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Free Course on Evolution and Genetics

If you're interested in genes v. environment, natural selection, evolution applications v. misapplications, check out this online course through Duke University:

Introduction to Genetics and Evolution is a college-level class being offered simultaneously to new students at Duke University. The course gives interested people a very basic overview of some principles behind these very fundamental areas of biology.  We often hear about new "genome sequences," commercial kits that can tell you about your ancestry (including pre-human) from your DNA or disease predispositions, debates about the truth of evolution, why animals behave the way they do, and how people found "genetic evidence for natural selection."  This course provides the basic biology you need to understand all of these issues better, tries to clarify some misconceptions, and tries to prepare students for future, more advanced coursework in Biology. No prior coursework is assumed.

I'm enrolled in the course, and the instructor gives terrific lectures. The first assignment is due January 12, so enroll while you can.

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Lowcarb team member said…
Hope you enjoy the course

All the best Jan
January 10, 2015
Lori Miller said…
Thanks, Jan.
January 11, 2015
Galina L. said…
I enrolled for two courses at the beginning of the year - "Innovation and Commercialization"from MIT because I want to get more profit from the dancing footwear I am making and selling, and "Introduction to nutrition" because my husband asked me to do it - he still worries that my diet is not "balanced".
January 16, 2015
Lori Miller said…
The "unbalanced diet" meme drives me crazy. The original "unbalanced diets" were so heavy on grains that people got severe nutrient deficiencies. "Balanced diets" included a variety of food so that people would get sufficient nutrients.

Good luck with your dancing footwear. Let us know how it goes.
January 16, 2015
Galina L. said…
The nutrition course could drive me crazy, but I am using it to show my husband that they derived almost all their recommendations from questionable observation studies.No wonder the scientific committee in Sweden found low-fat dogma questionable. The professor himself admits that such methods don't look convincing, and in the defense of the methodology climes that observation studies were good anyway because pointed into the right direction of health benefits of eating more fibers, fruits and vegetables.
I finally managed to came to really satisfying model of the dancing half-shoe , and people started to buy it, but all that is very far away from running own business. I have more ideas about the footwear design in my head than I can physically create, I don't have people who I can hire for a reasonable price to do it, and I don't know how to move farther.
January 19, 2015
Lori Miller said…
"...observation studies were good anyway because pointed into the right direction of health benefits of eating more fibers, fruits and vegetables."

Huh-uh. A broken clock that shows the right time is still broken.
January 19, 2015
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