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by Olivia Woodford-Berry, '19 Fainting spells can be a symptom of such health issues, from heart problems to neurological conditions. Though some patients with the mentioned symptoms may be shuffled from doctor to specialist, these symptoms may be a sign of something often overlooked. Before jumping to conclusions, consider some of the more basic questions: Are you drinking enough water?
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By Jess Sevetson  Figure courtesy of Sliman J Bensmaia & Lee E Miller. “Restoring sensorimotor function through intracortical interfaces: progress and looming challenges” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2014 May The term “mind reading” usually suggests the ability to read out someone’s thoughts like an audiobook. While there has been some progress on that front recently, another application of these technologies is the ability to operate advanced prostheses. by Sumaiya Sayeed '20  Dry earth due to the drought in Syria, 2010 Brute forces of nature meet civilized people. People cannot handle natural disasters. Chaos ensues.
by Olivia Woodford-Berry, '19 While some organisms, including certain salamanders and planarian, have the capability to regenerate tissues, limbs, or even large segments of the body, mammal regeneration is much more restricted. [1] Mammals often possess the ability to regenerate tissues in their embryonic stages, but the adult organisms usually heal through the formation of fibrotic scar tissue. The varied regenerative limitations within this class of organisms is of particular interest for the field of tissue engineering and wound healing. Many researchers aspire to uncover the biological processes that allow certain organisms to heal so effectively with the hopes of adapting these processes for humans. While most regenerative studies surround non-mammalian model organisms, certain mice lines show great promise for future regeneration research in mammals.
By Claire Bekker  We know that climate change has enormous destructive potential. It’s been repeatedly established by climate scientists that an increase of two to four degrees Celsius will lead to mass migration and relocations (“climate refugees”), altered growing seasons, high economic costs, and a disproportional effect on impoverished and low-lying countries [1]. So far our solutions to climate change have been unsatisfactory. Many countries have promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (all except the United States agreed to the Paris Climate Accord), but they are only willing to do so as long as it doesn’t put them at an economic disadvantage. But could there be a easy fix to climate change? A cheap, efficient alternative that could reverse the effects of global warming? That’s what geoengineering promises.
by Olivia Woodford-Berry, '19  Since the Industrial Revolution, the average pH of the ocean has dropped from 8.4 to 8.2, and scientists anticipate it to fall below 7.9 within the next one hundred years. [1] At the same time, concerns are intensified by rising temperatures in crucial ecosystems. In a plea for public attention and government funding, environmental groups often plug the same eye catching photo of a polar bear, confused, perched on top of a melting iceberg. While this furry animal might tug at one’s heart strings, the more ecologically important victim of ocean warming and acidification is far less appealing to our love of animals.
by Rahul Jayaram '21  Do you struggle to find your keys? Don’t worry. More important information took their location in your memory. Most people have trouble recalling this simple piece of information at some point, and wish to have the ability to remember everything. While such a super power seems amazing, forgetting is actually an important part of how our brains learn and function. In fact, the mechanism of eliminating unneeded information from our memory is so critical to the human mind that scientists have developed a synthetic material that imitates the way we forget. The implications of such a feat show great promise in the present-day artificial intelligence renaissance.
by Claire Bekker '21  Wind-generated power has become increasingly prevalent as a source of electricity in the U.S. The Trump administration has taken a clear stance on climate change: it doesn’t exist. From a Chinese hoax to a liberal fallacy, they have branded climate change with various misnomers. Yet they refuse to call it what it is: reality.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the current administration has not only been turning a blind eye to the warnings of environmental advocates and scientists, but now, has taken the next step to dismantle environmental regulations by repealing the Clean Power Plan. Created under the Obama administration, the Clean Power Plan (CPP) made goals for each state to reduce power plant emissions; under the plan, they estimated a net reduction of 32% from 2005 levels by 2030[ 1]. For the United States, the policy was essential to meeting the Paris Agreement, as the power sector accounts for a third of greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Yet now that President Trump plans to withdraw from the agreement, it will be discarded. by Olivia Woodford-Berry, '19 For many geological and environmental scientists, the inauguration of President Trump came with a wave of apprehension. The conflict between industry and environmental research continues to play out in political dialogues, and many scientists fear that the government will push science out of the budgets.
by Rahul Jayaraman '19  In 1916, Einstein formulated his general theory of relativity, which posits that spacetime can be thought of as an infinite fabric that is disrupted by the presence of massive objects. When two of these massive objects interact through the gravitational force, Einstein predicted that they send out little ripples in the fabric of spacetime (similar to waves on the ocean). These ripples are known as “gravitational waves, and they can be felt across the universe, up to billions of years after they were generated -- helping us study conditions in the infant cosmos.
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