If you've ever been lucky enough to visit Yellowstone National Park (or looked at pictures), then you have probably seen the colorful, steaming mats that surround many of the park's famous geysers and geothermal pools. While they may not look it, these mats are actually living creatures. They form a special class of organisms called
Every contact leaves a trace. ‘Locard's Exchange Principle', the underlying premise of modern forensic science, describes a perpetrator's involuntary act of leaving traces behind in a crime scene in exchange for taking some sort of trackable evidence with him. Traces, including blood, saliva, fabric, dirt, prints, and weapons, are meticulously collected by the crime scene
Have you ever looked at the shimmer of a peacock's feathers or the metallic shine of a green June beetle and thought, “I bet those bright colors help that animal blend in with its natural habitat.†No? Well, you wouldn't be alone. When artist and naturalist Abbot Thayler first proposed that iridescence could be a
Infrastructure development is a major issue in many countries of the developing world. Countries with developing economies often suffer from a negative balance of trade and weak institutions, making lenders unwilling to lend. Governments of these countries are forced to borrow with heavy interest rates, further increasing budget deficits. This cyclical economic problem
Nowadays, it feels like we're living in a sci-fi movie with the development of self-driving cars, technology we can talk to, and watches that monitor our day-to-day activities. All that's missing is a suit and cape, right?… we're working on it! Smart textiles, or e-textiles, are fabrics that are interwoven with technology to provide user
With the technology introduction of the personal assistant Siri and the promise of a completely self-driving car from Tesla soon, artificial intelligence (AI) is radically changing the modern world. AI is an umbrella term to describe advancements that allow machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. AI learns and
A year ago, I was invited to present my research findings at a conference held at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. So, there I was, standing in a room full of experts from all over the world, waiting for my turn to present my research. However, after listening to everyone else's talks, I was surprised
Smallpox blankets given to Native Americans. Gas chambers in concentration camps. Chemical weapons in the Syrian War. Russian spies poisoned by a nerve agent. What do these have in common? Each weaponizes chemical or biological agents. With today's strained political and foreign affairs climate, there is an ever-looming possibility of war and the use of
When I was a kid, if I got a grass stain or a blood stain on my clothes it was probably not coming out no matter how much presoaking and hand scrubbing was involved. Nowadays, if I get food on my clothes, I admonish myself for being clumsy then throw it in the wash with some liquid detergent and hope that it magically comes out looking new. It still amazes me that it usually does. How have laundry detergents improved their cleaning efficacy so much in just the last few decades?
In March 2018, a team of scientists led by Judd Bowman from Arizona State's School of Earth and Space Exploration and Alan Rogers from MIT's Haystack Observatory has done what many thought to be an impossible task. With a small radio antenna called EDGES (Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Recombination Signature) placed in
It is a blazing hot summer day in August of 2014, and I am a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman at the University of Georgia about to attend my very first college class. The class is Introductory Physics, a fundamental course for an engineering major such as myself. Fast forward to a month later, however, and I
Nature influences us every day. Not only can we find beauty in the natural world, but scientists and engineers can also draw inspiration from animals and plants to solve problems. Bioinspiration, a term for taking biological principles and applying them to non-biological science and technology, has long been a driving force behind invention and the
