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Electric Forest

Semiconductors are materials that are used as switches in modern electronics. While the switches in your computer and smartphone are made of silicon, carbon-based organic semiconductors offer the potential for flexible, inexpensive electronics. Toward…

Nanowires

  Nanowires are thin structures measuring 0.000000001 meters in diameter, which is so thin that they essentially behave as if they only have one-dimension. This one-dimensional nature gives nanowires a ton of interesting electrical and…

Just Keep Swimming

When you read a research article, what you see is a finished product. Behind that finished product are countless hours, weeks, months, and likely years of time and effort that went into making that published article. Not only do the experiments take…

My Favorite Things

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is an area of the brain located in the prefrontal cortex, which, as its name suggests, is the front part of the brain. The OFC is my favorite area of the brain, partially because it was the first region I studied, but…

Breaking Gad

The Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) is an area of the brain that is part of the Basal Ganglia system. It is divided into two subregions: the core and the shell. As you can imagine, the core region is nested within the shell. The NAc is primarily composed of…

Gad to the Bone

The Ventral Pallidum (VP) is an area of the brain that is part of the Basal Ganglia system. The VP is involved in regulating motivation and reward learning, connected with a variety of other brain regions, including another part of the Basal Ganglia…

Orange Crush

The Dorsal Raphe Nucleus, or DRN, is an area of the brain located along the midline of the brainstem that contains the largest number of serotonin containing (serotonergic) neurons in the brain. Serotonin participates in mood setting, sleep, social…

Sweet Serotonin

The Dorsal Raphe Nucleus, or DRN, is an area of the brain located along the midline of the brainstem, which is found towards the back of your brain. The DRN contains the largest number of serotonin-containing neurons, called serotonergic neurons, in the…

Amygdala On My Mind

The amygdala is an area of the brain named for its almond shape (amygdala is Latin for almond). The amygdala is necessary for any biologically significant event, or anything related to survival, because of its involvement in decision-making, memory, and…

In a Ghostly Mirror Rainbow

Europium and terbium are two rare earth elements that share a colorful similarity: they emit bright red and green light, respectively, when exposed to ultraviolet light. In the image above, there are five thin polymer films embedded with different…