Falling leaves, pumpkin spice, and football — it’s that time of year again in the Bloomington community: Science Fest is tomorrow! Grab your goggles and plug your ears, the Science Fest is coming up! Did we mention it’s FREE? https://t.co/saS44RYdMV pic.twitter.com/N9jcx2EsXf — Indiana University Bloomington (@IUBloomington) October 9, 2019
General Science
Brain technology in Black Mirror: Technological myths or real possibilities? Part I
If you happen to watch Black Mirror, it is quite likely that you have been scared by the brain implant technologies depicted in the show. In fact, almost a quarter of this show—at least five episodes of the current 22— illustrate the dangers of brain implants. The horror stories range widely, from transferring someone’s consciousness into… Read more »
How neuroscientists and engineers make good collaborative partners
To treat a knee scrape, people often put a band-aid on it. Or, to relieve back pain, people may use an ice pack. While these examples involve anatomical regions that people can easily locate and treat, this is not always the case with all aspects of anatomy. For instance, to observe the brain, which is… Read more »
Why Are There No Sunspots?
It’s easy to think of the sun as a simple bright sphere in the sky, constant and unchanging; but, that is far from reality. The sun is dynamic, with many solar flares, cells of convection, and even storms. One of the easiest changes to see are sunspots, which are located on the surface of the… Read more »
Dead people are people too: online trafficking of archaeological skeletons and artifacts
This is a ScIU guest post by Krystiana Krupa, a Ph.D. candidate in IU’s Department of Anthropology and Research Associate for IU NAGPRA, and Molly Mesner Bleyhl, a Ph.D. student in IU’s Department of Anthropology and Graduate Assistant for IU NAGPRA It seems that once a deceased person is skeletonized, our society overall tends to… Read more »
7 Tips on How You Can Help the Environment
Primates: Nature’s Grounds Keepers
This is the second installment of the Primate Conversations Series. You can read Part 1 here. In the past year, 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… Read more »
Global collaboration in science
Looking back into the archives of scientific papers published in the past few decades, the majority have one, or at most four, authors. Most projects were conducted by a single individual (or a man and multiple uncredited women, but that’s a whole different topic than what I’d like to discuss here): one person started with… Read more »
Dispatches from the statistics wars
We recently took a guided tour of statistical significance, in which we focused on how the media often fails to correctly interpret statistical information. But, journalists are not the only group that is tripped up by statistics. The scientific community itself has been engaged in deep debate about the proper use of statistical methodology. These debates… Read more »
World Elephant Day
World Elephant Day, coming up on Monday, August 12th, was established in 2012 as a way to celebrate these wonderful mammals and promote conservation efforts. There are two main genera alive today: the African elephant (Loxodonta) and the Asian elephant (Elephas). The African elephant genus is split between two species the African bush elephant (Loxodonta… Read more »