This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Human gut microbes are critical for maintaining the integrity of the GI tract, immune system homeostasis, and host energy metabolism. Alterations in this network can have health consequences, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Antibiotic treatment compromises the composition of the gut microbiome, affecting microbial function and resulting in long-lasting detrimental effects on the host. A recent study examined how different antibiotics affect the ability of gut microbes to control intestinal inflammation. Researchers treated mice with antibiotics prior to fecal microbiota transplantation. They found that antibiotic pre-treatment significantly altered the ability of the microbiota to control intestinal inflammation. Streptomycin- and vancomycin-treated microbes failed to control inflammation, and pathobionts associated with IBD thrived. In contrast, microbes treated with metronidazole were able to control inflammation, and beneficial microbial species were enriched..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn more about how muscles work and how biomedical engineers can help keep the muscular system healthy. Following the engineering design process, they create their own biomedical device to aid in the recovery of a strained bicep. They discover the importance of rest to muscle recovery and that muscles (just like engineers!) work together to achieve a common goal.

Students examine the structure and function of the human eye, learning some amazing features about our eyes, which provide us with sight and an understanding of our surroundings. Students also learn about some common eye problems and the biomedical devices and medical procedures that resolve or help to lessen the effects of these vision deficiencies, including vision correction surgery.

Human beings are fascinating and complex living organisms a symphony of different functional systems working in concert. Through a 10-lesson series with hands-on activities students are introduced to seven systems of the human body skeletal, muscular, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, sensory, and reproductive as well as genetics. At every stage, they are also introduced to engineers' creative, real-world involvement in caring for the human body.

Students learn about the similarities between the human brain and its engineering counterpart, the computer. Since students work with computers routinely, this comparison strengthens their understanding of both how the brain works and how it parallels that of a computer. Students are also introduced to the "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" framework for understanding human and robot actions.

Students are introduced to the respiratory system, the lungs and air. They learn about how the lungs and diaphragm work, how air pollution affects lungs and respiratory functions, some widespread respiratory problems, and how engineers help us stay healthy by designing machines and medicines that support respiratory health and function.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microbiomes are more than just prokaryotes and viruses; they also contain important eukaryotes, including fungi and protists. However, eukaryotes are difficult to study using ‘shotgun’ metagenomics, as their signal is often overwhelmed by the prokaryotes. Some methods use eukaryote-specific marker genes, but they can’t detect eukaryotes that aren’t in the reference marker gene set, and such methods are not compatible with web-based tools for downstream analysis. But CORRAL (Clustering Of Related Reference ALignments) is designed to close those gaps. CORRAL identifies eukaryotes in metagenomic data based on alignments to eukaryote-specific marker genes and Markov clustering. It can detect microbial eukaryotes that are not included in the marker gene reference set. The process is even automated and can be carried out at scale. A recent paper demonstrates CORRAL’s sensitivity and accuracy with simulated datasets, mock community standards, and human microbiome datasets..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course is a sequel to 21G.113 Chinese V (Streamlined). It is designed to further help students develop sophisticated conversational, reading and writing skills by combining authentic reading and audio-visual material with their own explorations of Chinese speaking societies, using the human, literary, and electronic resources available at MIT, in the Boston area and on the web. Some special features of Chinese societies, cultures and customs will be introduced. The class consists of readings, discussion, student presentations and network exploration. The course is conducted in Mandarin.

The Human Spaceflight collection spans decades of achievements from the first U.S. manned Mercury missions through Apollo, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station.

Students continue their exploration of the human senses and their engineering counterparts, focusing on the auditory sense. Working in small groups, students design, create and run programs to control the motion of LEGO® TaskBots. By doing this, they increase their understanding of the use and function of sound sensors, gain experience writing robot programs, and reinforce their understanding of the sensory process.

This resource is a set of review questions for an introductory course in Human Biology.

