Among the many increasingly complex medical developments made since the start of the twentieth century, one discovery stands out among all the rest: antibiotics. Today, antibiotics may not seem to be such a wonder, yet their discovery — beginning with the isolation of penicillin in 1928 — has been revolutionary to medicine and global health. […]
The tiny organisms posing a giant threat Read More »
Spider webs are known for their amazing tensile strength and have been calculated to be five times stronger than steel. Despite this strength, they also have an incredible amount of elasticity: the web strands snap back like a rubber band, even after a seemingly long stretch. Surprisingly, the brains of children work similarly. After experiencing
Snapping back: The power of resilience in children Read More »
Cancer has been around for as long as humans have. The oldest known case of cancer comes from a bone dating back 1.7 million years ago from South Africa. Its earliest written record comes from ancient Egyptian physician, Imhotep, in which he characterizes an incurable malady that was “bulging and spread all over the breast.”
CAR-T cell therapy: How we turned our bodies Into weapons Read More »
It has cost millions of dollars in research and made appearances in countless books and movies over the past 100 years. Sickle cell disease (SCD), first described in 1921, is a genetic condition with over 300,000 people born with it every year worldwide. The disease is caused by a mutation in hemoglobin, or proteins in
A new hope for a previously incurable disease Read More »
From cow-print phone cases and jackets to “drink milk” posters to paintings illustrating herd-speckled landscapes, dairy cows are among people’s favorite creatures. Affection toward these docile animals is clear, but what do their lives really look like? It’s not all scenic red barns and grazing. Dairy cows go through several major life transitions, and cattle
Moo-ving about: The transitional lives of dairy cows Read More »
Subzero temperatures. Eighty mile per hour wind gusts. Nineteen hours of darkness each day. It’s hard to believe that anything could survive the brutal winters of Anvers Island, but hidden under the snow, a hardy insect weathers it all. The Antarctic midge, Belgica antarctica, lives farther south than any other insect in the world. At
To freeze or not to freeze? How an insect survives winter in Antarctica Read More »
As you may already know, microbes play a very important role in the body. Bacteria live on our skin, along our nasal passage, in the gut, and in the vagina. In recent years, the role of gut microbiota has garnered a lot of attention. However, the bacteria residing along the vaginal canal also play a
The Inside Scoop: Vaginal Microbiome Read More »
As the dreary winter winds arrive, animals previously roaming their environment during warm times are left with few options. Many animals choose to migrate, while others choose to hunker down for colder weather by hibernating. Most people understand hibernation to be a state when animals enter a deep sleep, preparing for this slumber by eating
Hibernation in rodents: How studying the phenomena may help humans Read More »
Sixty-five million years ago — a time popularized by shows and movies like “The Land Before Time” and “Jurassic Park”. With that being said, we often think of dinosaurs through their remains: fossils, fragments of bone, and skeletons encapsulated in rocks and dust, providing a glimpse into the past. However, what if we could view
Mass extinction? They were born ready. Read More »