Awake While Dreaming?
You are in a meadow, walking. You reach the edge of a steep cliff, but you don’t stop…… wait, are you OK? Yes! You seem to be gliding effortlessly through […]
Category Archives: Blog
The Solar Power of the Sunflower
This article is part of our brand new Athens Science Observer interview series. We are conducting interviews with established scientists in order to get first person accounts of exciting research […]
Scouting for the Next Top Model (Organism)
Here’s a valid question: if it’s a human condition or disease we’re interested in, why do we study flies, plants or bacteria? It’s a question that researchers often have to […]
You can’t Wishcycle your Plastics Away
We’ve all chucked the occasional to-go container or small plastic item with a recycling code in the recycling bin without thinking about its fate. Surely even if a few of […]
From Social Stigma to Health Sensor: Scientific Tattooing
Tattoos, the artistic insertion of pigment into the skin as a form of body modification, has been around for quite a while, with the earliest preserved example from around 3300 […]
Viruses: The Original Genome Editors
Viruses stealthily spread among us, commandeering our very cells and waging a relentless war with our immune systems. You know them for everything from the common cold and flu […]
Vegetables are a social construct
My particular confluence of knowledge (a blend of economics, environmental policy, and crop science) tends to leave me completely overwhelmed by the discordance among human nutritional needs, environmental health, and […]
Plant Cells, an Unculturable Mystery
The simplest unit in biology is the cell. This central tenet has remained true since the coining of the term ’cell’ in 1665 by Robert Hooke. Cells have enabled multicellular […]
Riding the Brain Wave
Wurzburg, Germany, 1892. Hans Berger was in military training when he was suddenly thrown off his horse and injured. That same evening, Berger received a telegram from his family coincidentally […]
Malaria: From Miasma to Elimination
Life on Earth is full of dynamic and complex interactions between organisms. Some of these interactions are mutualistic, where all parties benefit from the relationship. Others are commensalistic, where one […]
