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Cannaba-what!?: Cannabinoids in their various forms — mainstream and uncommon

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Image of the Cannabis plant and its distinctive green leaves.

[Image of the Cannabis plant and its distinctive green leaves.]

If I was to say the word “cannabinoid” to you, where would your mind go? Would you immediately wonder, “What? Is it just a fancy way to say weed?” or would you ask questions like, “As in the molecular components of Cannabis?” or “Are you referring to the specific endogenous cannabinoid ligands in our body?” If your first thoughts align with the latter, prepare for a nice refresher on cannabinoids. If your response was closer to the former, get ready for a crash course in how we characterize cannabinoids and how they can be used to treat various health conditions…

Where did all the jobs go?

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[Pictured is an empty classroom with all the chairs facing a blank white board.]

I was recently re-watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory, where the unfortunate passing of a colleague opened up a tenured position in the department that Sheldon, Raj, and Leonard were all vying for. While most people would find their various tactics to shmooze the tenure committee funny, the part that I found most hilarious was a tenure line being maintained instead of turned into cheaper, temporary adjunct positions. In reality, tenure is a dying position in academia, and it’s severely impacting the job market…

Putting it into context: How psychology has shaped our knowledge of universal emotions

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[Yellow painted eggs with various facial expressions.]

What are common emotions experienced in your culture? In the United States, happiness, anger, sadness, and fear are considered common emotions. The traditional theory of emotion assumes emotions are universally recognized by all humans. This theory dominates pop culture, with movies like Pixar’s Inside Out, which features characters personifying five emotions that coordinate our every action, and items like Amazon’s Halo Watch, which claims to detect emotions based on tone of voice. Yet, it is not possible to determine what emotion someone is experiencing based only on their face or tone of voice. Instead, our brain makes a prediction that is influenced by past experience, the current context, and interoceptive signals from our body (e.g., heart and breathing rate, hunger cues) from a culture-specific perspective…

Collecting drinking data: There’s an app for that

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[A photo of a person drinking a beer while also on their mobile phone.]

Why do college students really drink alcohol in excess, even if they probably shouldn’t? Addiction researchers have been studying this topic for decades. They’re interested in learning more about alcohol use, the reasons for drinking, and the consequences of heavy drinking. Typically, addiction is studied by having people come into a psychology lab, fill out questionnaires, or maybe do some computerized tasks. More recently, however, scientists wanted to step out of their offices and understand real-world drinking behavior. But, how do they do that? Picture these scenarios…

What does it mean for science to be falsifiable?

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[Two black swans nuzzling on murky water.]

Science is falsifiable. Or at least, this is what I (like many Americans) learned in many of my high school and college science classes. Clearly, the idea has appeal among scientists and non-scientists alike. But what exactly does “falsifiable” mean? And why is it valued by some scientists, but dismissed or even considered actively harmful by others?

Seeing science in a different light

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[Test tubes containing different fluorescent proteins being exposed to UV light, causing them to glow different colors.]

The first time I remember my malfunctioning eyes affecting my life was when I was younger than 5 years old. I was riding in my grandfather’s truck. We had reached a stop light, and my grandfather said we could go when the light turned green. I remember thinking “Green? That light is white.” This problem persisted all through K12 school, when a sea of classmates flashed colored pencils at me and asked, “What color is this?” I tried to explain that the issue isn’t interpreting a singular pencil of stark shade, but that it is distinguishing combinations like reds vs. greens that are close together, or greens vs. browns, or purples vs. pinks. This explanation often fell on deaf ears…

Do chameleons change their color to match their environment?

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[An animated GIF is shown featuring Pascal from Tangled, looking stressed and breathing deeply as he changes from his natural green state to match his background, a painted pot featuring flowers with a yellow center, teal petals, and green stems. His face becomes the yellow center or a flower, a teal petal in the center of his chest, and his tail is a green stem.]

Hopefully, we’ve all seen Disney’s Tangled, featuring the cute little chameleon Pascal. Throughout the film, Pascal takes on a range of colors depending on his background as well as his emotions. We see him blending in with teal walls and purple flowers, but we also see him turning red with anger. We’ve grown up thinking chameleons are able to blend into any background, but you may be wondering, is this true? Do chameleons really change their color to match any background or emotion?

Five ways to stay positive during a pandemic

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[A photograph of a young woman looking in the mirror. Her reflection shows that she is smiling, with her hands cupping her face.]

It’s been over a year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and staying positive this past year has not been the easiest. Despite what your greatest instincts say, going on your phone could be the cause of your blues. After a year of foregoing family and friends, we crave connection now more than ever. While social media may initially seem like a good way to engage with others when we’re apart, research has shown that social media can negatively impact our mental health and lead to a more sedentary lifestyle. Like social media, a sedentary lifestyle often harms your mental health. Luckily, researchers have discovered small hacks that you can do everyday to increase your levels of serotonin (the mood and happiness hormone)…

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