For All Mankind
By Christopher Eppig, Ph.D.
Featured Blog Post
You Can’t Cheat Sleep
Dr. Phyllis Zee, Chief of the Sleep Medicine at Northwestern Hospital, warned the audience at Horner Park on Wednesday, August 15, that we cheat sleep at our peril. Dr. Zee’s excellent presentation was the first instance of C2ST’s collaboration with the Chicago Park District in the “Science in the Parks” series. Watch the video here.
Dr. Zee explained that three scientists recently shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work in the early 1980’s identifying the genes and protein molecules that drive our twenty-four-hour biological clocks, often referred to as our “circadian rhythm.” Every cell in our bodies has the clock mechanism, and all these clocks are coordinated by the master clock in our brains. The mechanism interacts with light and dark. It keeps us awake and productive (usually) during the day and early evening, and puts us to sleep at night to rejuvenate our systems for another day.
C2ST Blog
This is the repository for all things C2ST. You can learn with videos of our past events, read articles concerning cutting-edge research and development in Chicago and elsewhere that will change our lives (generally one new article posted each week), check out C2ST in the news, and more! Use the Filter Media options below to browse C2ST’s content and discover something new!
10% Of Our Brains?
By Christopher Eppig, Ph.D.
10% Of Our Brains?
There is a new movie coming out later this month called “Lucy.” (See the trailer here.) The premise of this movie is that humans only use 10% of our brains, and Scarlett Johansson gets superpowers by using more than 10% of hers. This idea that we only use 10% of our brains, but would be better if we used more, is a very persistent myth in our society.
Crowdfunding Gold under the Reading Rainbow
By Scott Michael Slone
Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high…
Many of our readers might be familiar with Reading Rainbow, an educational children’s show that aired on PBS during the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s. It was a show dedicated to promoting reading in a child’s life and promoting critical thinking about what they were reading, much like the show Bill Nye The Science Guy promoted scientific thought and analysis. Continue reading “Crowdfunding Gold under the Reading Rainbow”
“Is This Safe To Eat?” with Zoe Hunter
By Zoe Hunter
In case the cold weather kept you away from C2STs latest event entitled “Is This Safe to Eat?,” here is a quick recap.
EteRNA is Turning Research on its Head
By Scott Michael Slone
It’s quite remarkable to see what the power of an intelligent mob can do.
Distributed computing projects like Fold@home, which runs simulations of proteins to better understand their role in the body, help us to understand vastly complicated scientific and mathematical questions without the need for large dedicated supercomputers. They function on the basis that there already exist numerous computers in the world, like the one you’re reading this on. Continue reading “EteRNA is Turning Research on its Head”
Bugs in the Climate System
By Scott Michael Slone
To those of you who use computers, you can understand the issues that can sometimes be caused by them. Faulty hardware, operating system issues, programs not working, drivers not installed properly, the list goes on and on. The average user has no end to the issues they could have, with many being very subtle and tricky to solve. A recent bug has been revealed in Climate modeling systems that will need to be handled if any model is going to have credibility, and there’s no tech support you can call when your model for a climate system doesn’t start. Continue reading “Bugs in the Climate System”
