Glow sticks are part of a happy childhood memory for many. Beneath your fingertips, you snap the plastic stick in half, revealing a beautiful vibrant color show in the dark. While glowing colors may remind us of nostalgic times, fluorescing corals are a sign of a last-ditch effort to survive bleaching in the battle against […]
A fluorescent cry for help: How corals use “sunscreen” to stay cool Read More »
Thirty-one pints of ice cream are consumed by the average American each year, making up the 1.3 billion gallons of ice cream U.S. manufacturers churned out in 2021, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. The global ice cream market shows no signs of slowing down with a nearly 50% estimated growth in worth from
Ice cream: The sweet treat that never fails to delight Read More »
Glass is an integral part of modern buildings, appreciated for its uniquely transparent nature that provides a literal window to the outside world. Made mostly of sand, sodium carbonate, and limestone, glass resists intense weather patterns and precipitation and is recyclable and relatively inexpensive to produce. However, glass has several weaknesses — it is thermally
Seeing through trees: Transparent wood as a next-generation glass Read More »
Imagine water seeping up from the solid ground beneath our feet. Then imagine water falling from the sky — not as rain, but as a giant rock crashing into Earth. Both seem like ridiculous scenarios, but they closely relate to real theories about what may have happened billions of years ago. The origins of water
From rock to water: Studying the origins of water on Earth Read More »
On October 4, 2021, David Julius and Ardem Pataoutian won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how we can distinguish pain from spicy food and warmth from a hug. Their discovery marks a major leap in our understanding of how the human body converts sensations from the environment to electrical signals that the brain
Hot and touching research wins 2021 Nobel Prize Read More »
No matter what you call it—bier, øl, пиво, ビール, 啤酒, בירה, cwrw—beer is one of humanity’s oldest creations. It is believed that this alcoholic drink has been a staple of civilization since the Neolithic Revolution (c. 10,000 BC), with detailed accounts of large-scale production dating to Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (c. 1800 BC). However, when dealing
Beer: The oldest drink everyone has heard of Read More »
Humans have made many lasting, devastating changes to the world in which we live, but biodiversity loss has been one of the main changes we have wrought upon the planet. In the world of agriculture, there has also been a loss of biodiversity in the specific species of crops grown to feed a rapidly growing
An exploration of crop diversity:
The importance of biodiverse agriculture Read More »
As you walk across campus on a warm fall day, you pass by what looks like a small, bright-yellow chunk of coral rising up from under some mulch. A few days later as you walk the same route — do you remember it correctly, or did that yellow mushroom-like blob move? That blob is no
Slime mold: the cell that’s smarter than you Read More »
Death has long been known as the event horizon of neuroscience. While it is still infeasible for neuroscientists to examine the experiences of dead brains, recent studies have provided much insight into the moments preceding death. According to Daniel Condziella of Copenhagen University Hospital, brain death — currently, the most commonly accepted definition of legal
Your brain on death Read More »