78 research outputs found
Pop culture influences on tertiary physics enrolments
Popular culture offers a variety of opportunities and avenues for potential tertiary students to become engaged in physics. These include programs such as âThe Big Bang Theoryâ, or âThe Wonders of the Universe with Brian Coxâ, personalities such as âDr Karlâ, video games such as âPortalâ and web comics such as âxkcdâ. These pop culture products are generally not aimed at boosting tertiary enrolment but at entertainment, while still conveying some strong physics concepts and processes. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that some individuals have enrolled in tertiary science degrees because of pop culture influences, and some historical increases in science enrolments have been linked to popular culture (notably the boom in university forensic science courses in the early 2000s, precipitated by popular crime television programs). But the reach and strength of pop cultureâs influence on science enrolments has not been systematically studied, particularly with respect to physics.
The aim of this project was to examine the influence of popular culture on secondary studentsâ ambitions to enrol in tertiary physics. We surveyed secondary school students in NSW about what influences their subject choices. The survey considered pop culture influences such as television programs, video games, web comics, and more. This project will share some preliminary results, and discuss the potential for capitalising on popular culture to encourage further enrolments in tertiary science
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Mouse podoplanin supports adhesion and aggregation of platelets under arterial shear: a novel mechanism of haemostasis
The Podoplanin-CLEC-2 axis is critical in mice for prevention of haemorrhage in the cerebral vasculature during mid-gestation. This raises the question as to how platelets are captured by podoplanin on neuroepithelial cells in a high shear environment. In this study, we
demonstrate that mouse platelets form stable aggregates on mouse podoplanin at arterial shear through a CLEC-2 and Src kinase-dependent pathway. Adhesion and aggregation are also dependent on the platelet glycoprotein (GP) receptors, integrin αIIbÎČ3 and GPIb, and the feedback agonists ADP and thromboxane A2 (TxA2). CLEC-2 does not bind to von Willebrand factor (VWF) suggesting that the interaction with podoplanin is sufficient to both tether and activate platelets. Consistent with this, surface plasmon resonance
measurements reveal that mouse CLEC-2 binds to mouse podoplanin with nanomolar affinity. The present findings demonstrate a novel pathway of haemostasis in which
podoplanin supporting platelet capture and activation at arteriolar rates of shear
HTT-lowering reverses Huntington's disease immune dysfunction caused by NFÎșB pathway dysregulation
The peripheral immune response is altered in Huntington's disease, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. Using RNA interference to lower huntingtin levels in leucocytes from patients, TrĂ€ger et al. reverse disease-associated phenotypes including cytokine elevation and transcriptional dysregulation, and argue for a direct effect of mutant huntingtin on NFÎșÎ signallin
US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report
This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in
Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference
Policies in Hard Times: Assessing the Impact of Financial Crises on Structural Reforms
The genomic basis of adaptive evolution in threespine sticklebacks
Marine stickleback fish have colonized and adapted to thousands of streams and lakes formed since the last ice age, providing an exceptional opportunity to characterize genomic mechanisms underlying repeated ecological adaptation in nature. Here we develop a high-quality reference genome assembly for threespine sticklebacks. By sequencing the genomes of twenty additional individuals from a global set of marine and freshwater populations, we identify a genome-wide set of loci that are consistently associated with marineâfreshwater divergence. Our results indicate that reuse of globally shared standing genetic variation, including chromosomal inversions, has an important role in repeated evolution of distinct marine and freshwater sticklebacks, and in the maintenance of divergent ecotypes during early stages of reproductive isolation. Both coding and regulatory changes occur in the set of loci underlying marineâfreshwater evolution, but regulatory changes appear to predominate in this well known example of repeated adaptive evolution in nature.National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.)National Human Genome Research Institute (U.S.) (NHGRI CEGS Grant P50-HG002568
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