Abigail Potter – NU Sci Magazine

What would Micky Mouse do?: Mickey Mouse and the origins of devotion

Culture, World / Abigail Potter / February 28, 2024

Nobody lies awake at night contemplating the existence of Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse is the world’s most famous rodent. His conceptual existence is unquestionably true, and his physical existence is unquestionably false. He is, after all, fictional. Despite his widespread reach, it is generally assumed that no one lets the existence (or inexistence) of Mickey […]

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Lab-to-table

Biology, Environment / Abigail Potter / February 28, 2024

Cloning is evolving from sci-fi movies into laboratories. The idea of creating life — or even creating products of life — has always enticed humanity. Despite this fascination, the concept of cloning; whether of cells, animals, or humans; still fills most with unease and even disgust. Despite its unsettling connotations, billions of dollars have been

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Unforeseen consequences: A look into data storage and usage

Technology / Abigail Potter / August 16, 2022

We are in the midst of the information revolution. Where oil or coal were once used to propel advancement, today data is the leading resource. However, unlike oil and coal, data is unlimited. It can be reused an infinite amount of times and be possessed by an infinite amount of people. We have no way

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Creation and destruction: Investigating the disappearance of antimatter

Space / Abigail Potter / July 21, 2022

In 1980, astronomer Carl Sagan stated, “We’re made of star stuff.” Around 13.8 billion years ago, the Big Bang occurred and created the “star stuff” that forms the universe we know today. However, that explosion created more than just matter; it created antimatter too. Always produced as a pair, antimatter and matter are very similar.

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The Materialism of Climate Change: Exploring Ancient Philosophy’s Impact on Climate Change

Biology, Environment, World / Abigail Potter / March 12, 2022

Climate change is one of the biggest health crises humanity faces, according to the World Health Organization. It is all-consuming, impacting almost every aspect of our daily lives. However, we very rarely look beyond greenhouse gas burning to the root cause of how climate change became what we know it as today: philosophy. Similar to

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Finding order in chaos: Exploring quantum systems

Physics, Technology / Abigail Potter / October 25, 2021

Humans love order. We have a natural ability to see patterns in everything around us. It’s how we gather data and draw conclusions. Think about the work you do in school; you read history to see how it repeats itself, and you redo experiments to find repetition in the results. We even teach young children

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The equation for how flowers bloom

Biology / Abigail Potter / June 4, 2021

There are few things more poetic than a flower blooming. Artists clamor to capture graceful petals peeling back into a blossom, yet despite mankind’s affinity for flora’s beauty, little is known about how it comes to be. It was initially suspected that petals would bend outwards because of internal stress building against the midrib (the

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From a Supernova Comes a Spider

Space / Abigail Potter / April 22, 2021

The night sky is breathtakingly captivating. It entrances viewers with twinkling lights that allow for navigation, make shapes, and tell stories. As technology advances, people are even able to put manmade lights into the sky in the forms of planes or satellites. Often those observing the sky try to tell the two apart, which is

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