Science & Technology

In some dialects, the term “sucker” refers to one who is easily swindled or deceived. The natural world isn’t without its share of suckers in this sense. For instance, the cuckoo is a species of bird whose key reproductive strategy involves laying eggs in the nests of unsuspecting other species. The unfortunate parents fail to […]

With the ever-rising costs of textbooks, many students are looking for cheaper, or even free, alternatives to help alleviate the financial burden. Amazon and other used book sources can provide many of the required books at a much cheaper rate than the campus bookstore, but some web-savvy students have started scouring the web for free […]

*Editor’s note: I realize that I have drastically oversimplified many of these concepts, but there is just too much information to adequately express it all. You could easily fill 500 single-spaced pages explaining just the first paragraph. For you organic chemistry people, the size of this column is limited by steric hinderance. For the non-o-chem […]

Robots. They’re everywhere around us. We work with them in factories and use them in conditions unsuitable for humans. As ubiquitous as they are, relatively few people actually understand the underpinnings and complexities of these man-made creations. Programming a robot to perform multivariable tasks is a difficult job, and overcoming these issues takes quite a […]

The chickpea, also known as the garbanzo bean, is the world’s second-most widely grown legume crop after the soybean, making it a major component of the world’s diet. It is an important crop especially for small-farm operators in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. An international team of 49 scientists from 23 organizations in 10 countries have […]

In this technology-driven world, there are many sites dedicated to providing different types of information to help people in their daily lives. Lifehacker offers a variety of ways to “hack” your lifestyle, leading to better habits, better health and better living. They also offer multiple tech tips of their own. What is Lifehacker? Lifehacker is […]

With Valentine’s Day just recently passed and spring upon us, you may be feeling closer than ever to your romantic partner. Most couples take this season to spend time together and do things they like or invest more energy in the common ground they have. But it turns out that activities and interests are not […]

In a recent multidisciplinary article published at the end of January in Nature Communications, lead author Peter Kaiser, professor of biochemistry at UC Irvine (UCI), along with co-leader Richard Lathrop and many others, announced the discovery of a potential new target for a cure for cancer. Kaiser’s research focused on a specific protein, called p53, […]

A little while ago, I wrote about how amazing plants are, and how they have been here longer than us, and will be here long after we are gone. I also promised that I would have some choice words for those individuals who did not believe in evolution’s capacity to bring about these amazing organisms. […]

In some ways, understanding the effects of global warming comes down to measuring how microbes respond to warming soils. Through their incessant work in breaking down plant and animal matter, microorganisms drive the respiration of gases such as carbon dioxide from the planet’s thin “skin” of soil cover. These emissions account for more than 10 […]

Let’s all be honest with ourselves. Drinking is a reality of college and a lot of times, college students do not always make the best decisions. Driving after a long night of partying or hanging out at the bars may seem like a good idea, especially if you think you’ve sobered up in the early […]

Even if you don’t believe in evolution, you can’t deny that there are some truly amazing organisms that populate our planet. And if you don’t believe in evolution, I have some choice words for you … another time perhaps. When you ask someone to think of the most majestic creature on earth, perhaps they will […]