Articles
What’s Making That Smell? The Chemistry Behind Common Scents
The Science of Smell
Of the five senses, scientists understand the least about smell. We recognize scents when small airborne molecules stimulate receptors in the...
The Science of Sharing Information: The A, B, Ts of Storytelling
And, the explosion of information across scientific and technical fields over the past few decades has created a world overflowing with data. Scientific publications,...
Genetic Engineering: Woolld you, or woolldn’t you?
Imagine a tiny mouse with long, golden-brown fur that looks like it belongs on a woolly mammoth! As of a couple months ago, you...
Vertigo: Living like you’re on a perpetual rollercoaster
From ages 6-10, my uncle took my cousin and I to Navy Pier every summer. It’s July, school is out, the sun is shining,...
Three Dog Star Night (Part 1)
I am just old enough to remember a time when most textbooks only spoke of exoplanets (i.e. those outside our solar system) in the...
The Undersea Bone Devourer
Osedax, from the Latin os, oris (bone) and edāx, edācis (devourer), is a genus of undersea worms that consumes bone. A genus (which is...
The von Neumann Architecture
The von Neumann Architecture
Introduction
Have you ever wondered how your computer works? Who decided that we should use keyboards to tell our devices what to...
Making Bad Decisions: The Science of Decision-Making
MAKING BAD DECISIONS
Ever wonder why you make such bad decisions. We make around 35,000 decisions every day, and they can’t all be good. There...
A World with New Plastic
THE PROBLEM
Plastic pollution continues to be a growing environmental issue. Around 79% of plastic is gathered in either landfills or natural environments. Due to...
Sleep Well: Your Psychological Health Depends On It
There is some truth to the phrase “waking up on the wrong side of the bed.” When I don’t sleep very well, I will...