The dirt on dirt: Investigating soil’s scent Sage Kumar, Biology, 2023 Photo credit: Sam Klein Dirt. Soil. Earth. It goes by many names and often unnoticed. Lying silently, it constantly absorbs the blows of our daily routines. Despite its understated nature, dirt wields one distinct attribute that refuses to be ignored: its smell. Geosmin, an organic compound […]
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Before the beakers: A history of science By Amanda Zavala, Cell & Molecular Biology, 2020 Photo credit: Gus Mueller This summer, for the first time in a long time, I left the lab. I cleaned up my bench, closed all my data files, and went the way of the medieval scientist: I went to England, and I
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Survival of the friendliest: the evolution of dogs By Lauren Voso, Biology, 2023 Credit: Lauren Voso Dogs are known as man’s best friend for a reason: their wagging tails, aggressive licks, and silly personalities combine to make the perfect recipe for a loyal and trusted pal. But, would you feel the same about adopting a wolf into
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How genealogy cracked the case Beiyu (Pam) Lin, Biology, 2021 Source: Shutterstock On the first day of April in 1988, the midwestern town of Fort Wayne, Indiana was put into a stupor. 8-year-old April Tinsley had vanished into thin air while on a short walk from a friend’s house to her own. She had been on
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Utter chaos: Tracking the dispersion of airborne pollutants By Annabelle Mathers, Civil Engineering, 2022 Source: Pixabay Many processes in the natural and humanistic worlds are extraordinarily complex and seemingly random. However, in systems defined by Chaos Theory, this apparent randomness is actually not random at all, but governed by hidden patterns. Computer algorithms, biological responses,
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Little sod house on the prairie By Lillie Hoffart, Environmental Science, 2022 Source: Shutterstock With the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862, the Plains region, or “Great American Desert,” was parceled out in plots. After paying a fee, farming, and living on the land for five years, the homesteader became the land’s owner. This was
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In the beginning, all that would become the universe was concentrated into an extremely small, dense, high-energy speck of space. In the fractions of seconds that followed, this singularity exploded: one hundred decillionths (10–35) of a second after, it expanded to nearly the size of a soccer ball; after one nonillionth (10–30) of a second,
The Evolutionary Roots of Anxiety By Rachel Griep, Biology and Psychology, 2022 Source: Shutterstock Often characterized by rapid breathing and a pounding heart, anxiety is a familiar feeling that everyone has experienced at one point in life or another. Anxiety disorders are currently the most prevalent mental illness in the United States. According to the Anxiety
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Tripping our way into consciousness By Clara Bils, Behavioral Neuroscience, 2023 Source: Shutterstock At some point between 2,000 and 2 million years ago, Homo sapiens diverged from their closest relatives as our neocortex nearly doubled in size. Recent research has discovered that the ARHGAP11B gene may have played a role in this expansion; the gene
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