts, diagrams, and page after page of text, which tends to make students less likely to spend time reviewing because it can be overly complicated and takes up too much time. A tool called BioBrain solves this issue by providing students with bite-size pieces of information, relying on just the important facts students need to know. BioBrain is a STEM learning platform that allows students to review important biology concepts in a variety of interactive ways. While it is mostly aligned with the International Baccalaureate biology course, it also provides content for regular biology, marine biology, forensics, chemistry, and physics. Advanced Placement Biology is currently under development. This website is produced by an Australian company, so it is not directly aligned with the Next Generation Science... You do not currently have access to this content.

The recent article and editorial regarding the use of a proprietary Decision Support Tool extolled the need to quit memorizing data, favoring medical interactive applications in applying medical knowledge.1,2 The Decision Support Tool was designed to increase adherence to an outdated yet still “current” 2007 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association perioperative evaluation consensus guideline (PECG). It is clear that perioperative β blockade (PBB) and cost containment played a very large role in the underlying assumptions of that guideline. It is also clear that in 2008, the POISE study (PeriOperative ISchemic Evaluation trial [ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00182039]) completely transformed the premise of PBB, finding PBB stroke morbidity outweighed any cardiac morbidity prevention. PBB guideline revisions followed rapidly in 2009, without corresponding PECG changes. Furthermore, the reporting of Dr. Poldermans ethical violations, as a world proponent of PBB, further publically raised significant questions undermining the 2007 PECG validity. Cardiac guidelines experience particularly rapid turnover for multiple reasons.* Medical reversal is a rapidly emerging reality, indicating guidelines have limits to application, as well as potentially short shelf-lives, as PBB clearly demonstrated.3 This may directly compromise the usage of any Decision Support Tool, especially if failing to update rapidly while physician’s life-long learning does facilitate updates.Assuming the PECG is “correct” in 2014, is a fundamental problem. Similarly, testing “correct answers” based on a Decision Support Tool adhering to the 2007 PECG, presents simply a false premise for contemporary knowledge. The guideline should also fit the patient and not vice versa. I would ask the researchers to publish their “defined as correct” answers to the already published questions, to facilitate assessment whether these answers are deemed correct by modern readers! Knowledgeable physicians may justifiably reject the guideline and the proposed “Correct” answers in modern practice, especially when tailored to the variable contemporary reality at hand (i.e., University vs. rural hospital). External realities further impose, where patients produce satisfaction scores and see themselves deserving EVERY consideration, test and therapy, regardless of cost, when rare complications produce 100% morbidity and mortality to them personally as “rare events.” The editorial goes even further, promoting the unproven utility of recertification. Similarly, transferring simulation and objective structured clinical examination applications for medical student/resident educations onto Recertification testing of practicing and competent physicians is yet another unproven leap of faith. Board certification, and especially recertification, have never been proven or demonstrated to clearly improve quality in care in outcome-based studies.The real problem emphasized by both study and editorial, is that while both support the use of internet-based data acquisition in daily medical practice, certification, and recertification tests forbid it completely. Similar to old guidelines, simply believing that “certification or recertification matters,” may also be a mere historical relic, proprietary advertisement and/or simple false legacy assumption, having emerged before modern licensure and extensive regulation of residency training programs.4 These and other concerns have led to the significant opposition to maintenance of certification among physicians at large. It is time for an open discussion of the risks and benefits of the cost and unproven assumptions of recertification and maintenance of certification, as a Quality = Value/cost indicator. Blind, computerized, adherence to aging guidelines, however, requires short-term revalidation of underlying programs to insure patient safety.The author declares no competing interests.

An acute bout of resistance exercise (RE) can produce inflammation and subsequent changes in immune cells. Limited numbers of gene transcripts related to the immune and inflammatory processes have been examined. Orosomucoid 1 (ORM1) is an acute phase plasma protein that may be involved in immunosuppression. DNA microarrays have been utilized to examine exercise effects on gene expression in peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The present study utilized an acute bout of RE to examine the expression of inflammatory genes in PBMCs. Ten males performed an acute bout of RE. Venous blood was sampled at rest, post-exercise, and at 2 hr post-exercise, and was analyzed for gene expression using Affymetrix Genechip Arrays. Using a conservative false discovery rate of p<0.05 and a two-fold change of or higher threshold, microarray analysis identified 167 genes differently expressed between baseline and 2 hr post-exercise, 259 genes between 2 hr post-exercise and immediately post-exercise, and six genes between immediately post-exercise and baseline indicating the greatest gene response was seen at the 2 hour post-exercise. At the 2 hr time point, ORM1 showed significant up regulation. In conclusion, RE is capable of influencing gene expression in numerous inflammatory mediators. Induction of ORM1 suggests that it may play an important role in immune responses following RE. Supported by the Vermont Genetics Network.

This article presents a descriptive overview of some major features of articles that have appeared in MEG.

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Journal Article The Battle Cry of Freedom: The New England Emigrant Aid Company in the Kansas Crusade. By Samuel A. Johnson. (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1954. 357 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $5.00.) Get access Ralph V. Harlow Ralph V. Harlow Westbrook, Connecticut Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 42, Issue 1, June 1955, Pages 126–128, https://doi.org/10.2307/1898641 Published: 01 June 1955