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Here’s Why Everyone’s Afraid of GMOs
This year has served as a new inflection point in the challenge of gaining broad public acceptance of science. We’re seeing Americans resist guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...
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The Discovery of Cytokines: A Revolution in Our Understanding of the Human Body
Getting stranded in a violent storm can be extremely dangerous. Often, all you can do is hope the storm will abate before streets flood and buildings collapse. The same is true of a cytokine storm, a...
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Some Like It Hot: Temperature Signals Across the Tree of Life
Temperature has a fascinating and complex relationship with biological systems. Intuitively, extreme temperatures can be harmful to living organisms. Anyone who has gotten a sunburn or frostbite before...
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Barely Able to Breathe: Living with Cystic Fibrosis
In the summer of 2017, my brother Geoffrey landed in the Northwestern Hospital emergency room confused, with a high-grade fever, and so dizzy he couldn’t walk. He had a severe lung infection and he...
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Discover COVID Treatments with Your Own Computer
The World Community Grid is an effort to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity. Juan Hindo leads IBM’s World Community Grid team,...
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COVID-19: Redefining Lung Disease
If you’ve been diagnosed with a rare disease or a condition your doctor is unfamiliar with, the idea that scientists are working night and day to help you isn’t always a comfort when you’re lying in a...
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Genes: The Stories They Tell
Genes can tell us a lot about ourselves. To many, that is a terrifying concept. If a freshman in college requests to sequence her entire genome, she may learn that she is positive for the BRCA2...
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Is the Electoral College Racist?
The upcoming election got me thinking about the mathematics of the electoral college. Five times in American history, including twice in our still young 21st century, the person who received the most...
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Illinois Congressional Candidates Answer Questions about Science Policy
A non-partisan coalition of national and Illinois science organizations prepared a questionnaire for all Illinois Congressional candidates asking for their views on pressing issues of public concern in...
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Soiling our Soil: Soil Erosion and Its Impacts
What do the foundation under your house, the salad you ate for lunch and the plants at your favorite park have in common? They all depend on soil! Soil, in its simplest form, is a combination of eroded...
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Learning from Llamas: Biomedical Discovery Inspired by the Animal Kingdom
Modern approaches in medicine are increasingly focused on manipulating the human body’s natural immune system.1 These approaches are referred to as “immunotherapy.” Advances in immunotherapy have...
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A Sticky Situation: The Science of Making Maple Syrup
In the fall of 2014, I was one of 1,800 international students who spent a semester studying at a university in Sweden. During my time abroad, I made friends with a group of Canadians, and maple syrup...
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The Black Plague’s Influence on Society Today
“The medical authorities of the day had little to offer. ‘Leave quickly, go far and come back slowly’ was the general advice about what to do if an epidemic came to your town.” How familiar does that...
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The Push: Human Migration and Mosquito-Borne Disease
By 1985, it was too late. Researchers detected a type of mosquito called Aedes albopictus, native to Southeast Asia, in Harris County, Texas (1). Just 50 miles northwest from the Port of Galveston,...
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The Evolution of Theft in the Animal Kingdom
Animals are not usually capable of harnessing the sun’s energy—that’s plant business. But the solar-powered sea slug Elysia chlorotica, commonly known as the eastern emerald elysia, is evidence that...
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COVID-19: Why Does Everyone Respond Differently?
“It’s just like having a bad case of the flu.” “It can kill you.” You’ve likely heard both of these statements in conversations about COVID-19. While the severity of the disease was a common point of...
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Where Are All Our Cephalapods?
Imagine: you’re swimming in one of our many Great Lakes, enjoying a bit of socially-distanced fun while staying cool during one of Chicago’s hottest summers ever. Something long and thin brushes your...
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What Can We Learn from Sea Anemones?
If you’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish, then you’ve inadvertently encountered a representative from a group of animals called the Cnidaria. (If you’re wondering how to pronounce it, you skip the ‘c’...
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The Urban Water Cycle Needs an Energy Overhaul
It starts two and half miles offshore (1,2). Five cylindrical stone structures called “cribs” gulp water from the vast expanse of Lake Michigan (1,2,3). Swaddling an intake shaft, each one pulses water...
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The Endothelium: The Reason Why Heart Disease is So Bad For Your Health
Just like how roads shuttle vehicles throughout a city, blood vessels move blood throughout our body. The inside of the blood vessels is coated by a single layer of flat cells called the endothelium....
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