For thousands of years, humans have looked to nature for ways to cure disease. Ancient civilizations around the world relied on plants, animals, and fungi to treat every malady from headaches to heart disease. Even as our ability to develop synthetic drugs has increased, natural products remain crucial in the field of medicine. Between 1981 […]
Crawling cures: The potential value of insects in medicine Read More »
A salmon’s life begins with death. Hundreds of miles inland, adult salmon swim against fierce currents, passing hundreds of predators to reach the stream they were born in. There, they spawn and lay thousands of eggs in nests, called redds. For eggs to hatch and new life to begin, mature salmon commit themselves to death
When you look up at the night sky, how many light-years do you think you’d be able to see into space? 1 million? 2 million? In contrast, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is able to see a whopping 13.6 billion light-years deep. It’s NASA’s most powerful telescope to date, built to help us understand
The science behind the JWST images Read More »
Spanning thirteen years, six countries, and hundreds of experts, the completion of the Human Genome Project marked one of the greatest scientific feats in the past century. The landmark scientific effort comprehensively sequenced 3.2 billion nucleotide base pairs and accounted for 92% of the human genome by the time the project ended in 2003. Today,
Resequencing of the human genome Read More »
Beneath the African continent and the Pacific Ocean; two mantle superplumes, massive areas of the mantle with different seismic wave velocities and different compositions; exist. These large areas are associated with most hot spot volcanoes and large provinces of volcanic rock on the Earth’s surface. Their formation is linked to the supercontinent cycle, the cyclical
Supercontinents, superplumes, and true polar wander Read More »
Electric vehicles (EVs) currently make up about 1% of the cars in the United States. Economic and technology analysts expect this number to soar up to at least 70% by 2050, drastically increasing the amount of energy Americans are pulling from the electric grid. Cars in America guzzle 369 million gallons of gas every day.
How electric vehicles are futurizing the electric grid Read More »
The tradition of treating travelers with respect has been a long-held one, spanning many cultures and periods. As early as the Greeks and Romans, townspeople were hospitable to any and every stranger in the hopes that one may be a god in human form testing them. However, it isn’t hard to find winged travelers that
City lights and bird flights: How human activity affects migration Read More »
There is no doubt that seahorses are fascinating creatures. Ranging from the size of a pine nut to nearly a foot long, sporting funky colors and an aura of mythicism, they have long been a source of wonder to human civilizations. Scientists find them intriguing for a host of reasons — their elongated, suction-like snout,
Nature’s miracles: Hippocampi Read More »
Contrary to our peaceful perception of the humble bee, foraging for pollen can be a treacherous journey filled with seduction and trickery. Bees don’t get a “free lunch” in their mutualistic relationship with flowers. Instead, flowers often exploit bees as vessels for pollination, forcing them to endure trials reminiscent of Jason’s endeavors for the Golden
Trials of the Golden Fleece: What bees must overcome when collecting pollen Read More »