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Current Events

30 years of Hubble: Images and discoveries that shaped astronomy

Posted May 14, 2022 by ScIU Editorial Team

A bright spiral galaxy with two prominent arms of red with a blue glow of stars. The center is bright white.

[A bright spiral galaxy with two prominent arms of red with a blue glow of stars. The center is bright white.]

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…

Grey wolves can be black? Recent trail camera footage shows a pack of black wolves in Minnesota

Posted May 7, 2022 by Allison Nelson

[A black wolf stands in snow, facing left. It is looking at the camera. There is snow on its muzzle and back leg.]

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?

Familial DNA as a method of identifying serial killers

Posted April 30, 2022 by ScIU Editorial Team

[Slice of pizza on a white plate next to a drink and condiments.]

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…

Why Worry about James Webb?

Posted December 25, 2021 by Jennifer Sieben

[Six gold, hexagonal mirrors are arranged on a mount, ready to slide into a large chamber. A man is seen standing in front, looking much smaller than the mirrors and the chamber.

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…

Primates: Nature’s grounds keepers

Posted December 4, 2021 by ScIU Editorial Team

[A young macaque enjoys some jackfruit up in the trees.]

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 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

Posted November 27, 2021 by Justin Bryant

[A flyer with two award-winning scientists, a coin engraved with

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…

Viral variants: What are they, and how do they form?

Posted August 7, 2021 by Haley Jordan

[A picture of virus particles each in a different color to represent a different Sars-CoV-2 variant.]

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…

Cicada mania at IU

Posted June 26, 2021 by Haley Jordan

[A picture of someone holding a cicada in their hand.]

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…

The Origins of 420

Posted April 17, 2021 by Michelle Murphy Green

[A cannabis plant, seeds, and oil displayed on a canvas cloth.]

This Tuesday is April 20th, otherwise known as 420. For some it’s just another day in the week, but for others it’s a much-anticipated and beloved holiday. However, have you ever stopped to consider how this pseudo-holiday came to be? A quick google search will provide a number of varying and amusing theories. Some of the most popular 420 stories include 420 as a police dispatch code for cannabis use, as the number of chemical compounds in cannabis (actually there are over 500), or  the day of Bob Marley’s death (actually May 11th). However…

Particle physics goes virtual through pandemic difficulties

Posted March 20, 2021 by Guest Contributor

[A scientist in white clothes on a lift surveys the inside of a gold-coated and box-shaped detector for neutrinos.]

Phineas and Ferb (in the funny Disney cartoon) had it right when they wondered what could be done over a 104-day summer vacation. There is a lot to do, such as go on a trip, get ice cream, spend weeks on end floating in a pool, or doing particle physics research. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted everything in life, resulting in many of these plans being canceled this past summer. Wait! Go back! Why would any student want to spend their summer, their solitary free time during the year, doing particle physics research? Moreover, how would that work during a pandemic, when the university is completely shut down?

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