The belief that one is already dead is known as Cotard’s syndrome, named after the French neurologist who first diagnosed it. In the 1800s, Jules Cotard described the syndrome as a type of depression characterized by anxious melancholia and delusions about one’s own body. Esmé Weijun Wang is among the few people who experienced the […]
Category: Science
Think of the Mastodon When You Order That PSL
Humans thousands of years ago were not big eaters of wild pumpkins or other members of the Cucurbita genus. Rather, it was the megafauna – animals like the mastodon, giant sloth, and mammoth – that played an important role in the dispersal and survival of these wild plants. Anthropologists from Penn State have recently released […]
How the Auroras Form: An Explanation in Plain English
They are so intense that many would guess that images of the phenomenon are computer-generated or photoshopped images. Upon seeing these, the next question is inevitably – how do they form?
Using CRISPR to Take the PERV out of Transplants
At the most recent conference at the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. George Church of Harvard Medical School presented his use of the new gene-editing method known as CRISPR to alter many individual genes in pig embryos. These genes’ elimination, in an unprecedented number through Crispr technology, has the potential to make pig-to-human organ transplants much […]
Time to ‘Fall Back’
November 6th marked the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST) 2016, which began in the springtime. Clocks were set back an hour nationwide and worldwide, in at least 70 other countries. The practice of DST in the U.S. was first established in 1918, but then repealed the following year. It then started again during World War […]
The Global Water Crisis
One of the prominent global environmental issues is the lack of clean drinking water in underdeveloped countries. Although water covers over 70% of the Earth, only 3% of the world’s water is freshwater – what we drink, bathe in, and irrigate farms with. Water is currently a scarce resource for 1 billion people in the […]
The Future Is Here: Self-Driving Cars
Google, however, wants more than that: it wants to wants to radically and fundamentally transform the very core of the automobile.
Brazil’s Innovative “Naming and Shaming” Policy: a Success
It should come as no surprise that deforestation is the greatest threat to our planet’s rainforests. The Amazon, which spans eight countries, is home to more than 30 million people (including 350 indigenous and ethnic groups) who rely on the rainforest for food, shelter, and their livelihood. It has often been in the spotlight as […]
The Potential of Dental Stem Cells
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have isolated human dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) from healthy wisdom teeth. These stem cells offer “a new source of corneal transplant tissue made from the patient’s own cells,” according to a press release from the university. Stem cell research is an exciting and slowly progressing […]
Spotlight: Lucinda Zawadzki
There is a common saying among college students: A college student has three options—grades, sleep, and a social life. And of those three, you are only allowed to choose two. Any attempt to juggle all three at once will end terribly. For most students, this is more of a prophecy than a saying. But Lucinda […]