The timeless legacy of Robert Koch

Robert Koch was a German physician and scientist who I made wide-ranging contributions to the study of infectious diseases. He is credited with developing medical microbiology as a new and independent discipline. He is most j renowned for deciphering the etiology of tuberculosis (TB), anthrax and cholera. He laid down rigorous guidelines for establishing the link between a pathogen and a particular disease that came to be known as Koch’s postulates. To this day these postulates serve as benchmarks in the study of infectious diseases.     

Time in a timeless environment

The fact that every organism possesses an endogenous biological clock can be established when they are made to live in conditions of timelessness. How do human beings perform under such conditions? Human isolation facilities provide such timeless environments where human beings can live comfortably while performing various bodily activities as dictated by their endogenous clock. In this article, I narrate my personal experience in the isolation facility at Madurai Kamaraj University. My stay (on three occasions) has led to the important finding that the menstrual cycle in a human female is not coupled to the sleep-wake cycle. I also describe how such experiments can be useful in the context of shift-working, jet-lag and space studies.     

Falling in love and staying in love with science: ongoing informal science experiences support fascination for all children

ABSTRACT

Ages 10–14 mark a period in which children develop a strong sense of whether science is ‘for them,’ a time that typically coincides with the start of middle school in the United States and their first exposure to more rigorous science classes and testing. Experiences with science in and out of school can shape children's motivation to choose science careers or participate in voluntary science classes later on, for better or worse. We explore the hypothesis that children who engage in more informal educational science experiences at the start of this period are more likely than their peers to obtain and maintain interest, curiosity, and mastery goals in science (together forming a construct called fascination). We measured 983 children's fascination with science at the beginning and middle of sixth grade. We found that the children who participated in informal science during this time were more likely to maintain or have greater fascination than at the start. These findings held while also controlling for many potentially confounding covariates and are robust across subgroups by gender and race/ethnicity. Further, the effects are largest for those children whose family generally supports their learning.     

浙江网盛:企业魅力从无形到有形

走楼梯能走出一种激情. 在浙江网盛公司总裁孙德良看来,走楼梯的形态也能反映出一个企业的真实状况.在网盛倡导公司及员工成长均循序渐进,踏踏实实稳步发展,像走楼梯一样一步步迈进的时候,这种循序渐进,稳步发展的"成长文化"已然贯穿发展了各个环节,从企业成长的角度,克服了企业发展的浮躁,避免了企业发展的大起大落;从员工成长的角度,让员工能踏踏实实跟着企业成长,既能看到自己的未来,又不好高骛远,急于求成.     

浅谈促合成代谢类固醇激素对人体健康的影响

本文在参考大量资料的基础上，指出了服用促合成代谢类固醇激素对人体的危害及停药后的不良反应。     

Biosphere 2 as an informal learning platform to assess motivation,fascination, and cognitive achievement for sustainability

Educational outreach facilities provide unique opportunities to learn sciences at the forefront of research. An example is Biosphere 2, a site of environmental and ecological research, which is coupled to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Research facilities can evoke the relevance of sciences in everyday life. This is important in secondary schooling to increase students’ engagement in sciences, while environmental challenges continue to expand. We therefore examined the role of fascination and motivation on learning with 5th to 12th grade students who participated in a half- to full-day on-site education program. Our data confirmed the construct of fascination through Rasch and factor analysis, revealed substantial knowledge gains, showed effects of motivation and fascination on knowledge scores, and suggested that authentic learning enhanced science engagement. Results further indicated that both instruments measure an analogous construct, while motivation appeared to have more predictive power on cognitive achievement.     

举世皆浊我独清,众人皆醉我独醒——从《离骚》看屈原的人格魅力

屈原的代表作《离骚》千百年来为人们世代传唱,不单因为其有恢弘的意境、丰富的想象、奇特的构思、绚丽的辞藻、深刻的内涵,还因为从《离骚》中可以我们可以充分感受到屈原的人格魅力。屈原"修身清洁"、"忠君爱国"、"以死明志"的独特人格深深震撼着我们的心灵。     

Merit: A debate

Louis Settembrini is the pseudonym of a former chairman of one of the social science departments at the University of Rochester.     

国民生产总值是物量指标还是价值指标

本文对“以不变价格表现的国民生产总值不是价值指标，而是通过货币表现的物量指标”的观点指出疑，认为劳动生产率的提高，不构成商品价值成比例下降的必然性，商品价值量只与社会劳动生产率成反比变动，并且随着社会生产率的提高，在物质生产部门提供的物质产品的价值及价格下降的同时，非物质生产部门提供的劳务产品的价值量在社会产品价值总额中所占比重却不断增加，以不变价格计算的国民生产总值按一定比例增长，是对增加了社会价值总量的反映。