Students create four-legged walking robots and measure how far they travel across different types of surfaces. They design and create "shoes" to add to the robots' feet and observe the effect of their modifications on the net distance traveled across the various surface types. This activity illustrates how the specialized locomotive features of different species help them to survive or thrive in their habitat environments. The activity is best as an enrichment tool that follows a lesson that introduces the concept of biological adaptation to students.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Classify the different types of muscle tissueExplain the role of muscles in locomotion

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Discuss the different types of skeletal systemsExplain the role of the human skeletal systemCompare and contrast different skeletal systems

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Lung cancer is the second most common form of cancer worldwide. The spread of lung cancer within the body is a complex process that hinges on tumor cells’ ability to migrate. One family of proteins known as Rho GTPases is known to play a central role in regulating the cell mechanics required for migration. That role is more complex that initially thought and many cross talks are involved, as a recent study highlights for the GTPase StarD13. Initial experiments showed that StarD13 is a tumor suppressor in lung adenocarcinoma, confirming previously reported results. Interestingly, StarD13 is also required for the cancer cells to migrate. StarD13 regulates cell motility by modulating the activation of RhoA and Rac1 proteins downstream. Abolishing RhoA and Rac1 in lung cancer cells was shown to compromise cells’ ability to migrate. What further proves the complexity of cancer metastasis, is that while abolishing StarD13 stopped cell migration, it actually enhanced cancer invasion in 3D..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Surveys general principles and specific examples of motor control in biological systems. Emphasizes the neural mechanisms underlying different aspects of movement and movement planning. Covers sensory reception, reflex arcs, spinal cord organization, pattern generators, muscle function, locomotion, eye movement, and cognitive aspects of motor control. Functions of central motor structures including cerebellum, basal ganglia, and cerebral cortex considered. Cortical plasticity, motor learning and computational approaches to motor control, and motor disorders are discussed.

Students will be able to:

Describe the basics of Robots.

Describe basic hardware and software of the LEGO Robot.

Write sequential code for LEGO Robot to move.

At first glance, starfish, more properly called sea stars, aren‰ŰŞt doing much of anything. In this video, Jonathan‰ŰŞs investigations reveal a slow-motion predator that hunts and attacks its prey. Traveling the world, Jonathan investigates sea stars from the tropics to the Antarctic and uses time-lapse photography to reveal an amazing complexity to the world of the sea star. Please see the accompanying study guide for educational objectives and discussion points.

David Attenborough looks at ͢__ëńlife in the trees͢__ë_ ˘: examining how species have evolved to cope with arboreal living. You will learn how lemurs, anteaters, bears and many others have developed different methods to help movement and survival.