![[Portrait of a Mona Lisa]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2022/11/3694927599_039309b2e6_o.jpg)
When it comes to Art and Chemistry, we typically see these two subjects as lying on opposite ends of a spectrum. Chemistry is typically associated with someone in a lab coat, mixing up some chemicals in the hopes of not blowing anything up. In contrast, art is often viewed as a form of expression crafted in some type of studio, using creative juices to design a masterpiece. But there is, in fact, a notable overlap between these two subjects…
![[A screenshot of the Wordle website, with four guesses and varying yellow, green, and gray tiles. Word guesses include slaty, faugh, larks, and larva with larva being the correct response.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2022/06/worde.jpg)
You may have seen tweets, received texts, and noticed social media posts. One daily word. Five letters. Six guesses. Wordle took the world by storm at the beginning of 2022. If you aren’t familiar, Wordle challenges people to guess a five-letter word in six guesses, with a new word refreshing every single day…
April 24th, 2020 was the 30th anniversary of the launch of perhaps the most famous telescope: the Hubble Space Telescope. Orbiting the earth, this telescope has changed the way astronomers and the public alike view the universe. With over 1.4 million observations, providing data for more than 16,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers, Hubble has exceeded expectations…
![[A black wolf stands in snow, facing left. It is looking at the camera. There is snow on its muzzle and back leg.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2022/05/black-wolf-sciu-yell-pic.jpg)
Recently, a trail camera in northern Minnesota caught video of a pack of all-black wolves. The video has been viewed more than 950,000 times since it was uploaded in late December 2021. A greyish-brown wolf crosses the meadow in the shot, followed by three all-black wolves. People are fascinated. So, what affects animal coloration? And why are these wolves black?
![[Slice of pizza on a white plate next to a drink and condiments.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2018/10/pizza-2hieqmk.jpeg)
In 1992, an 84-year-old grandmother was brutally assaulted and killed in California. For 25 years, the mystery of her death went unsolved — and her killer unapprehended — due to the lack of physical evidence to tie him to the crime. Twenty-five years later, police paid a visit to a pizza party where they found sufficient evidence to arrest her murder. At first glance, the murder and the pizza party seem unrelated. However, there is a link: familial DNA…
If everything has gone according to schedule, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on December 22 and is currently on its way to its final orbit. JWST is designed to be a revolutionary telescope, building on the accomplishments of both the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. With its infrared instruments, it will enable us to see stars that were previously hidden by dust and to even detect water in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Its huge mirrors will help us collect more light to study the very earliest galaxies and uncover more information about how our universe was formed. Yet, the JWST will still give us gorgeous images of the universe, like Hubble does…
![[A young macaque enjoys some jackfruit up in the trees.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2019/07/jackfruit-4037499_1920.jpg)
Over the past few years, the iconic video below has become the face of orangutan conservation efforts: a young male orangutan confronting a bulldozer as it destroys the forest around him. Orangutan populations once stretched from the islands of Indonesia through Vietnam and into the south Asian continent. Fossils of orangutan ancestors have even been found all the way up into northern India! Today, wild orangutans can only be found in Sumatra and Borneo, two islands in Indonesia…
The question of how we sense the environment around us has fascinated humans for centuries. The first attempts at a theoretical understanding of the senses were discovered in the writings of early Greek thinkers in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. However, the gap between our theories and our understanding of how our senses work is continuing to shrink. This year, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Dr. David Julius and Dr. Ardem Patapoutian, two scientists who independently discovered mechanisms of how we sense temperature and touch…
![[A picture of virus particles each in a different color to represent a different Sars-CoV-2 variant.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2021/08/virus-5231044_960_720.png)
Because the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging for almost 2 years now, most people have heard of the different viral variants that threaten the effectiveness of full protection with vaccines. This topic can be confusing to anyone who is not familiar with viruses or virology. This article will: 1) help you understand what viral variants are, and 2) explain where they come from. Viruses rely on host organisms (e.g., people and/or animals) to make more copies of themselves so that they can infect more hosts. However, hosts typically mount an immune response to clear a virus, which creates a challenge for viruses to overcome…
![[A picture of someone holding a cicada in their hand.]](https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/files/2021/06/unnamed-1.jpg)
If you’ve walked around Indiana University (or frankly, any woodsy area in Indiana) recently, you’ve probably seen the 17-year Brood X adult cicadas on sidewalks, long grass, trees, and buildings. If you are reading this post and you’ve been in Bloomington for a while, you may also remember the time this happened 17 years ago. Or, you might be like me, and this invasion has sparked a curiosity of wanting to learn more about cicadas…
