Archive: 2015

By Andrew Wong, a second year graduate student in the Applied Physics program at Harvard University.       The increase in global energy demand and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions has driven advancements in renewable energy generation technologies…

Presented by: Shirlee Wohl and Katherine Wu Think of a virus, and you’ll likely think of an infection – Ebola, HIV, mononucleosis. But in actuality, the viruses that infect humans make up an infinitesimally small percentage of the total…

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about four billion years ago. The young planet Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 meters deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have…

by Fernanda Ferreira figures by Krissy Lyon The young, scaly creature bursts from the torso of its doomed host in a mix of guts and blood and stares blinkingly at its new environment. For most people the sentence above describes a famous scene from…

Presented by Martin Fan and Matt Schwartz Tyrannosaurus Rex may have gone extinct, but could there be other dinosaurs lurking in your backyard? In fact, birds are modern dinosaurs. In this talk we will discuss the theories on why non-avian dinosaurs went…

by Greg Silverberg figures by Kaitlyn Choi Cleantech is a troubled sector Scientists know from geological data that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have been below 300 parts per million for nearly 1 million years.  However, for about a…

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/228767033″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%”…

  A grain of pollen contains a sperm cell, surrounded by walls to keep it safe. The inner wall, or intine, is less sturdy and made of cellulose, but the outer wall, or extine, is made up of a very stable and tough polymer called sporopollenin. It…

Presented by Andy Greenspon, Christine Zgrabik, and Rob Devlin We have attempted to understand and control how light interacts with different materials since the days of ancient Greece, but it was only in the past century that scientists and engineers…

PaxilTablet640: Image obtained from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paxil,_June_2003.jpg In 2001, a famous clinical trial, Study 329, declared that the antidepressant Paxil was safe for adolescents. After a great deal of controversy, criticism,…