Fellow explorer! We are currently migrating content published before 2024. Archives of our old website are available at Wayback Machine.

News

Eelgrass underwater

Wash Them Down the Microplastic Sink

  • by Andrew Matayoshi

Most of us are familiar with the ongoing problem of plastic pollution in our oceans. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that over 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year. Through UV degradation and choppy currents, these big pieces of plastic break down into tiny microplastics (pieces less than 5mm in size) which threaten marine animals that mistake these pollutants for food.

Figure 2 of Marino et al. (2019)

Robots Helping Humans

  • by Stephanie Vu
From vacuuming floors in homes to serving food in restaurants, robots have become suffused into our daily lives. Now, robots have a new function in our healthcare system, as behavioral therapists for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Scientific diagram of plants infected by a virus

Plant virus reported in new crop hosts

  • by Shaina Eagle
Scientists at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul have identified the first Mastrevirus, a plant virus causing disease in crops worldwide, to infect both monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants. While this finding has interesting implications for gene editing via viral vectors, it may also impact pathogen management and food security.
Illustration of two climbers assisting one another while climbing up a mountain

Rock Climbing is the New Frontier of Therapy

  • by Ethan Pang

Only two years ago, the gravity-defying sport of climbing made its Olympic debut. Featuring iron-hardened athletes and impossible acrobatics, climbing might seem far from a therapeutic experience. However, some scientists from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) see things differently.

Mount Everest

A New Titan Among Bacteria

  • by Ethan Feild, Molecular and Medical Microbiology
What are some of the largest living things you can think of? An elephant? A blue whale? What about the giant sequoias or towering redwoods? There are a lot of “biggest” organisms in the world, but would you ever expect a bacterium to claim that title? Just recently, a new king of giant bacteria was crowned. Candidatus Thiomargarita magnifica, a bacteria whose cells can stretch ...
Man riding a skateboard

The Long-term Effects and Implications of Testicular Cancer Treatment

  • by Michael Guo, Molecular and Medical Microbiology ‘25
In the past century, the two most prominent causes of death have been heart disease and cancer [1]. Heart disease disproportionately affects older adults, and cancer typically follows a similar pattern. One exception to this is testicular cancer, which in contrast to most types of cancer, occurs most often in 25-45 year old males [2, 3]. Another defining feature of testicular cancer is the extremely high ...
Couple walking in a park

Clearing the Cellular Landfill: The Use of Chaperone-Mediated Autophagy to Treat Alzheimer’s Disease

  • by Reshma Kolala, Microbiology, ‘22
“Imagine someone has taken your brain and it’s an old file cabinet and spread all the files over the floor, and you have to put things back together,” describes Greg O’Brian, an award-winning political writer who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2010. The disorienting feeling described by O’Brian in an interview with Medical Daily is familiar for those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease ...
Yeast cells under microscope

Cofactor Effects in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Metabolism

  • by Madison Dougherty, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ‘18
In December of 2016, Walters, et al. released a scientific article detailing the discovery of mRNA that were capped by nicotinamide adenosine dinucleotide (NAD). Typically, mRNA are capped at the 5’ end by an adenine triphosphate (ATP) molecule, which provides a signal to RNA polymerase II that allows for the initiation of transcription. When studying the mRNAs of ...
Subscribe to News Content