Lectures pre M1 Flashcards
(146 cards)
Animal
An organism feeding on organic matter, typically have specialized sense organs and respond rapidly to stimuli
What characterises animals (4 things)
- One of the 3 kingdoms of multicellular organisms (other two are plants and fungi)
- Feeds on organic matter
- Typically has specialised sense organs and a nervous system
- Able to respond rapidly to stimuli
The PQ4R method for effective learning
Preview the material and identify sections read as units
Questions for each section heading
Read while trying to answer the questions
Reflect
Recite the info and answer your questions
Review
3 multicellular kingdoms
animals, plants, fungi
Why study animal behaviour
- we are animals
- relevant to understand human behaviour
- to avoid some animals
Whooping crane video
- Have human foster parents
- Use crane puppets to feed so no humanization
- Humans dress up birds to help them fly
- Idaho farmer rears to avoid humanization
- Kent teaches them where/how to migrate in his microkite
- Population from 16 in 1954 to 600 wild birds in Canada
2 aspects of learning: Chicks imprint on caregiver, young learn migration routine from adults
Why do we enjoy having other animals around
- Humans have strong innate satisfaction from “friendly” species
- We extend our sociability to other “friendly” species
- They are important to our ecosystems
Why share earth with birds?
- Important to ecosystems and we enjoy having other animals around
What happens if no vultures
- Recent 95 % decrease in vulture pops due to poisoning
- Increase in human diseases and deaths bc vultures are sanitizers
How animals affect apples
- Pollination (bumblebees, honey bees, other)
- Pests (maggots, worms) -> ants protect from pests in return for sugar
- Biological control (some insects feed on flies, ex. Parasitoid wasps deposit their eggs into those of fruit flies)
- Seed dispersal (poop out seeds from fruits)
Fly learning and human mental health
- Memory-enhancing drugs and treatment of human learning disabilities
Fruit fly video - Tim Tully
- Similar genes to humans
- Tim Tully tests the memory skills of fruit flies
- Put room lined with electrical current
- Two tubes, one with a certain smell that alerts shocks
- If they train 10 times in succession, no long-term memory
- With rest interval of 15 mins, they form a long-term memory
- Flies with extra Creb gene can learn after only one training session = photographic memory
- Set switch on to convert more short term memories to long (Good for age-related memory loss)
Plane crash into Hudson river (2009)
- Everyone survived
- Bird tissues removed from plane engine = they were responsible
- Canadian goose and they identified where it came from; using hydrogen isotopes to see what they ate = came from Labrador
Use techniques like bird radar, robotic bird, and researching migration to avoid another crash
Applications of goose crash
- development of management techniques that could reduce the risk of future collisions
- for migratory vs. residential
Integrating this info with:
bird migration patterns
bird-detection radar
bird dispersal programs at airports can minimize such collisions
Bird-airplane collision prevention
- Airport control teams that do research to reduce collisions
- Israel research (birds don’t like to fly over open water)
reduced collisions by ~85% saved US $40 million per year - Bird forecasts showing migration intensity - planes can reroute
What is critical thinking
exercising thorough judgement or observation (analysing)
- does it make sense
- reasonable conclusions
- what issues remain unresolved
Takes time and effort
Ana”lysis” + elements
Breaking up a whole into parts; examining in details
- Purpose/Question
- Assumption/theory
- Data and facts
- Conclusions
- Implications/consequences
Intellectual standards
Clarity: can I understand it?
Accuracy: is it right or wrong?
Precision: can it be more specific/detailed/exact?
Relevance: is it sufficiently related to the issue?
Depth: complexities and interrelationships?
Breadth: multiple points of view?
Logic: does it follow from the evidence / make sense?
Significance: is it important?
Fairness: conflict of interest / biases?
Scientific method
- Define the question
- Gather information and resources
- Form hypotheses and testable predictions
- Plan experiments to serve as critical tests of the prediction using properly designed experiments by independent teams
- Do experiments and collect data
- Analyse data
- Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
- Communicate results via peer-reviewed journals
Blind experiment
The psubjects do not know their to treatments.
- Relevant for all science
- Bias is an issue
Double blind experiment
Both the data collector and subjects do not know subjects’ assignment to treatments
Caveat: often, people can guess..
- Relevant for human subjects bc were biased to ourselves
No-blind vs. blind bias experiment - with rats
In an experiment involving rats with similar abilities, non-blind observers will record higher performance for rats labelled bright than for rats labelled dull
Why blind or double blind?
2 reasons
- In all experiments, experimenter is always biased
- In human experiments, experimenters and subjects are biased
- In humans, there is a very strong placebo effect
∴ The only proper protocol for experiments with humans is double blind