The goal of this study was to create an accessible, inexpensive, and engaging experiment to teach high school and undergraduate chemistry or biology students about intermolecular forces and how they contribute to the behavior of biomolecules. We developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to probe specific structure-function…

A fundamental question for human memory research relates to the role of attention during the binding of distinct components into an integrated representation. A number of important differences exist between the working memory and episodic memory literature in terms of methodological implementation and empirical outcomes. For instance, episodic…

Here we describe an experiment for the undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory in which students synthesize the intermetallic compounds AlNi and AlNi3 and study them by X-ray diffractometry. The compounds are synthesized in a simple one-step reaction occurring in the solid state. Powder X-ray diffractograms are recorded for the two compounds…

A discovery-based Grignard experiment for a second-year undergraduate organic chemistry course is described. The exclusive Grignard reagent formed by the reaction of 1-bromo-4-fluorobenzene (1) with Mg is 4-fluorophenylmagnesium bromide (2), which is treated with either benzophenone or CO[subscript 2] to produce the corresponding fluorinated…

Many small-molecule antioxidants found in whole fruits and vegetables are analyzed and identified in this laboratory module for upper-division biochemistry courses. During this experiment, students develop their knowledge of the bioactivity of fruit and vegetable products while learning techniques to identify vitamins and nutritionally derived…

The antibacterial chemical triclosan is a common component in personal care products but recently the subject of many reports concerning environmental toxicity and health impacts. Although triclosan concentration in a soap can be determined simply via high-performance liquid chromatography, this is a technique not routinely available in the…

Recent empirical and theoretical work has depicted a close relationship between visual attention and visual working memory. For example, rehearsal in spatial working memory depends on spatial attention, whereas adding a secondary spatial working memory task impairs attentional deployment in visual search. These findings have led to the proposal…

The ability to solve problems in a variety of contexts is becoming increasingly important in our rapidly changing technological society. Problem-solving is a complex process that is important for everyday life and crucial for learning physics. Although there is a great deal of effort to improve student problem solving skills throughout the…

This article honours Adele Miccio's life work by reflecting on the utility of phonetic transcription. The first section reviews the literature on cases where children whose speech appears to neutralize a contrast in the adult language are found on closer examination to produce a contrast ("covert contrast"). This study presents evidence…

One of the most important concepts being taught in principles classes is the idea of "thinking on the margin." It can also be one of the most difficult to get across. One of the most telling examples, according to this author, comes in trying to get students to learn the profit maximizing condition for perfectly competitive firms. She…

"ARL" is the bimonthly report on research library issues and actions from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "ARL" reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and…