Archive: 2016

Modern society is built on portable electronics, and with these power-hungry pieces of technology comes the need for convenient charging. To mitigate the need to find power outlets, a team at the University of Central Florida, lead by Jayan Thomas,…

In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble observed that distant galaxies are moving away from us. This surprising observation led Hubble to hypothesize that the universe is expanding; more recently, scientists have observed that not only is the universe…

And how! Depicted here are intricate collagen fibers, the structural glue and the most abundant protein in the mammalian body. Collagen proteins occupy the extracellular space in connective tissues, and form fibers that provide the physical scaffold for…

Infectious disease outbreaks are not a new phenomenon and remain a major public health concern. Since the turn of the 21st century, we have dealt with several infectious disease epidemics, including the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic, and most recently the…

High-resolution microscope image of an immune cell infected with HIV [Image: ‘HIV-infected T Cell’ from NIAID]Gaeten Dugas, the man who received the title “Patient Zero” for supposedly bringing HIV/AIDS into the United States, has been…

In the modern age, data is used to make decisions in almost every aspect of life, from online dating to product placement and advertising. But what is big data? How did it come to be? How will applications of big data help shape technology we use every…

Suicide is a troubling, yet surprisingly common phenomenon, claiming the lives of over 42,000 Americans annually. This lecture will explore the intersecting topics of language, pain, and emotion regulation, and address how research in these fields can…

Glacier meltwater provides a steady source of water for communities that would otherwise lack access during the dry season, but melting glaciers can cause problems beyond raising the sea level and endangering coastal communities. Meltwater forms lakes…

The importance of basic research has been highlighted this year by Yoshinori Ohsumi receiving the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on the process of autophagy. Autophagy—literally “self-eating”—is a fundamental cellular process that degrades and…

The wealth of information contained in light and sound is staggering, as can be seen in 8th century Asian Ink drawings and the vibrating pollination technique used by the bumblebee. And the ways we process light and sound are equally complex, it turns…