Students reinforce their knowledge that DNA is the genetic material for all living things by modeling it using toothpicks and gumdrops that represent the four biochemicals (adenine, thiamine, guanine, and cytosine) that pair with each other in a specific pattern, making a double helix. They investigate specific DNA sequences that code for certain physical characteristics such as eye and hair color. Student teams trade DNA "strands" and de-code the genetic sequences to determine the physical characteristics (phenotype) displayed by the strands (genotype) from other groups. Students extend their knowledge to learn about DNA fingerprinting and recognizing DNA alterations that may result in genetic disorders.

As a class, students work through an example showing how DNA provides the "recipe" for making our body proteins. They see how the pattern of nucleotide bases (adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine) forms the double helix ladder shape of DNA, and serves as the code for the steps required to make genes. They also learn some ways that engineers and scientists are applying their understanding of DNA in our world.

To reinforce students' understanding of the human digestion process, the functions of several stomach and small intestine fluids are analyzed, and the concept of simulation is introduced through a short, introductory demonstration of how these fluids work. Students learn what simulation means and how it relates to the engineering process, particularly in biomedical engineering. The teacher demo requires vinegar, baking soda, water and aspirin.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Glioblastoma is a devastatingly aggressive and prevalent primary brain tumor. Despite the discovery of many potential biomarkers and treatment targets, there has been little improvement in survival. One unexplored pathway in glioblastoma is chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), which has been implicated in a variety of human malignancies. A new paper examined CMA and its key component, lysosome-associated membrane protein type 2A (LAMP-2A), using clinical samples, in vitro experiments, and a mouse xenograft model. In clinical samples, glioblastoma showed elevated expression of LAMP-2A compared to peritumoral regions and low-grade glioma and an associated decrease in nuclear receptor co-repressor (N-CoR). Glioblastoma with high LAMP-2A expression also had inhibited unfolded protein response and apoptosis. In vitro, silencing LAMP-2A up-regulated N-CoR and activated the unfolded protein response pathway, which led to apoptosis..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course explores the foundations of policy making in developing countries. The goal is to spell out various policy options and to quantify the trade-offs between them. We will study the different facets of human development: education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms and institutions. This is an empirical class. For each topic, we will study several concrete examples chosen from around the world. While studying each of these topics, we will ask: What determines the decisions of poor households in developing countries? What constraints are they subject to? Is there a scope for policy (by government, international organizations, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs))? What policies have been tried out? Have they been successful?
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner’s ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.740x Foundations of Development Policy.

We are now at an unprecedented point in the field of neuroscience: We can watch the human brain in action as it sees, thinks, decides, reads, and remembers. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the only method that enables us to monitor local neural activity in the normal human brain in a noninvasive fashion and with good spatial resolution. A large number of far-reaching and fundamental questions about the human mind and brain can now be answered using straightforward applications of this technology. This is particularly true in the area of high-level vision, the study of how we interpret and use visual information including object recognition, mental imagery, visual attention, perceptual awareness, visually guided action, and visual memory.
The goals of this course are to help students become savvy and critical readers of the current neuroimaging literature, to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, and to design their own cutting-edge, theoretically motivated studies. Students will read, present to the class, and critique recently published neuroimaging articles, as well as write detailed proposals for experiments of their own. Lectures will cover the theoretical background on some of the major areas in high-level vision, as well as an overview of what fMRI has taught us and can in future teach us about each of these topics. Lectures and discussions will also cover fMRI methods and experimental design. A prior course in statistics and at least one course in perception or cognition are required.

Students learn about the anatomy of the ear and how the ears work as a sound sensor. Ear anatomy parts and structures are explained in detail, as well as how sound is transmitted mechanically and then electrically through them to the brain. Students use LEGO® robots with sound sensors to measure sound intensities, learning how the NXT brick (computer) converts the intensity of sound measured by the sensor input into a number that transmits to a screen. They build on their experiences from the previous activities and establish a rich understanding of the sound sensor and its relationship to the TaskBot's computer.

This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" looks at the meaning and significance of the effort to decode the human genome.

Students will identify human impact on Earth in various locations using images taken by remote sensing technology.