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Bees
Seminars

From Dancing Bees to RoboBees: How Honeybees Behave and Why Need Them

Presented by Elizabeth Petrik, Ryan Kuzmickas, and Kevin Ma Honeybees are creating a buzz in the media lately, particularly due to the large numbers of mysterious bee deaths attributed to Colony Collapse Disorder. This lecture will explore how these amazing creatures play an important role in our economy and inspire the future of robotics, as well as what we know about the threats to bee … Continue reading From Dancing Bees to RoboBees: How Honeybees Behave and Why Need Them

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The Potential of Nanotechnology for Diabetes Management

Diabetes is a growing worldwide issue. In the United States alone, there are 25.8 million affected patients []. The annual cost of medical treatment (e.g. management and monitoring) and indirect expenses (such as disability and unemployment benefits) are $174 billion []. While there are several means for patients with diabetes mellitus to manage their condition, none of them are perfect. official pharmacy canada The Biological … Continue reading The Potential of Nanotechnology for Diabetes Management

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Computational Chemistry Shines Light on Solar Energy Storage in Plants

Figure 1. Electron flow in Photosystem II. Plants take electrons from water to store energy from the sun. Whether it is the oxygen that we breathe or animals that we eat, our lives are made possible by photosynthesis.  Photosynthesis is the process that plants have used for billions of years to convert energy from the sun, water, and carbon dioxide into the life-sustaining biomolecules and oxygen … Continue reading Computational Chemistry Shines Light on Solar Energy Storage in Plants

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The Voyager Probes: A 35 Year Galactic Road Trip

As our closest astronomical neighbors, the planets have been subjects of keen observation by astronomers for over three millennia. The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, built and launched in the 1970s, flew by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, and provided a wealth of data and photographs in the 1980s. But far beyond even the most distant planet lies an invisible boundary at the edge … Continue reading The Voyager Probes: A 35 Year Galactic Road Trip

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Seminars

Living Factories: Engineering Cells to Manufacture Molecules

Presented by Kevin Bonham Single-celled microorganisms are everywhere, and are intimately linked to many aspects of our life. Some can cause disease, others decompose our waste, and many even help us digest our food – there are 10 times more bacteria cells in your body than human cells! But in the last few decades, scientists have been learning how to tinker with these tiny life … Continue reading Living Factories: Engineering Cells to Manufacture Molecules

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Bionic Senses: How Neuroprosthetics Restore Hearing and Sight

— Of the five senses, sight and hearing are often felt to be the most important. They allow us to interact with each other and our environment, and the loss of either sense can be devastating. Worldwide, an estimated 39 million people have severe vision loss and 360 million people have disabling hearing loss. Scientists have spent many decades studying the causes of vision and hearing loss, as well as working to understand how images and sounds are transmitted to and represented in the brain. After years of research, they are now creating technologies that can at least partially restore these senses. These technologies are called neuroprosthetics and take the form of devices that connect to brain cells to deliver information that the brain can no longer receive on its own, often due to injury or disease. Continue reading Bionic Senses: How Neuroprosthetics Restore Hearing and Sight

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Encouraging Sustainable Energy in the Developing World

Societies will always need energy to develop and function; how this energy is generated and delivered will determine whether we can achieve a sustainable future. Today, approximately 40% of the world’s population, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, don’t have access to modern sources of energy, instead relying on old-fashioned biomass burning, such as the use of firewood, charcoal, or animal waste, which leads to … Continue reading Encouraging Sustainable Energy in the Developing World

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Counting Spots: How Clean Are The Tar Sands?

— Measuring, or what Richard Feynman called “quantitative observation” in his Lectures on Physics, is one of the defining features of science. Some scientists, most notably Steven Hawking, even believe that science is nothing but measuring – if something can’t be measured it isn’t science. But measuring is also fraught with surprising practical, philosophical, and political implications – and even important social consequences – as demonstrated by a recent study of the Alberta tar sands. Continue reading Counting Spots: How Clean Are The Tar Sands?

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Spinning electricity out of thin, moving air

The sun’s beaming rays heat the Earth, but not evenly. Many attributes of the Earth – such as its atmosphere, topography, bodies of water, and rotation – contribute to uneven heat distributions, which create air movement, or wind []. Windmills use wind-generated kinetic motion to perform useful work, such as pumping water or grinding grains, whereas wind turbines use it to generate electricity []. Wind … Continue reading Spinning electricity out of thin, moving air

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Electric Vehicles and Hybrids: Where are we now?

As President Eisenhower said, our “transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear—United States.  Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.” (Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Feb 22, 1955). The automobile became a household staple and a powerful symbol of our industrialized economy, such that cars are now intimately intertwined with our lives. As we move into the … Continue reading Electric Vehicles and Hybrids: Where are we now?