The next time you and your friends share some fries, impress them with some knowledge on your favorite side dish. They’ll be amazed to learn that potato is the world’s third most consumed food crop and America’s favorite vegetable (according to the US Department of Agriculture). Strangely enough though, potatoes haven’t always been a fan
It’s fourth down with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. Your favorite team has the ball on their 40-yard line, with 6 yards to go for a first down. They’re down by a touchdown; it’s an obvious punting situation, so you go to grab some more wings anticipating a commercial break. “They’re going for
Shai-hulud, or the giant sandworm, exists in Dune both as a mode of transportation, a generator of spice, and a key player in the ecological niche of Arrakkis. In the book by Frank Herbert and the movie adaptation (Dune part 1 2021 and Dune part 2 2024 directed by Denis Villenueve), the sandworm plays a
To date, researchers have identified over 5,000 exoplanets in the Milky Way, a small fraction of the billions hypothesized to exist in our galaxy. Among them, researchers catalog so-called “Earth-like planets,” or planets with a similar size, structure, and distance from the Sun as Earth. While of great interest to modern astronomers, no conclusive evidence
Without question, Pokémon is one of the most iconic entertainment franchises ever. In fact, it is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, coming in at a whopping $76.4 billion in revenue. All franchises come with some form of controversy among media and fans, and although Pokémon has avoided major contention, it has spread misleading
As of 2020, the global consumption of energy is 580 million terajoules per year. Of this, 83.1% comes from fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, 4.3% comes from radioactive sources, and about 12.6% comes from renewable sources like hydro, solar, and wind. We have currently 50 more years of oil reserves left available,
Driving down any rural road around this time of year, you’re likely to see rows on rows of corn blowing in the wind. You might notice that they look like twins of each other, almost exactly the same height and precisely the same color. That uniformity is also why corn lovers can walk into near
Insects comprise over half of all described species excluding bacteria and around 90% of the animals on Earth. They are so prevalent that we encounter them every day without thinking twice, and have evolved to live in nearly every imaginable habitat, from mountaintops to the depths of caves. How do insects survive in such harsh
“Therefore, the overall objective of this project is to characterize the changes in mitochondrial metabolism in early VML injury and determine how these contribute to the total decline of muscle contractile and oxidative function.†This was the sentence I used to describe the purpose of my dissertation project to my advisory committee. To them, it
It’s the spooky season and we’re all anticipating monsters crawling out from under our bed, but did you know that there are monsters living inside our very cells! Every living thing has DNA in its cells. It provides the “blue print†for what that living thing is going to be. There can't be any monsters
A vessel is harpooned and infiltrated by an enemy, then robbed of its precious cargo – this imagery may call to mind Long John Silver or other fictional marauders, but these events happen every day, all around us, on a scale so small we cannot see it. I'm referring to microsporidia, a group of real-life,
Murder is as old as mankind. Or so the saying goes. Every culture has a history of poisons, from the ironically named “elixirs of life†eagerly sought after by early Chinese emperors and nobles, to the Poison Damsels (Visha Kanya) of ancient Indian mythology that could kill you with just a drop of the deadly
