The Cosmic Compass: How birds Master the Skies

Posted on January 29, 2024 by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Savannah Ahmad.

Every year, the skies come alive as billions of birds begin their migration. From the Arctic Tern, with its remarkable marathon around the Earth to the quaint journey of the Dusky Grouse, the avian spectrum is a captivating display of nature’s variability. How do these travelers embark on such extraordinary journeys, navigating through continents and oceans with such precision? The secret lies in their ability to sense Earth’s magnetic field (magnetoreception) and their use of celestial patterns (stars position, sun position, and skylight polarization) as guiding tools.

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Extremophiles: The alien-like creatures of Earth

Posted on January 15, 2024 by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Komal Kumar.

The discovery of extremophiles – organisms that thrive in extreme environments – completely changed scientists’ perspectives on the conditions necessary for life. These evolutionary marvels provide context for the origins of life, evolution, and are maybe the best case for the possibility of the existence of life on other planets with extreme environments. Moreover, extremophiles are being widely studied among biotechnologists and engineers to understand how we can utilize their unique capabilities. Here are some of the types of extremophiles and the characteristics that make them incredibly useful:

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PhD Mom: Baby development

Posted on December 16, 2023 by Chloe Holden

This is the third post in the PhD Parenting series, click here to read PhDad and PhD Mom.

I’ve been doing this mom thing for about 2 years now and along the way I’ve gotten a chance to not only watch my child grow from being a squishy potato of a newborn into a boisterous, opinionated, and hilarious toddler, but I’ve also learned some cool things about baby cognition and child development along the way.

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Miss Understanding: Discussing myths about sleep health

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Lindy Howe

Scientists have finally figured out exactly how much sleep humans need: “Just five more minutes!” KIDDING! We’re not here to perpetuate unhelpful sleep habits (yeah – uh – sorry, that snooze button probably isn’t doing much for you); we’re here to talk about the science behind a topic that all people can relate to: sleep.

A woman is laying on a bed with her head on a pillow with her eyes closed — Sleep is essential and complex, and it’s important to know the truth behind healthy sleep. *Image credit: Ketut Subiyanto at www.pexels.com*

Sleep is a huge part of our daily routines: it is a dynamic process that affects functioning, helps people encode new information, stay healthy, and re-energize. Also, research consistently suggests that quality sleep can improve brain performance, mood, and overall health in the short term. Long term, poor sleep has been associated with numerous disorders and difficulties, such as dementia, strokes, and obesity. Scientists and doctors regularly agree that quality sleep is a top priority, making it important to know exactly what quality sleep even means.

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The neural foundation of psychopathology is complex

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Eric Larson

Since the “Decade of the Brain,” neuroscientists and clinical psychologists have been particularly interested in understanding how the brain contributes to psychopathology (commonly referred to as mental illness or mental disorder). However, despite all the resources poured into pursuing questions along these lines, there is little overlap in research findings between studies; it remains difficult to effectively translate neuroscience research into clinical practice, arguably the ultimate goal in studying the brain basis of psychopathology. One reason for these limitations may be that the predominant neuroscientific framework used to study the influence of the brain on these complicated clinical phenomena largely do not align with how the brain actually contributes to behavior, including psychopathology.

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Graphene: A single-layer magic material

Posted on September 16, 2023 by Guest Contributor

This post was written by Isaac Delgass.

What is Graphene?

You’re likely familiar with graphite: the chalky gray material we often refer to as pencil lead. In recent years, graphite has been making headlines due to increased interest in its younger sibling: graphene, lauded as a supermaterial of the new age for properties that hold out the promise of novel technological feats. Graphene has the potential to replace silicon-based computer chips, improve the performance of touchscreens, realize ultra-sensitive biometric sensor devices, and even faster charging and increased storage capacity in batteries and capacitors. An early example of such technology is a cellphone case that extends the life of the phone’s battery by bleeding heat more efficiently. But more on this “nanocase” to come.

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Love math, but don’t care too much

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Tongyao Zhang

As part of my job as a researcher and graduate student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, I invite parents and children to play math games in our lab. As I lead parents and children through studies about how children learn, I’ve seen very different attitudes in parents towards math. Some parents would happily talk about numbers and inferences in their daily interactions, and they make a lot of attempts to start a conversation about math. They are not upset when children run away from those conversations. Other parents “care too much” about how their children respond. They eagerly ask me whether their children are competitive in math and get upset when their children are reluctant to engage. Although this kind of attitude is different from what we call “math anxiety,” these emotional responses, we believe, play a big role in children’s “math life.”

Two children writing and talking about math in front of a blackboard with a smile on their faces. — As early as preschool, the initial exposure to math is critical.

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Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: A crash course in machine learning

Posted on August 11, 2023 by sciutern

This post was written by ScIU Undergraduate Intern Komal Kumar.

Image of the front CD cover of the film, The Terminator. The cover features an image of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular character. *Image credit:* Computerspielemuseum Berlin

Artificial intelligence continues to make the news, especially with technologies like ChatGPT – an AI Chatbot – and DALL-E – an image-generating software – becoming increasingly accessible to the public. Reports of modified syllabi in colleges and universities and sentient chatbots may have piqued your interest recently, and for a good reason! AI has gradually become embedded in our daily lives as an influential tool for COVID-19 contact tracing, national security, healthcare, and much more. Of course, that’s not even touching on AI’s impact on popular culture, from The Terminator (1984) to the more recent M3GAN (2022). Depictions of AI as sentient, self-aware, and, more often than not, evil, undoubtedly affect our attitude toward AI. With its increased prevalence in our daily lives, it’s worth taking a look at exactly what AI is and how it works. (more…)