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Music: A Therapeutic Tool for Children with Rare Diseases
Kerry Morgan Hughes is the founder and president of Harmony 4 Hope, a non-profit organization that brings music to hospitalized children with rare diseases. As the president of Harmony 4 Hope, Kerry’s...
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Illinois Science Council at the 2016 Chicago Volunteer Expo
By Katie Elyce Jones On Sunday, Feb. 28, the Illinois Science Council (ISC) participated in the 4th Annual Chicago Volunteer Expo held at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park. The Expo...
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The Search for Pi: 3.14 and Beyond
By Katie Elyce Jones Started 28 years ago at San Francisco’s Exploratorium museum (1), March 14, or Pi Day, has become a classroom tradition. But what is pi? Why do we celebrate it by slicing up...
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Can the Brain Ever be “Full”?
We have answered another great science question posed to us from Ask a Scientist! Roksha, a first-grader, learned about working with a growth mindset at school. In class, she has discussed how having...
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How do Thunderstorms Form?
By Andy Mayka We have our next Ask a Scientist question, brought to us by Susan F., a 1st-grade teacher who wanted to know more about how our weather forms. To answer Susan’s intriguing question,...
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The Shape of Square Roots
By Sean Howe Today is 4/4/16, and do you know what that means? It’s Square Root Day! Now, since the last Square Root Day was 3/3/09, and the next one won’t be until 5/5/25, you might not have...
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Voyager 1 and the Depths of Interstellar Space
The world is preparing to send humans to Mars. This will probably be the most technologically challenging undertaking the world has ever known. Yes, we have been to the moon, but those trip were a...
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Training your Dog with Science
By Dana Simmons Dogs and their human family members have always shared a special bond. It’s no mystery to a dog owner where the phrase “man’s best friend” came from. While it’s tough to know...
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Decoding Your Genetic History
By Dana Simmons If man with a diabetic grandfather and a woman with a family history of cancer decide that they want to have a child, but they are unsure of whether their families’ health problems may...
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LSD and the Elephant
Humans are wonderful research subjects. They can think pretty well, and they can speak, too. Our ability to speak is probably our most prized asset in research, as it is the only way researchers...
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Running On Your Knees
Let’s say you’re 5’8”, 150lbs, and you run a 10-minute mile. Over the course of a 3-mile run, your knees will experience a compressive load of nearly 3 million pounds. Wait….what? Let’s calculate this....
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Pi Day Run 2017: Embracing Snow, Math and Pie
Despite the snow and wind, 364 (π × 10 + 50) runners and walkers participated in the Illinois Science Council’s fifth annual Pi Day Fun Run on 3-14-17. The run, which raised money for ISC programs, was...
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How Candles Work
“I PURPOSE, in return for the honor you do us by coming to see what are our proceedings here, to bring before you, in the course of these lectures, the Chemical History of a Candle.” Michael Faraday In...
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Spotted from Antarctica: the Oldest Light in the Universe
How do you study light from the beginning of the universe? What happened right after the Big Bang? How was the energy from such a high energy explosion distributed, and what is it doing now? We...
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The Flu Shot: A Police Raid on Influenza
You’re sitting in a room at your doctor’s office. Today, you might be visiting for a checkup. Or perhaps you simply need a prescription refill. No matter the reason for visiting, you most likely will...
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Diatoms: The Cheat Sheet for Studying Our Waterways
If you head outside and you walk to a freshwater river, stream, or lake, you will probably find some rocks covered in what looks like a slimy, green film. While to some this may seem like a good time...
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Did Life Begin in the Oceans?
The age-old question, “how did life begin?” has baffled humans for centuries. Many scholars have theorized about how life began, but in almost every case, they have agreed on one thing: in some way,...
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If You Go Down to the Woods Today: Conservation Genetics in a Nutshell
Imagine a young family taking a stroll along a sun-speckled forest path. They take their time, admiring the scenery and taking in the fresh air. Then suddenly, the sound of snapping twigs shatters the...
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How a Pile of Uranium Changed the World
On December 3rd, 1942 – 75 years ago – under the stands at the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field, scientists produced a breakthrough that would change the course of history. There, on that day,...
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Deep Ocean or Deep Freeze: How Animals Have Evolved to Survive
Animals are pretty remarkable – we can find them in virtually every environment on Earth, from the perpetually frozen hallows of Antarctica to the pressurized, pitch black depths of the ocean. How did...
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