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ScIUConversations in Science at Indiana University

Cutting-Edge Science at IU

Can we climb mountains on neutron stars?

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[Mount Everest.]

Each year around a thousand people attempt to reach the peak of Mount Everest, which is the tallest mountain on Earth, rising up approximately 9 km above sea level. In Mars, the mountain Olympus Mons goes up about 22 km, which more than doubles the height of Mount Everest. Furthermore, Galileo Galilei observed that the Moon also has mountains. What about mountains on other types of astrophysical bodies? How tall are they? Can we climb them?…

ScIU update: We’re back!

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ScIU logo

[ScIU logo.]

Dear Reader,
As you may have noticed, ScIU took a period of hiatus over the summer. It was a tough decision since, without missing a single week, ScIU has published a weekly blog post about science and the humans involved in scientific endeavors since the blog’s formation in 2016. At this point, ScIU has published more than 300 posts by IU graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduate students from all different fields, from geology to physics, from psychology to chemistry, from ecology to linguistics…

The power of quantum computing: Parallelism

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[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

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[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…

What the heck is a nanowire?

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[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…

Red wolves are endangered, but how can we protect a species we can’t define?

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[Wolf standing in a field of yellow grass.

Red wolves and grey wolves may have once been a single species. But throughout the 1900s, the interbreeding of coyotes and red wolves  blurred the line between species. How can we  determine whether red and grey wolves are the same or separate species? The question is a pressing one, if you consider that conservation efforts are based on species.  In 1973, the Endangered Species Act was passed, creating the Endangered Species List, which mandates conservation efforts for every animal and plant on the list – based on species. Without a clear definition, conservationists don’t know what exactly they are trying to protect…

How gender is conveyed through speech

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[Recording microphone with pop filter lit in soft purple light.]

When we hear a voice, the speaker’s gender is one of the first things we notice about them. Even if we’re asked to categorize speakers based on dialect or accent, we still gravitate toward grouping them based on how we perceive their gender. In my lab, we study which specific physical properties of speech (known as acoustic cues) control how gender identity is perceived. The acoustic cues we examine are voice pitch (controlled by how quickly the vocal folds vibrate), voice resonance (a result of the size and shape of the throat and mouth), articulation (how we produce the consonant and vowel sounds in our speech), and intonation (the melody we produce with our speech)…

A study on grammar and the bilingual brain

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[A cartoon of the brain, with pictures of a heart, a thought bubble, music notes, numbers, a molecule, and words.]

We humans have a unique capacity to acquire language, even as adults. However, if you have ever used Duolingo, you might have realized that children are more successful at acquiring languages than adults. This observation is puzzling; since adults are smarter than children, shouldn’t it be the other way around? One set of explanations for this paradox focuses on parsing — that is, applying our knowledge of grammar as sentences unfold incrementally…

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