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:Describe the features that characterized the earliest animals and when they appeared on earthExplain the significance of the Cambrian period for animal evolution and the changes in animal diversity that took place during that timeDescribe some of the unresolved questions surrounding the Cambrian explosionDiscuss the implications of mass animal extinctions that have occurred in evolutionary history

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Define biodiversityDescribe biodiversity as the equilibrium of naturally fluctuating rates of extinction and speciationIdentify historical causes of high extinction rates in Earth’s history

An introduction to theoretical studies of systems of many interacting components, the individual dynamics of which may be simple, but the collective dynamics of which are often nonlinear and analytically intractable. Topics vary from year to year. Format includes both pedagogical lectures and round-table reviews of current literature. Subjects of interest include: problems in natural science (e.g., geology, ecology, and biology) where quantitative theory is still in development; problems in physics, such as turbulence, that demonstrate powerful concepts such as scaling and universality; and modern computational methods for the simulation and study of such problems. Discussions in context of contemporary experimental or observational data.

The causes and consequences of global biodiversity loss and species extinctions are complex and rapidly changing across spatial and temporal scales. They have both local and global manifestations and are entangled with biological, socio-cultural, economic, and political processes. Many of these challenges demand novel approaches, including innovative research and interdisciplinary analysis. They need new skills and methods from various disciplines and expert communities, including the humanities, social sciences, and biophysical sciences. They also require rethinking who conducts research and communicates findings and how knowledge is produced at the intersection of research and higher education institutions and social change. 

This book aims to respond to these challenges. Extinction Stories was co-authored by undergraduate students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts (USA), while exploring issues of extinction, environmental conservation, and biodiversity loss. The following twenty chapters combine the final projects conducted by students in the Great Problem Seminar (GPS) Extinctions course during the Fall of 2020 and the Biodiversity course in the Spring of 2021. Both courses took place while the world was still facing the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic—a global crisis that, as our current sixth mass extinction, is also profoundly rooted in long-lasting processes of habitat destruction and human-induced environmental change.

This text may also be accessed at extinctionstories.pressbooks.com/.

This is a YouTube channel with about three dozen short (15 min) talks about various topics related to learning and behavior or conditioning and learning. The talks cover the full range of topics typically included in a course on learning, including habituation, classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, theories of reinforcement, behavioral economics, the Premack principle, extinction, stimulus control, and memory, The talks were written and delivered by Michael Domjan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and are based on Domjan's popular textbooks, The Principles of Learning and Behavior (published by Cengage) and The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning (published by the American Psychological Association). The number of talks and range of topics is sufficient to make up all of the lectures needed for a course on learning.

Psychology is designed to meet scope and sequence requirements for the single-semester introduction to psychology course. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of core concepts, grounded in both classic studies and current and emerging research. The text also includes coverage of the DSM-5 in examinations of psychological disorders. Psychology incorporates discussions that reflect the diversity within the discipline, as well as the diversity of cultures and communities across the globe.Senior Contributing AuthorsRose M. Spielman, Formerly of Quinnipiac UniversityContributing AuthorsKathryn Dumper, Bainbridge State CollegeWilliam Jenkins, Mercer UniversityArlene Lacombe, Saint Joseph's UniversityMarilyn Lovett, Livingstone CollegeMarion Perlmutter, University of Michigan

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain how classical conditioning occursSummarize the processes of acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Define operant conditioningExplain the difference between reinforcement and punishmentDistinguish between reinforcement schedules

What can happen if the connection between the brain and the visual system is disrupted or damaged? What can cause patients to act as if part of their world not only doesn't exist, but couldn't exist? In this lecture, we will discuss blindsight and neglect and see how studies on these patients have provided insights on how our brains receive and interpret information about the world.

How do we learn? How do the things we learn help us to survive and successfully interact with our environment? In this session, we will examine different types of learning, from classical conditioning to more complex models of learning, and how they fit into our everyday lives. Related concepts like learned helplessness and delayed gratification will also be examined.

Video should be watched after the first video labeled "Classical conditioning..." as this video explains some more advanced concepts of classical conditioning that requires knowledge from the first video. Duration: 5:33.

A description of the learning phenomenon of classical conditioning, including unconditioned, conditioned, and neutral stimuli and responses.
Duration: 5:45.

A brief introduction to Pavlov's experimental work that led to the discovery of classical conditioning. Includes important terminology related to classical conditioning, including conditioned, unconditioned, and neutral stimuli/responses, acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination. Also a brief description of the famous experiment by Watson in which he conditioned fear of a rabbit in a child named Albert.