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:List the basic components of the bloodCompare red and white blood cellsDescribe blood plasma and serum

By the end of this section, you will be able to:List the basic components of the bloodCompare red and white blood cellsDescribe blood plasma and serum

Students learn about the separation techniques of sedimentation and centrifugation and investigate whether blood is a homogeneous or a heterogeneous mixture. Working in groups as if they are biomedical researchers, they employ the scientific method and make observations about the known characteristics of urine, milk and blood. They probe further by analyzing research on the properties and fractionation modes of blood. As students learn about certain strange characteristics with the fractionation behavior of blood, they formulate hypotheses on the unique nature of blood. Using provided materials —olive oil, tomato juice and petroleum jelly—they design an experiment and construct a blood model. They test their hypotheses by conducting experiments on the blood model, and then propose theories for the nature of blood as a mixture—arriving at the theory of mixture dualism in blood—that blood is a complex mixture system. An activity-guiding handout and PowerPoint® presentation are provided for this student-directed, project-based activity.

Students build and use a very basic Coulter electric sensing zone particle counter to count an unknown number of particles in a sample of "paint" to determine if enough particles per ml of "paint" exist to meet a quality standard. In a lab experiment, student teams each build an apparatus and circuit, set up data acquisition equipment, make a salt-soap solution, test liquid flow in the apparatus, take data, and make graphs to count particles.

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:

"Radiation, weightlessness, and altered nutrition are just a few of the harsh conditions astronauts face while in space. Though blood parameters _do_ change during space flight, a new study published in the journal, _BMC Hematology_,_ _suggests crews on long missions may not experience persistent anemia, as once thought. Environmental conditions in space are undoubtedly different from those on Earth, and can, therefore, impact a number of the body’s systems including vision, immunity, and the musculoskeletal system. It is well understood that, upon entering microgravity, fluids rapidly shift toward the head -- evident by the so-called ‘puffy-face syndrome’ seen in many astronauts. It has been assumed that during long-duration space missions, this is accompanied by a state of anemia – a condition that occurs when the body fails to produce a sufficient levels of oxygen-carrying red blood cells and can result in weakness and fatigue..."

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