Gives facts about Rett Syndrome, one of the five specific Pervasive Developmental Disorders. The concise details include a definition, stages of the disorder, causes, diagnosis, treatment, and research. To access this page in Spanish:...

This video explores the misconceptions that students hold about natural selection. Go inside your student's heads to see what they are thinking during a lesson on evolution. Follow these suggestions for addressing these common...

Manipulate characteristics of fictional diseases and see how the changes effect a population. Simulator includes a data table available for download for student records.

Use this drop-down menu to explore singe gene disorders such as Cystic Fibrosis, Huntington Disease, Sickle Cell, and more. Learn the symptoms and features of the disease, how to treat and/or manage the disease, and links to additional...

Only a few types of aneuploidy are compatible with life. Use this drop-down menu to understand more about common genetic disorders resulting from monoploidy and polyploidy, such as Down Syndrome. Learn features of the disorder, see how...

Find out how tiny variations in DNA can help scientists predict humans' response to drugs or to disease risk.

Why did sex evolve? The likely answers, in this essay written for the PBS series "Evolution" by science journalist Matt Ridley, may surprise you.

Young scholars will use a Sickle Cell Anemia case study to learn about allele frequencies, genetics, and molecular biology.

Hear the tale of one man's struggle with being a dwarf and how he has worked to overcome. Get a new perspective of little people and learn to gain acceptance.

Investigate how selection pressures and natural selection influence populations growth with this computer model. Understand how a population changes when selection pressures are in conflict. Perform the virtual lab to see what happens to...

These images from the Smithsonian Institution depict Nancy Knowlton's work with snapping shrimp in Panama. Knowlton found that the closing of the isthmus -- dividing the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean -- resulted in new species of shrimp.

You have probably seen figures showing how human beings are related to chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates. In this genomics science fair project, you will use bioinformatics tools to generate your own primate family tree.

This site explains genetic beliefs before and after Mendel, and also includes a section on Mendel himself and his experiments, entitled, "The Monk and his Peas".

This effective site focuses on how structural and behavioral adaptations help organisms survive and reproduce.

Insects are known for their ability to develop resistance to insecticides. Currently there are insects resistant to every synthetic chemical insecticide used. There are many factors to developing resistance. In a population of insects...

Prolonged space travel plays a severe toll on the human body: microgravity impairs muscle and bone growth, and high doses of radiation cause irreversible mutations. As we seriously consider the human species becoming space-faring, a big...

Determine how studying the evolution of the HIV virus led medical experts to give patients a "holiday" from drugs, weakening the mutated, drug-resistent genes. Discover how this backward evolution works.

This lab illustrates how the order of nucleotides in DNA determines the order of amino acids in proteins. Relates DNA function to that of RNAand provides an exercise to demonstrate how mutations may occur. Includes a lesson plan and...

[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about genetic traits, what they determine, and how they mutate. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.

Viral genomes are the fastest evolving entities in biology, mainly because of their short replication time and the large quantity of offspring released per cell infected. Evolution occurs by several mechanisms: Random mutation,...

Amber Yates dives into the science of the malignant sickle-cell mutation.

This site explores the history and the science of DNA. Content also examines and considers the possibilities of genetic engineering and mutation.

This is a great lesson plan that combines Karoytypes and evolution. Students will recognize that the chromosomes of chimpanzees and humans are remarkably similar, then correlate that to their evolutionary relationship.

Discusses conditions needed for the Hardy-Weinberg Law to hold true and demonstrates calculations involving allelic frequencies to illustrate this principle.