The origin of life is one of the most interesting and challenging questions in biology. This article discusses relevant contemporary theories and hypotheses about the origin of life, recent scientific evidence supporting them, and the main contributions of several scientists of different nationalities and specialties in different disciplines. Also…

The United States university sector's research enterprise is highly competitive and highly innovative in ordinary times, and during the past year plagued by coronavirus it pivoted quickly to conduct urgently needed research on a new threat. At the high level, the pandemic may seem not to have done lasting damage but this view, while accurate, may…

Undergraduate research is lauded as a high-impact practice owing to the array of benefits that students can reap from participating. One unexplored construct that may affect student intent to persist in research is research anxiety, defined as the sense of worry or apprehension associated with conducting research. In this study, we surveyed 1272…

In the contemporary science and higher education system, national and supranational governments fund and foster universities to collaborate through specific funding lines and competition in World University Rankings, making it indispensable for universities to demonstrate collaboration at the organizational level. Thus, universities strive to…

The idea that certain outdoor education (OE) programs consistently improve character traits has been a recurring theme not only in OE practice but also in some approaches to research and theory (Brookes, 2003a, 2003b). Sometimes referred to as "character building," such approaches to OE persist although perhaps less prominently than in…

School-based citizen science offers a way for students and teachers to collaborate with scientists and take part in multiple facets of research such as data collection and analysis, and sometimes research initiation, co-design, and reporting of findings. However, most citizen science projects offered to schools are of the contributory type, often…

Despite the current interest in Open Science in the scientific community, it is not clear if Open Science will succeed in higher education. Open Science is based on three basic ideas: open data, open results, and open publication. If these principles can be successfully implemented, it will allow for much greater participation in the scientific…

Conducting marine mammal research can raise several important ethical issues. For example, the continuation of whaling for commercial purposes despite the international moratorium provides opportunities for scientists to obtain data and tissue samples. In 2021 we analysed 35 peer-reviewed papers reporting research based on collaborations with…

Emerging empirical evidence supports play's potential to stimulate and foster scientific creativity. Focusing on how play relates to scientific creativity in adulthood, this review synthesizes the current state of knowledge in four areas: the play element in scientific research, the playfulness of scientists, mechanisms through which play affects…

Giant kelp ("Macrocystis pyrifera") forests are icons of marine beauty, acting as critical marine ecosystems with great ecological and economic value. Kelp forests are hot spots for biodiversity and provide myriad ecosystem services such as nursery habitat for commercial fisheries, nutrient cycling, wave attenuation, as well as…

Citizen science is a key approach in scientific research that involves crowdsourced data collection for environmental monitoring and conservation. Participants in citizen science can gain scientific knowledge, change their pro-environmental attitude and behavior. Taiwan Roadkill Observation Network (TaiRON) was founded in 2011 and has a community…

Students learn more than science knowledge in a science classroom; they also acquire important messages about the purposes and contexts of science. Roberts (2011) calls these messages a companion story. In this article, we present a case study of high-profile Australian contemporary scientists to argue that there is a need to broaden the range of…

Advancing equity and justice in undergraduate biology education requires research to address the experiences of disabled students. Scholars working in disability studies have developed models of disability that inform Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER). To date, DBER literature has been predominantly informed by the medical and social…

The aim of this study was to develop molecular genetics inquiry programs using the "eyes absent" gene of "Drosophila melanogaster." The program was composed of various molecular genetics experiments, including mutation observation, cross-breeding, searching for genetic information in web databases, gDNA extraction, and PCR.…

Crowdsourcing in science is one of the ways of conducting scientific research which responses to the postulates of the democratization, openness, and inclusiveness of science. Although much is known about crowdsourcing in science, less attention is paid to the barriers to the use of crowdsourcing in science and how to overcome them. The purpose of…