The woolly mammoth is inarguably the mascot of the Ice Age. With countless depictions in popular culture, one would be hard pressed to find someone unfamiliar with the hairy giant herbivore. Alas, the mammoth has been extinct for thousands of years, surviving in low numbers on some islands North of Alaska until as recently as
How old is the universe? The deeper you look into space, the further you are looking back in time. This is because the further light is away from us, the longer it takes for it to reach us. Looking back in time to about 378,000 years after the birth of the universe, and thus viewing
The new rising scare: Hepatitis C. Yes, scarier than Ebola especially in the United States. The CDC is more worried about hepatitis C than it is about many of the other infectious diseases in the United States, including HIV/AIDS (CDC.org). Now, for a little background on Hep C. Hepatitis by definition means inflammation of the
Is it right to allocate a portion of our food crops for producing fuel? What the problem really boils down to is energy. In the past decade or so, worldwide biodiesel and bioethanol production have increased fivefold. Worryingly the vast majority of that biofuel originated from ethanol was obtained from corn in the US. This
If you drive longer than five miles in the South, you'll undoubtedly see an abandoned lot covered in kudzu. Up until the 1950s, farmers transplanted the fast-growing vine from Asia to the U.S. to stop soil erosion along roads. Individual kudzu vines can grow more than 100 feet per growing season, easily spreading over the
There's a killer lurking in the woods of North America, hiding in a place you would never suspect: the testes of a tiny fruit fly called Drosophila neotestacea. The testes are where sperm are produced, and each developing sperm cell contains exactly half the number of chromosomes as the father. This killer is chromosome, and
“Ebola does in ten days what it take AIDS ten years to do†–Barry and David Zimmerman (Killer Germs) There have been many different stories and fears circling the world since the outbreak of Ebola reached national headlines. Not everything you hear on Fox News and Channel 2 is accurate. While there is cause for
I will attempt to graze over a topic ubiquitous in the southeast: invasive plants. With over 5,000 nonnative plant species in the U.S., you could say that this is no small problem, whether it is in our hands or not. You may ask yourself: Why should I care about the spread of some obnoxious, ugly
The reality of a man-made colony in space is becoming more plausible every year. Both private industry and government institutions are combining their collective genius to tackle the substantial engineering challenges associated with building human habitats on these completely alien environments. Many see space colonization as inevitable, like homesteading the American West with a twist;
When I was a kid, I used to travel to my local mall with all of my friends. At the mall, one of the coolest stores to visit was called Sharper Image. This store covered the market of overpriced knick-knacks and anything that was the newest craze. On one mall adventure at Sharper Image, I
Around mid-summer each year, stories about wildfires, especially in the Western United States begin to dominate the news. Since 2000, there have been between 40,000 to 100,000 wildfires in the U.S. each year that are responsible for an average of 19 fatalities and 7 million burned acres (about the size of Massachusetts). When humans live
