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  Definitions of learning strategies do not come any better than this, as attested to by the fact that a recent definition from educational psychology by one of the most influential American strategy experts, Claire Weinstein says “Learning strategies include any thoughts, behaviors, beliefs, or emotions that facilitate the acquisition, understanding, or later transfer of new knowledge and skills.” Although these definitions appear to be logical and exhaustive, they leave several issues open. The most fundamental one is this: What exactly is the difference between engaging in an ordinary learning activity and a strategic learning activity? That is, what is the difference between the processes of learning and learning strategy use? For example, if someone memorizes vocabulary by simply looking at a bilingual vocabulary list, most people would say that this is an example of learning. But if the person applies some color marking code to highlight the words in the list which he or she ...

  How do genes affect behavior? To begin to answer this question, it’s important to understand some basics about genetics.   There are approximately twenty thousand genes in the human genome. The genes are located in forty-six chromosomes (twenty-three pairs), one set in the pairs derived from the mother, one set from the father, in the nucleus of most cells of the body. The only cells that don’t contain all forty-six chromosomes are the germ cells in the testes or ovaries, each of which has twenty-three chromosomes, or half the number in the somatic cells. Cells that contain all forty-six chromosomes are called diploid cells since they contain both pairs, while germ cells are called haploid. Chromosomes are composed of DNA, the master blueprint of a cell. DNA is coded on the sequence of four different chemicals called bases. The bases sit in pairs with T (thymine) coupled with A (adenine) and G (guanine) coupled with C (cytosine). The forty-six-chromosome (diploid) genome con...