Next time you feel lonely during this time of social isolation, just remember you always have 100 trillion friends. Why? Because you aren’t really alone. As you read this, there are 100 trillion microorganisms who call your digestive system home and are dedicated to keeping you healthy. Contrary to popular belief, not all strains of […]
Dendrimers, or chemistry’s snowflake, are complex polymers that have the potential for many drug delivery applications. Starting with a singular atom at its core, dendrimers are formed through the connection of layer upon layer of additional functional groups until a spherical macromolecule is created. Polymers are materials that are made of many repeating units, also
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Abby and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins, a medical phenomena in which two babies are born anatomically connected to one another. The sisters shot to fame in 2012 when they became stars of their own reality show, titled “Abby and Brittany,” which detailed their interconnected journeys as they graduated college and attempted to establish their
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Amid the late-night bustle of an Irish bar in Boston, Northeastern professor Dr. Samuel Scarpino focuses on the glow of a laptop screen with a visiting colleague from Oxford. It is mid-February of 2020, and the two are writing the first manuscript for a paper about a disease outbreak in Wuhan, China. They publish the
For hundreds of years, music has provided humans with a means to enjoy themselves and reduce their stress. Whether it is the serenading melodies of jazz or the flashy beats of hip-hop, music has provided people with a type of natural mood enhancer. Recently, medical research has suggested that music can significantly help people with
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For just a moment, think back to January 2020. People were just hearing stirrings of the novel coronavirus outbreak escalating in Wuhan, China. Cases were on the rise in numerous countries. Some people panicked instantly. Others were seemingly in denial. Months later, as cases reached an all-time high, many could no longer afford to ignore
To panic or not to panic: The impacts of human bias on the pandemic Read More »
What if hand sanitizer was actually increasing our risk of viral and bacterial infection? While hand sanitizer has emerged as a panacea for preventing viruses and bacterial diseases, is it as reliable as we think? The impacts of consistently using hand sanitizer are of even greater importance now amidst a global pandemic, in which the
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For most of our lives, it has been engrained in us that illnesses are primarily caused by unhygienic environmental factors. However, in the case of leukemia, recent studies have shown that it may very well be the opposite. With an annual incidence in the United States of approximately 3,800 children per year, leukemia is the
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Tea bags, coffee cups, clothing, soda cans, and gum are only a select few items that surprisingly all contain some form of plastic. The more obvious plastic water bottles, bags, electronics, and containers further display how humans live in a plastic-filled world. Although innovation and standard of living have greatly improved since its invention, plastic
A world without plastic? The pros and cons of plastic Read More »