Archive for the 'science is cool!' Category

Buzz off? Don’t be so sure

You all know by now that bees serve an important role in the environment as pollinators of flowering plants, many of which are important food crops. But did you know that bees also serve as defenders of the same plants? Researchers at the University of Wurzburg in Germany (site in German, sorry) have found that [...]

Selectively choosing data may lose you a Nobel Prize

You know how sometimes you watch shows like "Entertainment Tonight" and they have something like "The Lost Episodes of 'The Brady Bunch'" or something like that? Well, discovering lost "episodes" isn't something exclusive to the entertainment world, it turns out. Today I read an interesting article about Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. You're probably [...]

How scientists think

Welcome back to school for the 2008-2009 school year! Incidentally, this is the BioBlog's first birthday so a Happy Birthday to the blog as well! Hopefully everyone has had a good summer and is ready to get the ball rolling in AP Bio this year. This week we're dipping our toes into what it [...]

The Canon: What’s it mean to be a scientist?

In the first chapter of The Canon, Angier discusses what it means to be a scientist. She spends the chapter deconstructing the process of science, and dispels myths that the public holds about scientists. For example, before reading this chapter, what was your perception of what a scientist was? How did your perception change [...]

Proof that the body is amazing…

This afternoon during lunch, one of my colleagues tipped me off to a story about a girl who had switched blood types after a liver transplant. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, here's the reality: normally, when one receives an organ from a donor, an immune response is mounted. Recall that the MHC [...]