Virtual lab demonstrations improve students' mastery of basic biology laboratory techniques.

Biology laboratory classes are designed to teach concepts and techniques through experiential learning. Students who have never performed a technique must be guided through the process, which is often difficult to standardize across multiple lab sections. Visual demonstration of laboratory procedures is a key element in teaching pedagogy.

Beverage-agarose gel electrophoresis: an inquiry-based laboratory exercise with virtual adaptation.

A wide range of literature and experience has shown that teaching methods that promote active learning, such as inquiry-based approaches, are more effective than those that rely on passive learning. Gel electrophoresis, one of the most common laboratory techniques in molecular biology, has a wide range of applications in the life sciences. As such, we chose it as a platform to expose high school and undergraduate students to the active process of scientific inquiry in general, while specifically teaching electrophoresis.

WVD2 and WDL1 modulate helical organ growth and anisotropic cell expansion in Arabidopsis.

Wild-type Arabidopsis roots develop a wavy pattern of growth on tilted agar surfaces. For many Arabidopsis ecotypes, roots also grow askew on such surfaces, typically slanting to the right of the gravity vector. We identified a mutant, wvd2-1, that displays suppressed root waving and leftward root slanting under these conditions.