General Science

Kratom: More than a simple plant

Posted October 29, 2022 by Taryn Bosquez

[Image showing the large, broad, green leaves of the mitragyna speciosa (kratom) plant.]

Does the word kratom [kra-tm] mean anything to you? Well, if you were me a few months ago, the word kratom was just this abstract word with very little meaning. I had no idea how popular kratom was in both Southeast Asia and (more recently) Western countries as a medicinal remedy for many ailments. However, after doing some personal research, I have a newfound appreciation for kratom and its use as an alternative pain-relieving substance. I hope that once you finish reading this post, you will too…

Winning at Wordle with machine learning

Posted October 15, 2022 by Lindy Howe

[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.]

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…

Biases of the fossil record

Posted October 1, 2022 by Allison Nelson

[Mounted statue of a Triceratops fossil at a museum. People can be seen in the background looking at a wall of fossils. ]

As scientists, we strive to reduce error and bias as much as possible. But as a paleontologist, I need to be aware of the biases I can’t reduce. The fossil record is inherently biased. Not everything that dies becomes a fossil. Not every fossil has been found. Not every fossil stays intact well enough to study. These biases in the fossil record come in many forms and are studied under the branch of paleontology known as taphonomy…

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.

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…

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…

Deciphering geographers’ lingo

Posted April 23, 2022 by Dan Myers

[An embellished map of the world from 1689, including separate frames for the western hemisphere, eastern hemisphere, and north and south poles.]

Every academic discipline has its own special words and phrases. However, it is hard to match geography in terms of words that are just curious. Did you know that “space” and “place” mean very different things? That the “Annals” is the hallmark of a geographer’s career? And the “First Law of Geography” is extremely important, but does not always hold true? To decipher the meanings of these words and phrases, we first must come to terms with the most ambiguous word of them all: “geographer”…

The power of quantum computing: Parallelism

Posted April 16, 2022 by ScIU Editorial Team

[A spinning coin is analogous to the behavior of a qubit in a superposition.]

Tech companies are going big in a microscopic way, pouring millions of dollars into a new form of computing: quantum computing. Quantum computers will revolutionize drug research, material discovery, and artificial intelligence by solving complex problems in a new way. To understand this, let’s review how normal computers solve problems and compare this to how a quantum computer would do it…

A beginner’s guide to Bloomington birds

Posted April 9, 2022 by sciutern

[Two round cardinals grip onto two iron bars.]

Step outside in Southern Indiana and you’ll be greeted by a symphony of chirps, calls, and songs from a myriad of local birds. Home to over 400 species, Indiana is a birder’s paradise. Warblers, eagles, and owls alike call Bloomington home and are frequently spotted on the campus of IU Bloomington. Birds are a vibrant part of Bloomington culture, so it’s worth getting to know a few…

How rat behavior may inform our understanding of racism

Posted April 2, 2022 by J Wolny

Imagine that you wake up in a small room with no doors. You quickly realize that there is no way out. Oh, shoot. Further, you see that there is another individual trapped in a small cylindrical Plexiglas container in the middle of this arena, with barely any room to move. You are not sure what the consequences could be if you go investigate—something could hurt you. Someone may grab you and trap you in a claustrophobia-inducing container as well. The first thought that comes to mind may be the Saw movie series, so you would likely be reluctant. The question is: would you attempt to free this individual in the face of these risks…

What the heck is a nanowire?

Posted March 19, 2022 by Thomas Ruch

[A myriad of nanowires are shown growing outwards, originating from a central growth nucleus.]

Imagine a future in which your iPhone 20 charges itself as you walk down the street and your house is powered by photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells installed in your backyard, using the power of the sun to convert captured rainwater into clean hydrogen. If we have any hope of realizing this future, you can be certain that nanowires will play a significant role. So what are nanowires, and why are they so important? My previous blog post was dedicated to examining a class of objects known as topological materials, with an emphasis on the bizarre realm of topological insulators (TIs). Implicit in the definition of topological insulators in the previous post was the assumption that the bulk of this insulator behaves as one would expect from its name: preventing the flow of electric current. Real-world TIs are not quite so simple, however…