Most exoplanets are found through indirect methods: measuring the dimming of a star that happens to have a planet pass in front of it, called the transit method, or monitoring the spectrum of a star for the tell-tale signs of a planet pulling on its star and causing its light to subtly Doppler shift. Space telescopes have found thousands of planets by observing “transits,” the slight dimming of light from a star when its tiny planet passes between it and our telescopes. Other detection methods include gravitational lensing, the so-called “wobble method.”---------------------------------------Distant Nature: Astronomy Exercises 2016 by Stephen Tuttle under license "Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike".

This course is conducted as an artificial intelligence programming contest in Java. Students work in teams to program virtual robots to play Battlecode, a real-time strategy game. Optional lectures are provided on topics and programming practices relevant to the game, and students learn and improve their programming skills experientially. The competition culminates in a live Battlecode tournament.
This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

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:

"Microbiomes are more than just prokaryotes and viruses; they also contain important eukaryotes, including fungi and protists. However, eukaryotes are difficult to study using ‘shotgun’ metagenomics, as their signal is often overwhelmed by the prokaryotes. Some methods use eukaryote-specific marker genes, but they can’t detect eukaryotes that aren’t in the reference marker gene set, and such methods are not compatible with web-based tools for downstream analysis. But CORRAL (Clustering Of Related Reference ALignments) is designed to close those gaps. CORRAL identifies eukaryotes in metagenomic data based on alignments to eukaryote-specific marker genes and Markov clustering. It can detect microbial eukaryotes that are not included in the marker gene reference set. The process is even automated and can be carried out at scale. A recent paper demonstrates CORRAL’s sensitivity and accuracy with simulated datasets, mock community standards, and human microbiome datasets..."

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

The guidelines for trainers "Easy to understand approach and management of ict training sessions" contains practal and methodological suggestions about how to organize and deliver easy to understand training courses for people with low literacy skills (people with learning disability, elderly, migrants etc.) on the topic of ICT.

It is based on the use of the easy to read and to understand user manual about the basics of ICT "Basics of the use of computer and ICT".

The reader will learn how to deliver high quality accessible workshops on a wide range of ICT topics, including both introductory workshops (i.e., how to turn on and off computers, how to use mouse and keyboard) and more advanced ones (how to edit a video and write a CV online), using an easy to understand approach.

First, readers will be introduced to the general methodology and guidelines for using the handbook, while the following chapters will go into more details, providing the specific guidelines for the development of each module of the handbook. Each learning module includes a description of the objectives, a suggested methodology, an activity summary, and criteria for evaluating the activity. This enables step-by-step guidance through each activity and, as a result, the successful completion of each workshop. At the end of these guidelines, you will find a chapter about self-assessment, an important step for learners’ self-evaluation in your ICT training: learners will be able to assess their knowledge via the self-assessment activities suggested.

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:

"Pneumococcal bacteria (Streptococcus pneumoniae) can cause several different serious infections including pneumonia, sinusitis, and meningitis. Studies to monitor the levels of pneumococcal bacteria ‘carried’ by individuals are called carriage studies and are used to inform vaccination programs. But most carriage study techniques distinguish between pneumococcal subtypes based on their outside structure, or serotype, rather than by genetic strain. Consequently, little is known about strain-specific carriage and interactions between strains. To close this gap, researchers trialed a new workflow using single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing of the genetic marker plyNCR. Tests using mock bacterial communities found that this workflow was sensitive and highly specific to S. pneumoniae. Banked nasal swabs collected from infants during their first year of life were used for a real-world test..."

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

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:

"High-throughput sequencing of bacterial DNA samples allows for rapid analysis of bacterial communities from many samples at once. However, the utility of these methods is limited for samples with few bacteria, or a low bacterial load, or those with large amounts of DNA from non-bacterial sources, such as a host. Often, both limitations are a problem in analyzing clinical samples. A recent paper proposes a modified preparation protocol to increase sensitivity in samples with intermediate or low bacterial loads. To test a wide range of bacterial loads, the researchers used repeat tracheal aspirate samples from intubated pediatric patients. The modified protocol detected sequence data from over 30% more samples than the standard protocol. Where both protocols had results, they returned similar levels of community diversity, and the composition of those communities was also similar..."

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

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:

"Uncovering the links between microbiome profiles and host conditions is critical to understanding the roles microbes play in human health. However, analysis of microbiome profiles with traditional testing frameworks is made difficult by the high-dimensionality and sparsity of the data. Often this is addressed by incorporating information from closely related microbes. This phylogenetic information is added under the assumption that operational taxonomic units (OTUs) from related taxa will tend to behave similarly, but the complexity of microbe interactions can make this assumption invalid. The recently developed tool, Phylogeny-guided microbiome OTU-Specific association Test (POST), addresses this issue. POST determines how much, if any, information to borrow from neighboring OTUs based on phylogenetic distance and outcome-OTU association. This tool is a local collapsing test built under the kernel machine framework to accommodate complex OTU effects..."

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

This seminar is intended to help students in the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program develop a broader perspective on their thesis research by considering some aspects of science in the large. The first part of the course challenges students to develop a thoughtful view towards major questions in science that can be incorporated in their own research process, and that will help them articulate research findings. The second part of the course emphasizes science as a social process and the important roles of written and oral communication.
This course is offered through The MIT/WHOI Joint Program. The MIT/WHOI Joint Program is one of the premier marine science graduate programs in the world. It draws on the complementary strengths and approaches of two great institutions: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

This advanced course in anthropology engages closely with discussions and debates about ethnographic research, ethics, and representation.

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:

"The gut microbiomes of animals are diverse microbial communities that dramatically affect host health and physiology. Modern laboratory techniques have allowed researchers to learn much about these microbiomes. Unfortunately, the common sequencing and culture techniques often struggle to distinguish between strains within a bacterial species. But microfluidic droplets could be a way to sidestep such limitations and distinguish between strains in a high volume, efficient way. To test this, a research team developed a microfluidic platform that encapsulates individual bacterial cells and cultivates them in different growth media, and they used it to successfully profile the honeybee microbiome at a strain-specific level. Strain diversity is particularly important for honeybees due to their uniquely simple and stable bacterial community. Compared to traditional gut samples, this technique detected more strain diversity in some bacterial species..."

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

This seminar is open to graduate students, and is intended to offer a synoptic view of selected methodologies and thinkers in art and architectural history (with many theorists from other fields). The syllabus outlines the structure of the course and the readings and assignments for each week; the goal is to become aware of the apparatuses of discourse, and find your own voice within them.

The purpose of this activity is to inspire students to adopt structured methods when they explore and retrieve information. It is based on lab notebooking methods and on managing and documenting the flow of references in Zotero, a reference management software.

The first principle is based on a tree of collections to manage the references arriving in the Zotero library. Some basic methods are suggested and the students are invited to create their own. The second principle is based on standalone notes to document all the research process through online database, libraries and experts.

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:

"Worldwide incidences of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, are on the rise. In IBD, the mucus layer that separates the intestine from gut bacteria wears thin, creating the opportunity for microbial invasion. Understanding how bacteria behave at this critical junction could offer clues on how to combat IBD. But current exploration methods are limited by the tremendous amounts of substrates needed to screen thousands of reactions. A recent paper describes a new technique that miniaturizes and speeds up that process to boost the rate of discovery. This method encapsulates experiments into microfluidic droplets to screen enzymatic reactions. The proof-of-concept study searched for bacterial enzymes that can degrade host glycans. as the breakdown of host glycans can thin the mucus layer in IBD..."

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