Online courses directory (423)

Lectures, reading, and discussion of current theory and data concerning the psychology and biology of language acquisition. Emphasizes learning of syntax and morphology, together with some discussion of phonology, and especially research relating grammatical theory and learnability theory to empirical studies of children.

This course is a seminar in real-time language comprehension. It considers models of sentence and discourse comprehension from the linguistic, psychology, and artificial intelligence literature, including symbolic and connectionist models. Topics include ambiguity resolution and linguistic complexity; the use of lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, contextual and prosodic information in language comprehension; the relationship between the computational resources available in working memory and the language processing mechanism; and the psychological reality of linguistic representations.

This sequence provides an overview of the biochemical basis of cellular structure and function; the anabolic and catabolic processes involved in energy utilization; and cellular communication. The hierarchical organization of cellular components are discussed in terms of the structure and function of the four macromolecules: protein, lipid, carbohydrate, and nucleic acids. Level: First Year Medical Students Unless otherwise noted, this Work, Cells and Tissues, by Audrey Seasholtz, Ph.D. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

This seminar focuses on the cognitive science of moral reasoning. Philosophers debate how we decide which moral actions are permissible. Is it permissible to take one human life in order to save others? We have powerful and surprisingly rich and subtle intuitions to such questions.

In this class, you will learn how intuitions can be studied using formal analytical paradigms and behavioral experiments. Thursday evening, meet to learn about recent advances in theories of moral reasoning. Overnight, formulate a hypothesis about the structure of moral reasoning and design a questionnaire-based experiment to test this. Friday, present and select 1-2 proposals and collect data; we will then reconvene to analyze and discuss results and implications for the structure of the moral mind.

This course is offered during the Independent Activities Period (IAP), which is a special 4-week term at MIT that runs from the first week of January until the end of the month.

An introduction to the basics of marine science and conservation, brought to you with the help of sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds and many more of the most compelling creatures in the ocean.

Discover what makes your brain tick in this first module of a three-part introductory series in neuroscience.

Explore the structure and function of the human central nervous system. Learn why knowledge of human neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neural plasticity, and new discovery in the brain sciences matters for clinical practice in the health professions.

Join us for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics! Mega-events like the Olympics are complex phenomena that combine decisions about a short-term festival with long-term social impacts. On the surface, the public spectacle is compelling but going inside the games reveals so much more about the event, athletes, and host city. We will explore the many dimensions of mega-events—history, culture, politics, business, law, sports management, health, and economics—and provide the tools and language to interpret and understand the 2014 Winter Olympics. Join us, and fans around the world, for a month of Olympic spectacle.

Explore the basics of Microbiology and Forensic Science so you can better understand the world around you.

This course provides an introduction to the chemistry of biological, inorganic, and organic molecules. The emphasis is o

What makes living things tick?. Homeostasis. A Voyage to Mars: Bone Loss in Space. Bread Mold Kills Bacteria.

Watch fun, educational videos on all sorts of Physics questions. Bridge Design and Destruction! (part 1). Bridge Design (and Destruction!) Part 2. Shifts in Equilibrium. The Marangoni Effect: How to make a soap propelled boat!. The Invention of the Battery. The Forces on an Airplane. Bouncing Droplets: Superhydrophobic and Superhydrophilic Surfaces. A Crash Course on Indoor Flying Robots.

This course covers specialized and somewhat advanced topics in the fields of cellular biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and genetics. It does not cover organismal biology or taxonomy. The course is carefully planned to provide the background that biology students will need for advanced biology classes. Non-biology majors will also find this course useful as it explains many of the concepts and techniques currently discussed in the popular press. This course is built around six key concepts that provide unifying explanations for how and why structures are formed and processes occur throughout your study of biology. Because it is not possible to cover the breadth of modern molecular biology in one semester, an understanding of these key concepts will provide a basis for extension of your knowledge to biological systems beyond the specifics covered in this course. One of the major goals of the course therefore is for you to not only learn the definitions of the concepts but also learn to recognize when they are operating the process being studied.

No region on Earth is immune from natural disasters. As we gain scientific understanding into the causes and nature of such phenomena, we become better able to mitigate the effects of disasters. Yet as the world's population continues to grow, an increasingly large number of people are at risk.

This science course examines different types of natural disasters and our ability, or inability, to control and predict such events. You will gain an appreciation of natural disasters beyond the newspaper headlines, and will better understand how the effects of disasters can be reduced.

There is an urgent need for people from all walks of life to better understand the scientific principles behind the occurrence of natural disasters:

• City planners need to know where, and where not, to site buildings.
• Politicians need to make scientifically informed decisions.
• Emergency management officials need to understand the nature of a potential disaster and ways to mitigate such an event.
• Journalists need to report scientifically accurate information.

Learner Testimonial:

“Professors Stix and Gyakum have created and presented an engaging course, and have helped in my quest for a better understanding of the world around me.” – Previous Student

What makes living (and nonliving) things tick?. Homeostasis. Bread Mold Kills Bacteria. Glaciers With Chocolate. Rock Cycle. Homeostasis. Bread Mold Kills Bacteria. Glaciers With Chocolate. Rock Cycle.

An introduction to data integration and statistical methods used in contemporary Systems Biology, Bioinformatics and Systems Pharmacology research.

The course focuses on the problem of supervised learning within the framework of Statistical Learning Theory. It starts with a review of classical statistical techniques, including Regularization Theory in RKHS for multivariate function approximation from sparse data. Next, VC theory is discussed in detail and used to justify classification and regression techniques such as Regularization Networks and Support Vector Machines. Selected topics such as boosting, feature selection and multiclass classification will complete the theory part of the course. During the course we will examine applications of several learning techniques in areas such as computer vision, computer graphics, database search and time-series analysis and prediction. We will briefly discuss implications of learning theories for how the brain may learn from experience, focusing on the neurobiology of object recognition. We plan to emphasize hands-on applications and exercises, paralleling the rapidly increasing practical uses of the techniques described in the subject.

This course highlights the interplay between cellular and molecular storage mechanisms and the cognitive neuroscience of memory, with an emphasis on human and animal models of hippocampal mechanisms and function. Class sessions include lectures and discussion of papers.

Surveys general principles and specific examples of motor control in biological systems. Emphasizes the neural mechanisms underlying different aspects of movement and movement planning. Covers sensory reception, reflex arcs, spinal cord organization, pattern generators, muscle function, locomotion, eye movement, and cognitive aspects of motor control. Functions of central motor structures including cerebellum, basal ganglia, and cerebral cortex considered. Cortical plasticity, motor learning and computational approaches to motor control, and motor disorders are discussed.

Roles of neural plasticity in learning and memory and in development of invertebrates and mammals. An in-depth critical analysis of current literature of molecular, cellular, genetic, electrophysiological, and behavioral studies. Discussion of original papers supplemented by introductory lectures.