RNA Simulations Show Its Unique Ability to Move and Fold
New data-driven RNA simulations allow scientists to observe twisting and folding in real time. Continue reading RNA Simulations Show Its Unique Ability to Move and Fold
Category: Blog
Crazy for Catnip: the Mosquito-Repelling Story behind a Cat’s Love for Catnip
Why do cats love catnip? Well, it may be due to its mosquito-repelling properties. Continue reading Crazy for Catnip: the Mosquito-Repelling Story behind a Cat’s Love for Catnip
Nuclear War Could Cause Cooling on Land, but Warming in the Oceans
Global cooling caused by nuclear warfare could devastate crops, leading to global food insecurity. How would marine ecosystems be affected by this catastrophic event? Continue reading Nuclear War Could Cause Cooling on Land, but Warming in the Oceans
How COVID-19 is Shaping Antibiotic Resistance
by Molly Sargenfigures by Molly Sargen, Buse Aktaş, and Aparna Nathan COVID-19 is unarguably devastating from any perspective. Even as we struggle to overcome the present challenges of the pandemic, COVID-19 is paving the way for other infectious agents to cause damage in the future. Although SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that cannot be treated with antibiotics, antibiotic usage has significantly increased throughout the pandemic. With … Continue reading How COVID-19 is Shaping Antibiotic Resistance
Climate Change Tied to a Third of Recent Flood Damage in U.S.
As Earth continues warming, flooding across the U.S. has been getting worse. Scientists have recently figured out just how much that is costing us. Continue reading Climate Change Tied to a Third of Recent Flood Damage in U.S.
A Near Perfect Solution to a Decades-Old Biology Problem
by Sebastian Rowefigures by Jovana Andrejevic First conceptualized in the 1960s, the protein folding problem – how to predict a protein’s structure from its sequence – has been one of the main concerns of structural biologists worldwide. Last year Google’s DeepMind, a team of programmers studying artificial intelligence, claimed to have the solution; much in the same way they solved the board game Go in … Continue reading A Near Perfect Solution to a Decades-Old Biology Problem
Bacteria Have Body Clocks Too
Organisms throughout nature have an internal biological clock within them known as the circadian rhythm. It turns out that bacteria have them too. Continue reading Bacteria Have Body Clocks Too
Erich Jarvis: What birds can teach us about ourselves
Hannah Smith is a Biology PhD student at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hannah is interested in the biological pathways that regulate aging, and whether we can target these pathways to make people healthier in old age (but she’s currently doing experiments on the microscopic nematode worm C. elegans, not humans). Wei Wu is a graduate student in the Design Studies program at … Continue reading Erich Jarvis: What birds can teach us about ourselves
Erich Jarvis: What birds can teach us about ourselves
by Hannah Smith Have you ever wondered why you can teach a parakeet to talk, but you can’t teach a dog or a cat? Dr. Erich Jarvis has spent his scientific career studying the brain pathways required for this behavior, called vocal learning, and trying to decipher how this trait evolved only in a handful of animals. But before he was well known around the … Continue reading Erich Jarvis: What birds can teach us about ourselves
What Does A Theoretical Physicist Do?
How do you introduce yourself, scientifically? My name is David Kolchmeyer and I am a theoretical physicist. I’m interested in quantum gravity, which is a theory of gravity that obeys the rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the fundamental framework upon which much of my field is built. I’m most interested in the properties of black holes, which are a good system for studying quantum gravity. … Continue reading What Does A Theoretical Physicist Do?