This is the second part of a series on extraterrestrial psychology. Read part 1 here! In Part 1 of this series, I discussed how the interdisciplinary field of evolutionary psychology can help us explore similarities between the human mind and possible extraterrestrial ones. One common potential feature is how we search for resources, which often… Read more »
This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published by Clara Boothby in December 2016 and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. Sometimes, when we read about science in textbooks or newspaper articles, it can be easy to slip into thinking that after the scientists make their discovery, the writing is someone… Read more »
Last December, bombshell reports were released detailing the Pentagon’s use of tax-payer funds to investigate claimed UFO sightings. With continued discoveries of habitable planets across the universe, the probability that life exists outside the Earth is rapidly rising. This may be why the former head of The Pentagon’s UFO program, Luis Elizondo, recently stated that… Read more »
On Father’s Day, hundreds of thousands of people across the United States will show appreciation for the love, encouragement, and support that their fathers have provided them throughout their lifetimes. Interestingly, numerous animals provide parental care to their offspring, from fish and birds to non-human primates and humans. Yet, there is substantial evidence that many… Read more »
“Our sexuality is becoming digital,” notes Dr. Justin Garcia, a leading expert in modern human mating. While new modes of sexuality and romance bring benefits, they also invite ethical questions. Take the phenomenon of “sexting,” the transmission of sexual images and messages via mobile phone or other electronic media. After discovering that sexts are shared… Read more »
This post is from ScIU’s archives. It was originally published in October 2016, and has been lightly edited to reflect current events. What does summer vacation look like for a scientist? For some, summer break is much-needed time to catch up on research projects and writing, but for many of us, summer centers around one… Read more »
Social behavior is most commonly associated with electrical and chemical signaling in the brain. But, did you know that your gut may also communicate with your brain? There is emerging evidence that the gut microbiome, a population of about 100 trillion microorganisms that resides in the gastrointestinal tract, may communicate with the central nervous system… Read more »
On most weekends, you can find Indiana University graduate student Sam Cohen at Bloomington Animal Care and Control, a local animal shelter where she has volunteered for two years as a pet adoption counselor. She gets to know the dogs, talks with visitors, and helps them identify which dogs they might want to adopt. But,… Read more »
When I am on Twitter, every now and then a witty or funny tweet catches my attention. I laugh, and sometimes re-tweet. More often, however, I read tweets that cause anxiety and make me frown at my computer screen with the countenance of a distraught fish. I am talking about tweets like this one (Fig…. Read more »
My research is dependent on migratory birds being present on their wintering grounds in the Appalachian Mountains in the month of March. But this year it was an unseasonably warm winter, and it was not possible to know when migrants would depart for their breeding grounds. Luckily, the temperatures dropped again and the migrants hung… Read more »