What is “change”? This might at first seem like an oddly philosophical question to encounter in a science blog. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once described change as the idea that “One cannot step into the same river twice” (paraphrased; Graham 2015). However, this more existential definition for change differs in important ways from the one… 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 »
In the famous Milgram Experiment, it only took commands from a purported authority figure to get people to subject another study participant to electric shocks up to 450 volts (about a quarter of the voltage used to execute people in the electric chair). In reality, the other participant was an actor, and there were no actual… Read more »
When we look around the world, we see order and symmetry. It’s evident in snowflakes, flowers, and beehives, just to name a few. Going beyond what the plain eye can see, we also know that several chemical structures consist of ordered atoms. For example, think of sodium chloride (more plainly known as table salt). Its… Read more »
This post is the second installment in a two part series. Check out last week’s post here. Thanks to modern technology, the field of cellular neuroscience has become illuminated with brightly colored images – tissue samples, cells, and individual molecules have been stained, photographed, colorized, and even reconstructed in three dimensions. A Google Image search… Read more »
This post is part 1 of a two part series. Check out part 2 here. Imagine it’s 9:45 am. You have a meeting across town in 15 minutes and you just realized that you overslept your alarm! You throw on some clothes, grab a cup of yesterday’s coffee, and rush out the door, only to… Read more »