A lot of us have people in our lives who seem to experience one chaotic situation or crisis after the next. After a while, you might think that this person, on some level, enjoys the chaos and unpredictability of these situations. Indeed, it may be true that people manufacture chaos in their lives because they […]
In 2018, Quantic Dream and Sony Interactive Entertainment developed a game with over 100 pages of script and months of filming: “Detroit: Become Human.” The year is 2038, and androids are being used by humans all throughout the United States. However, following the lives and growth of three androids, players start to realize that these
To fear or not to fear: Robots — Technology vs. nature Read More »
In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, software engineer Loren Brichter said “smartphones are useful tools, but they’re addictive. Pull-to-refresh is addictive. Twitter is addictive. These are not good things.” What makes this quote significant is the knowledge that it was none other than Brichter who invented pull-to-refresh, a feature now ubiquitous among smartphone apps.
When Smartphones Make Us Dumb Read More »
The brain, arguably one of the most complex organs in the human body, has more difficulty repairing itself than most other parts of the body. While the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, which make up the peripheral nervous system, regenerate automatically, the central nervous system, which consists of the brain and spinal cord,
Magnetic growth in the nervous system Read More »
Four minutes and thirty four seconds. That was Eliud Kipchoge’s mile time…for 26.2 miles. On October 12, 2019, the acclaimed Kenyan distance runner broke a barrier that was once thought to spell certain death: a sub-two hour marathon. While rules on pacing and fluid allowance and concerns surrounding equipment engineering prevented his run from being
The sub-two hour marathon: An optimized storm of science and grit Read More »
The study of preexisting designs is a common practice for guidance in problem solving. Innovators can turn to structures around them for inspiration, and what’s a more complex and functioning system than nature? In terms of hydrophobic properties, or water-repellant behavior, scientists strive to mimic the lotus effect. This effect is named after the leaves
Materials that mimic the lotus effect: Lotus leaves inspire self-cleaning surfaces Read More »
As the amount of data in the biological field expands exponentially as a result of more efficient biological processes, such as Next Gen Sequencing, machine learning has become a tool to leverage this data for contributions to the drug development and medicinal fields. One of the most widely utilized machine learning models is the Hidden
Hidden Markov Models for biochemical applications Read More »
What comes to mind when one thinks of physics and what comes to mind when one thinks of biology seem quite distinct. But over time, the two fields continue intersecting, especially as scientists try to replicate biological systems using electrical circuits. This is an enormous challenge because biologists first need to map and understand the
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
Dendritic polymers for dermal drug delivery Read More »