Biology

Photo by Annemarie Mountz, from http://phys.org/news/2013-02-bees-electrical-fields.html Flowers seduce bees with attractants such as color, shape, and scent. Scientists now think that flowers may have another surprising attractant in their repertoire:…

Should the discovery of an infectious virus in the permafrost worry us? Scientists have uncovered a so-called ‘giant virus’ in permafrost that has melted as a result of progressive climate change. The virus, Pithovirus sibericum, was isolated from melted…

Mitochondria provide the energy for cells, but unlike DNA, they are only inherited from our mothers through their eggs. Defective mitochondria cause diseases which are incurable in adulthood. However, they are treatable before conception with…

Who am I? This is a fundamental question that philosophers and anthropologists have been trying to answer for generations. With the discovery of DNA and the development of technologies to investigate genetic information, people have begun to probe the…

Vaccines teach your immune system to recognize and destroy certain pathogens. Unfortunately, it can be tricky to get your immune system to recognize and mount attacks against some pathogens, like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Researchers recently…

Scientists created stem cells by treating white blood cells from newborn mice with acidic conditions!

Presented by Jessica Kunke, Lei Zhu, Stephen Portillo The natural world is so complex and unpredictable that it might seem math could never be a sufficient tool to understand it.  Our lecture aims to widen this view of math and explore how mathematical…

Presented by David Kelley, Joseph Vitti, Casey Gifford This year marks the 10th anniversary of the completion of The Human Genome Project. This human DNA sequence brought with it much hope for advances in disease identification and treatment, however…

Presented by Natalie Moroz, Steph Guerra, and Sharon Hung GMOs have been making headlines recently, but what exactly is a genetically modified organism? This lecture will start by covering GMOs in the laboratory – how they’re made and how that…

Presented by Andrea Yung, Christina Welsh, and Matthias Minderer Studying the brain is like learning a foreign language – the language by which neurons communicate. Neuroscientists have made great progress by listening in on the neurons’ conversations.…