Category: Long Form
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Note from the author: I’ve always been interested in philosophy and have wanted to try and merge my philosophical readings with science writing for a while. The bold title gets its inspiration from an influential essay (Existentialism is a Humanism) by Jean Paul Sartre, which states, among other things, that individuals are responsible for themselves…
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Originally posted by MiSciWriters. Header image by Sierra Nishizaki. Scattered around your house or apartment, lightly coating the surface of your coffee table and lurking in the nooks and crannies of each room, discarded layers of yourself can be found in the form of skin and hair cells. Regardless of how much of clean-freak you are, it’s unlikely…
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This article, continuing from my previous one about snails, was inspired by a guest lecture for the Life Science Institute at the University of Michigan by Dr. Baldomero Olivera of University of Utah. Header image is of Conus furvus, a snail-hunting cone snail from Olango Island, Cebu, collected by fishermen in shallow water. In the warm…
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Originally published on Hektoen International’s Journal of Medical Humanities. Submitted to their summer essay contest. On a warm spring day in Denmark in 1950 two brothers, Viggo and Emil Hojgaard, ventured out into the marshlands to gather peat to make fuel. With hefty sharp spades, they cut out earthen bricks of decayed organic matter to…
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Minimalistic living and the tiny house movement reject spacious dwellings in favor of efficient homes. Typically, these petite houses can be small enough to be towed around in nomadic fashion. While it can be aesthetically and economically appealing, what is it like actually carrying an entire house with you everywhere? Snails, and other members of…
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After you get home from work, perhaps after eating dinner, you may start working on other projects that you have, something that you might call a hobby. Humans aren’t the only ones that have a life after hours. Recently it’s been discovered that many proteins also have roles in the cell outside of their main…
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In a previous post, we discussed how proteins fold into unique shapes that allow them to perform their biological functions. Through many physical and chemical properties, like hydrogen bonding and hydrophobicity, proteins are able to fold correctly. However, proteins can fold improperly, and sometimes these malformed peptides aggregate, leading to diseases like Alzheimer’s. How can…
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Protein Folding Part 1 Originally posted by Michigan Science Writers Editors: David Mertz, Zulierys Santana-Rodriguez, and Scott Barolo Proteins do most of the work in your body: Depending on their shape, they can digest your food, fire your neurons, give color to your eyes and allow you to see colors. Proteins follow instructions encoded in…
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Context in Privatizing Science The amount of funding going to science research with respect to the federal budget has been reduced greatly over the past few years. This may or not have lead to the increase in private organizations funding, but either way more projects and research institutions have been entirely sponsored by philanthropists and…
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Understanding the Gravity of a New Theory Both the motions of planets orbiting around the sun and a pencil rolling off the table onto the floor are described by the gravity. However, despite this phenomena being so easily recognized, why and how it happens is still very much up to debate. Theories of gravity have…