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Earth Day Special: Gray-Space Recycling in the Laboratory
Have you ever wondered about those items that can’t be recycled in a traditional recycling stream? Like chip bags or used pens? What about items in the workplace? Every year, 6 million pounds of...
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Earth Day Special: Solving Global Problems with Local Solutions – Matone de...
The world suffers from a plethora of natural and man-made disasters. From destructive floods to violent conflicts, society is faced with complex global challenges that can only be solved through...
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What is Corn Syrup, Anyways?
Editor’s Note: This is Part II of Ben Marcus’ series on the science of sugar. For Part I, click here. When was the last time you saw a processed food in the grocery store with real sugar in it? Odds...
View ArticleIn Your Face! Privacy Lawsuits over Faceprinting Technology are...
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony before Congress, there is growing concern over data privacy and how companies like Facebook handle...
View ArticleThe Tests That Donated Blood Goes Through
If you’re unlucky enough to end up in hospital in need of a blood transfusion, you trust that your transfusion will help you recover. You certainly hope that it won’t infect you with a serious disease...
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The Maillard Reaction: A Taste of Food Chemistry
“How come we never learned anything practical in high school?” He placed his steak knife parallel to a grill line and began to cut along the blackened indentation atop his expertly-seared steak. In...
View ArticleIt’s Snowing More These Days. But Global Warming?
I bet you’ve heard it before, maybe in the news, from your uncle, or maybe from a skeptical friend. How can climate change be happening if we are getting so much snow? The reasoning seems sensible – as...
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The Fate of the Flush: The Effects of Pharmaceuticals on Our Seas
Plastic pollution in our oceans, lakes, and rivers has gained vast media attention over recent months, and rightly so: approximately 8.8 million tons of plastic are released into the oceans each year....
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Why Do We Get Cold Weather When the Climate Should be Warming?
While it’s widely understood that our planet’s climate is warming, there is a lot of confusion about how this influences our weather from year to year. If you kept up with the news at all between June...
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Truffles, Dogs, Pigs, and Us
Today, the truffle is one of the world’s most expensive and extravagant foods, reserved for foodies’ special occasions. They present a musky, earthy, pungent aroma, and are often added as a flavor...
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The Science of Laundry
The year was 2008. A year of recessions, Obama, and the last Batman movie to be filmed in Chicago. It was also a year when a mistake of mine led to a loss that still affects me today: that of my...
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Your Gut Microbiome and You: How Bacteria in Your Intestines Keep You Healthy...
“Microbiome” – it’s a popular buzzword these days, but this word means different things to different people. What is the microbiome, really? How does it affect your body? Does it help you or does it...
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Dr. Alice Hamilton: a Hoosier Woman Who Established an Entirely New Field of...
Here in the 21st century, we take for granted some pretty amazing achievements in public health that make our lives safer and better. These modern miracles of science, technology, and public health...
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BEEing like a Magnet
The human body is able to obtain information about our environment in unique ways. Our eyes convert photons of reflected light into electrical and chemical signals that our brain processes into images...
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Everything You Need to Know About the Summer Solstice
Today is the 2018 summer solstice, which marks the longest day of the year and the official start of the summer season for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Many of us in the Midwest enjoy...
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Tiny Folds, Big Sounds: The Physiology of Singing
Marissa Simmons is a professional opera singer and private music teacher in the Chicagoland area. During her studies at the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory...
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The Science of Fireworks
This Fourth of July, many families will be wrapping up their festivities by going to see a blazing, brilliant firework show. No matter if it’s your local community or Navy Pier in Chicago, people of...
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A Taste of Science for the Everyday
Have you ever wanted an instrument for determining which biological molecules are present in a mixture? Okay, unless you’re working in a lab, you probably haven’t had that desire. But the good news is,...
View ArticleMental Illness: With Proper Care, You Can Get Better
Mental health problems can affect anyone. Here are some facts: Based on the 2017 US Census, there are 251.4 million adults and 74.3 million children living in the US (Census.gov). About 1 and 5...
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What Draws Us to Science?
What draws us to science? Oftentimes science gives us a glimpse of the vast workings of the natural world, showing us the enormity of the system in which we live and, if we peek inside, all the...
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