July 2009 Archives

What controls a cell? You may have heard that the nucleus is the "brain" of the cell, implying that it's the structure that's in charge. 

Energy is the capacity to do work or transfer heat. When applied to our individual lives, this could mean having whatever it takes to go out and get the shopping done, get your car washed, or whatever. If you have a lot of energy, you have the ability to do a lot of work.

When applied to science, energy can mean the ability to transfer from one system to another via heat.

Watch and listen as Professor Gordon Yee describes different types of energy and demonstrates that there's a lot more to chemical reactions than the rearrangement of atoms to form new molecules in this video from Thinkwell's online Chemistry series. 

If you want to talk about, say, German literature, you're probably going to need to know a good deal about the German language. In much the same way, if you want to talk about Chemistry, you're going to need to learn something about chemical language, or nomenclature, and the systems and rules used to form the names of chemical compounds.

There are definite trends in how chemical compounds are named. For example, did you know that most molecular compounds use Greek prefixes?

Watch and listen as Professor Dean Harman discusses some of the most common names of ions, molecules, and acids and identifies the trends used when naming these compounds in Thinkwell's "Naming Chemical Compounds."

Have you ever thought of a piece of clothing as a status symbol? I recently read an article in Slate that answers the age-old question, "Why do doctors wear white lab coats?"

I thought it was particularly interesting to learn that doctors have adopted these wears from laboratory workers because they believe white lab coats reflect a level of high status and important regard. You can find the full article and dive even further into the history of these white coats here.

As we were putting together our Biology and Chemistry videos at Thinkwell, we learned that these white coats serve a great purpose in the laboratory: safety! Check out Professor Gordon Yee as he demonstrates important lab safety techniques and why it's so important to wear one of these special coats during experimentation.

As we were celebrating our country's independence this past weekend, we were thinking about how it all started and what followed during the days of the American Revolution.

Watch and listen as Professor Gerald Rosenberg takes us back to the planning and implementing of our government and constitution and describes the unique circumstances under which they came to be in Thinkwell's "The Articles of Confederation."