Biology

The truth behind your random aches

Psychosomatic disorders are more simple than they sound. The word “psychosomatic” can be broken into two components: “psycho-,” which means relating to the mind and “-somatic,” relating to the body. In layman’s terms, psychosomatic disorders occur when one’s mental state manifests physical symptoms. Socrates first introduced a semblance of today’s psychosomatic disorders 2500 years ago […]

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Pigs: The solution to organ shortages?

Since the first successful kidney transplant in 1954, human-to-human organ transplantation has remained the best method of treatment for most patients with late-stage organ failure. Although medicine has rapidly advanced since 1954 — including innovations from the insulin pump to CT scans — the fundamental problem of allotransplantation has yet to be resolved: the number

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Low-resource survival: How hibernating animals conserve energy

As fall descends on the Northern Hemisphere, bears and chipmunks begin to hoard food and build fat stores in preparation for winter. Hibernation occurs in hundreds of known species, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and even one species of bird — the common poorwill. While animals hibernate, their metabolism slows dramatically: they become hypothermic, their heart

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Taps and whispers: What’s behind those ASMR tingles?

If you’ve been keeping up with online trends, then you’ve probably heard of ASMR; it’s an acronym for autonomous sensory meridian response, used to explain the experience of feeling tingly sensations in response to certain audio-visual stimuli, or “triggers.” These triggers include personal attention and close-up ear attention. In response to these triggers, tingles start

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