Musical Learning – The Roundup

In your youth was Sesame Street.  If you were lucky when you got older there was Bill Nye.  Now it would seem you’re too old for education set to music.  But if that’s what you think, you’re wrong.  Check out these tunes:

Thanks to ProfDodd for the tip – They Might Be Giants sings all things science on their album (that’s a CD for you young’ns) rightfully titled Here Comes Science.  Listen to track previews on Amazon.

The folks over at The Biomimicry Institute have produced an excellent piece of work which you can also preview on Amazon.

Rapping is taken to a new level by a couple of guys from Stanford.  This video is timely for what we’ve been talking about–ATP, energy, glycolysis–but check out his YouTube page for lots of great videos.

Biology: The Study of Life

Or,

Biology: What Is It and Why Should I Care?

Biology comes from the Ancient Greek βιολογία, or more informatively the root bio & suffix -logy.  In simplest terms, bio = “life” and -logy = “study of”.  Biology is the study of life.  Another way of saying this would be to say that biology is the study of organisms (“living beings” or “living things” as most like to say).

As for why you should care, well since you are a living thing, it might be important for you to understand things that go on with regards to your body.  Biology can get in as much detail as you want to study.  In fact, some universities require biology majors to take a little bit of everything while others require you to pick a specific area of concentration.  Much like there’s the doctor you go to when you don’t know what’s wrong (a general practice doctor or a “family doctor”), you can also go to a specific doctor for specific problems (for example, you’d see a cardiologist for heart problems).

Here are a few of the fields found in biology (with the subject matter in parentheses):

• Anatomy (body structure)
• Botany (plants)
• Cytology (cells)
• Ecology (animals’ interaction with their environment)
• Genetics (genes & heredity)
• Microbiology (microorganisms)
  • Parasitology (parasites)
  • Virology (viruses)
• Mycology (fungi)
• Physiology (body function)
• Zoology (animals)
  • Herpetology (snakes)
  • Ornithology (birds)
  • Paleontology (ancient organisms)

Click here for a more comprehensive, though probably not exhaustive, list.