colburn@handel.cs.colostate.edu (Alex Colburn) (01/04/91)
Geneplot, Actpot, and Growplot Versions 4.0 I am announcing the availability of three programs I wrote as a biology graduate student at the University of Iowa. These are educational programs for IBM PCs and clones that allow students to experiment with Population Genetics, Action Potentials, and Population Growth. I wrote the first version of these programs while I was a Teaching Assistant for Iowa's Animal Biology course in the spring of 1988. There has been continual revision and testing since then, and currently these programs are a fundamental part of the Animal biology course. They have also been used at Grinnel College and Yale. I have recently revised these programs for VGA graphics. All of the programs have a graphical interface, and require at least a CGA graphics with 256K RAM, although there are versions for the PC JR. I wrote these programs with the philosophy that computer simulations should allow the student to do experiments that are not feasible to do in a classroom situation. This is not an animated text book. Geneplot: Since time and equipment aren't usually sufficient in undergraduate course to perform evolutionary experiments with real populations, I wrote this simulation so that students can experiment with an imaginary population. This simulation is currently used to simulate four evolutionary situations: Genetic equilibrium, natural selection, genetic drift, and natural selection superimposed on genetic drift. I have used a two allele population genetics model. With this program one can specify the relative fitness of any genotype, mutation rate of one allele to the other, population size (for random drift), and plot the change in allele frequency for 500 generations. Growplot: This program plots population growth using three different models: exponential, logistic, and a time lag model. The carrying capacity, growth rate, and number of generations. This program is intended to accompany a lab in which the students perform a growth experiment with tetrahymena. Actpot: The goal of this program is to allow students to learn the basic properties of the action potential. They will learn about: the relationship between the membrane voltage and the underlying currents; The initiation of the action potential, threshold; Absolute and relative refractory periods; Multiple action potentials; Synaptic integration, the Role of excitatory and Inhibitory synaptic input. This simulation is based on the Hodgkin and Huxley model of the squid giant axon. If you feel that you might be interested in using these programs please contact me at: email colburn@handel.cs.colostate.edu home: Alex Colburn 130 Brairwood #621 Ft Collins Co, 80521 (303) 221-9489 Alex. Please excuse me if this post is inappropriate for this news group.