Technology and Innovation

The scientific advances that changed–or will potentially change–our world.

Plant Breeding – Making Today’s Brussels Sprouts

Plant Breeding – Making Today’s Brussels Sprouts

by Anna Goddard Do you ever hear your parents talking about how bad Brussels sprouts used to taste? They remember…

Cryptography Demystified: How to Hide Information Using Math

Cryptography Demystified: How to Hide Information Using Math

by Daniela Danilova For many of us, paying with a credit card is second nature. You take out the thin,…

More Than “Meats” the Eye: The Rise of Cultivated Protein

More Than “Meats” the Eye: The Rise of Cultivated Protein

By Hannah Wiedner Take a close look at the burger patties below. One of them was created through conventional agriculture…

I Went to Mars (and all I got was motion sickness)

I Went to Mars (and all I got was motion sickness)

by Rami Major One of my favorite memories from elementary school was taking a school-sponsored field trip to Epcot in…

Cloning: Turning Sci-Fi Movies into Reality

Cloning: Turning Sci-Fi Movies into Reality

By Mohamed Nasr Have you ever wondered what could happen if there were several exact copies of yourself? What would…

Biomimicry

Biomimicry

By Devina Thiono Note from the Editor: Students interested in biomimicry can also check out Biomimicry.org Animals, and nature in…

Hachimoji DNA

Hachimoji DNA

By Anastacia Wienecke The DNA sequence above is 4,395 “letters” (nucleotides) long, and it gives the body the precise instructions…

Reprogramming Mosquitoes to Kill Mosquitoes

Reprogramming Mosquitoes to Kill Mosquitoes

By Riya Gohil The mosquito species Aedes aegypti. CDC/ Prof. Frank Hadley Collins, Dir., Cntr. for Global Health and Infectious…

A Portrait of a Protein

A Portrait of a Protein

By Anna Wheless “What was the most important scientific discovery ever made?”  The answers to this question range from the…

Future of Organ Transplants

Future of Organ Transplants

By Rachel Cherney If you’ve received your driver’s license, chances are you had the option to decide to donate your…

The Bionic Mushroom

The Bionic Mushroom

By Rachel Cherney A fungus among us can now produce electricity with the help of cyanobacteria – a certain species…

Space Biology: The Search for Life Beyond Earth

Space Biology: The Search for Life Beyond Earth

By Sam Stadmiller Have you ever wondered if aliens are real? Well, scientists do too, and they spend lots of…

What’s in a face? Paving the way for biometric technologies

What’s in a face? Paving the way for biometric technologies

By Chad Lloyd Have you ever met someone and thought to yourself, “They look just like someone else I know?”…

How to Copy DNA: The Invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction

How to Copy DNA: The Invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction

By Matt Niederhuber There’s a good chance you’ve heard about DNA testing before, probably on a crime TV show or…

Getting into a Cycle of Recycling

Getting into a Cycle of Recycling

By Kelsey Gray In elementary school, I always looked forward to enjoying some Sunny Delight orange juice when my mom…

Eat Your Heart Out: Growing Heart Tissue on Spinach Leaves

Eat Your Heart Out: Growing Heart Tissue on Spinach Leaves

By Allyson Roberts Regenerative medicine is one of the hottest topics in biomedical science right now. Multiple labs are using…

Seeing the Unseeable

Seeing the Unseeable

By Mike Pablo Today I’m writing about microscopy. One of the great pleasures of the field of microscopy is being…

Molecular Machines – 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Molecular Machines – 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

By Sarah Marks Photo credit – Tim Ereneta For me, one of the most exciting times of the year is…

DNA: An Eyewitness to Crime

DNA: An Eyewitness to Crime

By Christina Marvin Our DNA contains all of the genetic information needed to determine our physical traits such as hair…