Isabelle Brandicourt – NU Sci Magazine

Our brains on psychedelics: Getting creative in the treatment of mental illnesses

Health, Psychology, World / Isabelle Brandicourt / December 1, 2023

Bill Wilson co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s. He had struggled with alcoholism since his early twenties and depression even longer. But while AA helped Wilson recover from alcoholism, he remained frustrated with available mental health treatments. So, in the ‘50s, he began collaborating with psychologist Betty Eisner and discovered the power of LSD. In […]

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Reincarnation: Dodo or do-don’t

Biology, Environment / Isabelle Brandicourt / August 6, 2023

While the wooly mammoths, smilodons, and giant ground sloths starred in Disney’s “Ice Age,” do prehistoric creatures have a place on Earth today? When species go extinct, evolution fills the ecosystem gap with modern species, renewing balance and moving forward in evolutionary history. The hot-topic term “de-extinction” describes the process of using genetic engineering to

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Summer campaign in the Antarctic

Environment, Technology / Isabelle Brandicourt / July 20, 2022

While the idea of spending three months of co-op in Antarctica sounds isolating and lonely, it is, in fact, the opposite. I discovered this while on my co-op from December 2021 to March 2022 working with the French Polar Institute to improve long-term penguin observation systems. Every day is heightened by the close community of

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Time capsules blinking in the sky

Space / Isabelle Brandicourt / March 7, 2021

Everyone remembers the first time they wished on a shooting star, recognized Mars by its reddish tint, or realized the glimmering, dusty sweep across the blackness was actually the Milky Way. Peering into the night sky has a certain magic that has continually drawn our gazes upwards and outwards from every corner of the Earth.

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Massive Martian sand waves

Space / Isabelle Brandicourt / November 19, 2020

Less than 40 million miles away, Mars can be observed in the night sky by the naked eye, distinguishable by a reddish tinge to its pinprick of light. Data on Mars began to be collected almost as soon as space exploration itself began; the 1964 mission aboard NASA’s Mariner 4 was the first successful flyby

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‘Women in science’ should not be oxymoronic

World / Isabelle Brandicourt / August 10, 2020

Although society has seemingly made leaps and bounds over the past century in terms of overall gender equality, the scientific field is still far from balanced. Yes, the early 1900s began with a minuscule number of recognized women in any field of science, but even now, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

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