by Carrie Sha It’s a Friday night. House parties. Drinking games. Red solo cups. It’s a common sight. But where does the college drinking culture come from and where can we draw the thin line between being in control of alcohol and having alcohol control you? Approximately one out of five college students meet the National […]
Alternative Medicine and Patient Self-Care
by Lauren Claus Although the words “health care” typically evoke images of doctors and drugs, many people nowadays see yoga teachers and acupuncture specialists, as well as physicians, to meet their needs. In the United States, 38% of adults and 12% of children use some form of complementary and alternative medicine, which is defined as […]
Stuck in Bereavement – Complicated Grief
by Lauren Stone The experience of losing a loved one is something we can all relate to, and for some, this may be especially relevant in light of the recent Boston Marathon bombings. In the United States, almost 2.5 million people die every year (1). Individuals grieve in different ways in response to the common […]
Should we use genetically modified foods to increase our food reservoir?
by Serena Blacklow Over 80% of all processed foods in the U.S. contain genetically modified ingredients (1). Yet, the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as sources of food remains intensely controversial, with economists, politicians, and farmers as well as scientists taking conflicting stances on the issue. While GMOs have the potential to increase our […]
DATA: The bigger the better? A survey of analytical traps and tricks
by Elizabeth Beam Introduction In the way of gas-guzzling vehicles and the great American gut, data these days is big and getting bigger. And why shouldn’t it? By contrast to the toll that other excesses take on the environment and our bodies, the physical burden of a large-scale dataset is nearly negligible, and decreasing. In […]
Exploring the Avian Mind
by Caitlin Andrews In June 1977, in a small laboratory at Purdue University, Irene Pepperberg stood with her arm outstretched toward a large bird cage, trying to coax a quivering Grey Parrot out of the cage and onto her hand. Just one year earlier, Pepperberg had received her doctorate in theoretical chemistry, having devoted years […]
Overstepping your Passion? The Science of Obsession
by Carrie Sha The famous late nineteenth-century writer Franz Kafka once counseled, “Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” Although his advice seems to be a simple call for following our passions, it can easily lead us astray. After all, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was haunted by “what dreams may come after we have shuffled off this mortal […]
Slime Mold: The Small, Ugly, and Extraordinary
by Tristan Wang Slime molds are some of the world’s ancient mysteries. From the independent unicellular amoeba to the cooperation of many individuals, these globs of ooze share biological functions that few other species or even kingdoms exhibit. Even though they are not seen conspicuously in our day-to-day lives, slime molds may hold the key […]
Fear vs. Fact: The Modern Anti-Vaccination Movement
by Brendan Pease “It just seemed like it was impossible,” said Kathryn Riffenburg, a resident of nearby Chicopee, Massachusetts. “We went from sitting in the hospital day by day, waiting for him to get better for almost two weeks, to doctors telling us we had a 50/50 chance he was going to make it.” Two […]
Mortality and Morality: The Ethics of Ebola
by Jackson Allen If not controlled within sixty days, the United Nations warned recently, the current Ebola outbreak will lead to an unprecedented and unplanned situation (1). Over the past year, the epidemic has been building in three countries in West Africa: Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. Outside of public health circles, the outbreak remained […]