Culture / Living

Our Water, Our Health in Rural Appalachia

West Virginia is home to the newest national park, New River Gorge, known for its world class white water rafting. It is also home to some of the worst drinking water in the United States. The juxtaposition of the two could not be more clear. Old habits die hard, and in a state where an

Tragedy of the Commons in the America West

In the American West, clear skies look down on a bountiful expanse of land. The rumble of bison herds is now replaced with the soft lowing of cattle and a rising dissatisfaction from those that tend them. The recent armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon brought issues of public land management to national

The Most Deadly Animals on Earth

It's almost summer time. That means it's about to be mosquito season! These masters of annoyance happen to be the world's most deadly animal. No other animal species is responsible for as many human deaths as mosquitoes are. Humans murder about 475,000 other people each year. You know those creepy slithering snakes you fear so

Methods to the Madness: One Anthropologist's Quest for the Perfect Interview Question

One purpose of anthropology is to understand human cultural diversity, and therefore the  methods to understand this diversity must delve into human experience. Cultural anthropology research design requires that researchers spend long hours in the field with participants, learning behaviors, beliefs, experiences, relationships, and myriad other aspects of human life. And the research can seem

Poison ivy's chemical curse

by Uma Nagendra, Athens Science Café Ah, summer in the American South: the air is abuzz with cicadas, air conditioning, and aerosol bugspray. For many, it's a season equally beloved and reviled. Everyone seems to have their favorite griping point:  the relentless humidity, the constant threat of mosquitoes, or my personal nemesis—poison ivy. Although poison

BINGO, Dino DNA: Can we create a dinosaur?

By: Rishi R. Masalia, Athens Science Café   On June 12th “Jurassic World”, the 4th installment of the Jurassic Park series, is set to hit theaters. Now, I love dinosaurs and I know I'm not alone. Our fascination with them has permeated across pop culture, generating movies, songs, chicken nugget shapes, and even a list

Lightsabers: Science fiction, or scientific possibility?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Arthur C. Clarke SciFi is one of the most popular genres of storytelling out there. Greats like Lucas, Asimov, and Shelley have inspired generations to think weirder and imagine bigger. In the last 15 years alone, we have developed prototypes for jetpacks, driverless cars and organ printing

Can We Resurrect the Mammoth?

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

Crop Domestication: From the Wild to the Grocery Store

Links: Sunflower Domestication, Corn Domestication, Wayne Parrott’s GMO Talk, Scientific Article 1, Scientific Article GMO and Crop Domestication, Scientific Article 3 (paywall),UN Food and Agriculture Organization Book Chapter, Nonfiction book partially covering this topic Rishi R. Masalia is a Ph.D graduate student in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia studying the

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