BIOL 300 research report, Fall 2014 All humans are at least slightly asymmetric from left to right. Of course, our internal
organs are left-right asymmetric in many cases (e.g., heart and spleen on the left,
appendix on the right). And most of us are asymmetric in our hand use, with a high
fraction of the population being at least somewhat right-handed. Most of us are
asymmetric in other ways—for example a typical person always clasps their hands with
the same thumb on top, or crosses our arms with the same arm on top (and in fact it can
feel extremely uncomfortable to do so in the opposite way).
Simon Bleasdale (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Forest Runner (flickr) (CC BY 2.0)
This raises the question, are our asymmetries for these different traits correlated? Or are
these asymmetries due to entirely different causes? We’ll collect data on handedness,
dominant foot, hand clasping, and arm crossing, to ask whether these different traits are
correlated across individual humans.
Using the data that we collected during lab 5, write a research report, in a format of a
typical published article. (See the lab manual, pp. 76-78 for some guidelines about
format). The report should be a maximum of 4 pages, including any figures (but any
literature cited section can spill over onto an additional page if necessary). Include both
graphical and statistical representations of the data. Your TA will give you a copy of the
data for the whole class to work from (and it will be available on the course web site).
These reports will be due on Monday November 10, 2014, to your TA’s homework box.
They will be graded with comments and returned to you during labs in week 9 (Nov 1721), and you will have a second chance to turn the report in accounting for the
corrections. The final draft is due in lab in week 10 (Nov 24-28). When turning in the
final draft, you must also return the marked copy of the first draft to your TA. The mark
for the assignment is worth 10% of the course grade, with half of that based on the mark
for the first draft and half based on the final draft.
IMPORTANT: The assignments should be done on your own, without collaboration
with other class members or others.