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Collecting drinking data: There’s an app for that

Posted on by Lindy Howe

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:

Scenario 1: Sally, a recent college graduate, goes out drinking with her friends on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. On all of these nights, a team of 8 scientists follows her, documenting the type of alcohol she drinks, keeping track of her alcohol intake, asking her about her motivations, observing her environment, and assessing her overall mood. This team of scientists follows her every move and observes all of her drinking tendencies. They want to learn more about what makes people really drink so much, what else is a scientist going to do?!

This first scenario is obviously unnatural, maybe a little bit uncomfortable, and could even influence Sally’s drinking behavior. 

Now, picture this second scenario:

Scenario 2: Sally, a recent college graduate, goes out drinking with her friends on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. On all of these nights, she responds to a notification on her mobile phone to confirm “I am drinking tonight.” Throughout the night, she gets a handful of notifications inquiring about the number of drinks she’s had, why she’s drinking, what’s going on in her environment, and her mood. Later, a team of 8 scientists downloads her data over the week to explore commonalities in her behavior and compare her drinking behavior to others in the study. 

Most likely, the second scenario sounds more natural, comfortable, and feasible. Sally’s probably checking her phone throughout the night anyways. 

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

Posted on by Haley Jordan

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. 

A picture of virus particles each in a different color to represent a different Sars-CoV-2 variant.
A cartoon of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, in which different colors represent different viral variants. Image credit: Shafin_Protic (CC0 on Pixabay).

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. Many viruses have tools that enable them to change their genetic information, which helps them overcome the host’s immune response and transmit and infect other hosts more effectively. These genetically-modified viral forms are called variants. Different viruses change their genetic information at different rates, meaning that certain types of viruses are better at this task than others. The emergence of viral variants also depends on other factors, like how many hosts have already been infected with the virus (the more hosts that have been infected, the greater the opportunity for the virus to produce genetic variants).

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What does it mean for science to be falsifiable?

Posted on by Evan Arnet

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:

Tweet by Dr. Michio Kaku stating, “Can you prove the existence of God. Probably not. Science is based on evidence which is testable, reproducible, and falsifiable. So God is outside the usual boundary of science. Also, it is impossible to disprove a negative, so you cannot disprove the existence of God, either.” Tweet by Dinesh D’Souza stating, “Karl Popper taught us that a valid scientific theory is narrowly drawn and makes specific predictions that can be empirically tested to invalidate the theory. Now ask yourself: by this standard, is “climate change” a valid scientific theory.” Tweet by Naval stating science is independently verifiable, falsifiable, and makes risky predictions (read Popper/Deutsch). It responds to a tweet by a Mike Solana stating “is there a less scientific phrase in popular discourse than “believe science”.”

 

But what exactly does “falsifiable” mean? And why is it valued by some scientists, but dismissed or even considered actively harmful by others?

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Seeing science in a different light

Posted on by Guest Contributor

This post was written by Hunter Herriage, a student in the Basics of Science Communication class (MSCI-M509) taught by ScIU blogger Vaishnavi Muralikrishnan and Dr. Claire Walczak.

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 single pencil of stark shade, but that it’s distinguishing combinations of colors that are close together, like reds vs. greens, greens vs. browns, or purples vs. pinks. This explanation often fell on deaf ears.

As a scientist, it is essential to see details in scientific figures in order to interpret scientific findings. Scientists like to label proteins of interest with things that make them look bright green or red in a microscope, which is a good way to make these features easy to find. While the inability to distinguish between certain colors would seem like an impediment towards understanding the scientific literature, there are numerous scientists with color vision deficiencies.

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Do chameleons change their color to match their environment?

Posted on by Guest Contributor

This post was written by ScIU undergraduate student, Sara Hipsher.

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.
Caption: Tangled’s Pascal blending, as normal chameleons can’t. Image Credit: GIPHY

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? (more…)

Until I collapse: Arecibo’s more than 50 years of discoveries

Posted on by Guest Contributor

This post was written by ScIU guest writer Laura Congreve Hunter, a graduate student in IU’s Astronomy Program.

Famous for its appearances in movies and television including GoldenEye (1995), Contact (1997) and an episode of The X-Files (“Little Green Men”), the Arecibo telescope is a massive 305m (1,000 ft) radio telescope.  Built into a natural karst sinkhole on the island of Puerto Rico in 1963, it was in fact the largest single dish telescope in the world until China completed its Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in 2016.  Unfortunately for the astronomical community, Arecibo suffered severe damages this year that led to its eventual collapse.

An overhead view of the massive Arecibo telescope built into a natural sinkhole. The green Puerto Rican forests can be seen surrounding the telescope dish.
Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is one of the largest centers for radio astronomy, planetary radar, and asteroid tracking in the world. The 305 m dish covers an area of roughly twenty acres. Credit: NAIC Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the NSF.

While Arecibo has previously endured rough treatment at the hands of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and an earthquake in January of 2020, its most significant damages occurredthis past August when the cables holding up the 900-ton instrument array started to fail.  First an auxiliary cable snapped and left a hundred foot gash in the telescope, and then in November one of the main cables broke, leading to an inspection of the other main support cables.  The inspection revealed further damage to other support cables and led the National Science Foundation (NSF) to begin decommissioning the telescope.  But before the NSF could begin the process of safely dismantling the telescope, the final cables snapped, dropping the instrument array 500 feet onto the telescope’s main dish.  Video footage of the collapse can be seen here (Credit: Courtesy of the Arecibo Observatory, a U.S. National Science Foundation facility). (more…)

Cicada mania at IU

Posted on by Haley Jordan

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. 

A picture of someone holding a cicada in their hand.
Someone holding a cicada in their hand. Image credit: Matt’s Bats.

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Five ways to reduce water use

Posted on by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern, Ali Alani.

Water, the substance critical for daily life and even our survival, is quite abundant on earth. But not all water on earth is usable for our needs. Even though the majority of the earth’s surface is water, only around 2.5% of that water is freshwater. The water we use for drinking, cleaning, production, and many other vital functions is freshwater. Since the earth’s freshwater reserves are limited and required for many human activities, we need to collectively work together as a species to make sure we conserve our water usage. Decreasing wasteful water usage also provides a financial incentive as it would save families money on their water bill.

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