Summer Session Week 1

What a great week! Ya’ll have some real promise as junior psychologists!

Take a second glance at what we explored, let it sink in and please, bring any questions that you need clarity on up in our session on Monday.

Alright, so first we explored evolution and natural selection and many of the misconceptions that the general public have about this "theory". Carl Sagan's classic video does a nice job of providing the basics. Then we attempted to get a grip on natural selection by first understanding how artificial selection operates. We "bred" foxhounds and also read an article about breeding for genetic tameness in foxes and rats as well as watching video footage of Belyaev's domesticated foxes.  To better understand our own evolutionary history, we memorized (hopefully:)) human taxonomical classification. In order to clear up confusion about what "survival of the fittest" actually means, ya'll read the "Survival of the Sneakiest" comic and found what it means to have "game" (if you're a cricket).

We also got a grip on the unit that natural selection works on, the gene. I think the Genetics 101 cartoons did a great job of spelling things out in an easy to understand way. Perhaps you were shocked to discover that "slightly more than half of everything you are" is thanks to mom, this was artistically revealed in the Biologists Mother's Day song.

Finally we took a look at the basic unit of communication within the body, the neuron. I think everyone was shocked by my incredible flow demonstrated in the neural transmission song. To top off an awesome week we recorded a skit depicting neural transmission in which it was revealed that George Lopez, is in fact, a sac.