What Does a Soccer (Football) Player See?

For professional players, there is a lot that goes on during a soccer game. Using eye tracking glasses, we answer the question of what professionals and amateurs see while they play. All of our pilot study datasets are available for download! See here: http://www.fractal.nyc/soccer-data.

Description:  In this video researchers use eye tracking technology on professional soccer players. The technology is able to track the movements of the participants eyes during different skills and this information is shared with the participants. This technology allows students to see more specifically how information is taken in during sport, and more importantly during life. Students could find patterns in the video or use open source vision tracking software to track their own gaze.

Web Resources:  Pilot Dataset Request Form, Tobii Pro Eye Tracking Technology, Eye tracking - Wikipedia, 10 Free Eye Tracking Software Programs [Pros and Cons]

xLabs Eye Gaze Tracking Software

Description:  Using this software students can track their gaze using the web camera in a typical laptop. Software like this is used by companies and marketers to determine how humans track information in a program or browse a website. Students can investigate different images and videos and how the brain takes in information for processing and response.

Web Resources:  xLabs Chrome Extension, xLabs Gaze Website, 10 Free Eye Tracking Software Programs [Pros and Cons]

xLabs has developed a revolutionary webcam eye/gaze tracking technology that allows continuous, realtime tracking of user eye gaze on screen without restricting movement or needing calibration every time it is used. The client software and demo is available to download at no cost from http://www.xlabsgaze.com .

Inflation of Moth Coremata

Description:  This viral video (with added sound effect) shows an entomologist inflating the coremata in a recently deceased male moth. This pheromone-producing organ will normally sit inside the moth but will be used during courtship to attract potential mates. It is inflated with blood or air. This phenomenon could be used as an example of how organisms increase their change of reproduction through internal and external structures.

Web Resources:  Inflatable Moth Butt Featherdusters - Wired, Hair-pencil and coremata - Wikipedia

These are the androconial organs, which male moths use to release pheromones and attract females. In this species of insect, the organ consists of inflatable tubes at the tip of the abdomen. Jukin Media Verified (Original) * For licensing / permission to use: Contact - licensing(at)jukinmediadotcom

Synesthesia

Description:  Synesthesia can be used as an anchoring phenomenon when designing a unit on the hierarchy of life and sensation. Students find this perceptual phenomenon interesting and to properly understand what is going on they will have to understand a specific living system (the nervous system) in much greater detail than what is presented in the video. Students could even develop a test to determine if they, or their classmates, have synesthesia.

Web Resource:  Synesthesia - Wikipedia

Talking about Grapheme to Colour Synesthesia with Alex from Bite Sci-Zed. Do you see numbers as colours? Leave a comment.

Mysterious Glowing Ball

Description:  The mysterious glowing ball contains a red, green, and blue LED giving the ball a purple appearance. When the ball is stationary your brain perceives them all as one color. When the ball is spinning your brain can perceive individual LEDs turning on and off. The persistence of vision allows technology like movies possible and is a wonderful phenomenon to use in a unit on vision and light.

Web Resource:  Persistence of vision - Wikipedia

Everything is not as it first appears. This simple plastic ball looks purple until you swing it in a circle and reveal its true nature. Inside are three light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are red, green and blue. They turn on and off in sequence very quickly.

Shrew Caravan

Description:  Shrews spend most of their lives underground and therefore have very poor eyesight. They rely primarily on their highly developed senses of smell and hearing. When a mother shrew wants to move all of her offspring from one location to another (particularly above ground) each shrew will hold onto the shrew in front forming a long caravan. This could be used as a phenomenon to introduce animal behaviors, especially those of a parent to ensure the safety of their offspring.

Web Resource:  Common Shrew - Wikipedia

SUBSCRIBE for more BBC highlights: https://bit.ly/2IXqEIn Programme website: http://bbc.in/1GNSBqn Shrew babies do what looks like a conga led by their mum. It's her way of making sure they don't get lost when outside the burrow.

Can Prairie Dogs Talk?

Description: Biology Professor Con Slobdochikoff and his team have shown that prairie dogs have a complex language for communicating danger from predators. Dogs, badgers, coyotes, and humans all have distinctive calls to alert the other members of the colony. Dr. Slobdochikoff has even shown that these warning calls can have descriptors (e.g. a large human with a green shirt is approaching). This phenomenon can be used to show the advantages of group living as well as information sensation, processing, and behavior / memory formation.

Web Resource:  Can Prairie Dogs Talk? - The New York Times

Biologist Professor Con Slobdochikoff and his team have been listening closely to the squeaky barks of the prairie dogs - America's answer to the meerkat. Could their seemingly simple communication be far more intricate than first though?