Originally published at: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/04/21/guest-post-juan-collar-on-dark-matter-detection/

Courtesy: Discover Magazine (2008)

You may have heard some of the buzz about a new result concerning the direct detection of dark matter particles in an underground laboratory. The buzz originates from a new paper by the DAMA/LIBRA collaboration; David Harris links to powerpoint slides from Rita Bernabei, leader of the experiment, from her talk at a meeting in Venice.

Continue reading “Chicago’s Dark Matter Juan Collar Guest-Blogs about DAMA for Discover Magazine (circa 2008)”

At this year’s Physics With a Bang! spectacular at the University of Chicago’s Kersten Physics Teaching Center, you’ll see sights and sounds like no other.

University of Chicago physicists Heinrich Jaeger and Sidney Nagel are at it again as they wow the crowd with their signature lectures that allow students, families, teachers and neighbors to participate in hands-on demonstrations and learn about some of the exciting science going on in the Gordon Center.

Continue reading “Ask a Scientist at Physics With a Bang to Feature Ka Yee Lee”

Did you miss Rebecca Skloot when she joined C2ST at Northwestern?

Well, here is your chance to check out our Flickr photostream from Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of HEnrietta LAcks!

Below are photos from the reception, the lecture, and the question and answer section.  Re-live the conversation that is taking place in classrooms, around water coolers, and in backyards  all over the world!

Continue reading “New Photos! Rebecca Skloot: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

If anyone knows about cells, it’s Dr. Linda Hicke.  Former Assistant Professor of biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology, Dr. Hicke is now Associate Vice President for Research at Northwestern University.  Cell biology has been her entire career.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Hicke’s research interest is the role of ubiquitin in regulating protein traffic in eukaryotic cells, a subject that she has published about widely in journals such as Cell, Molecular Cell, The EMBO Journal, Nature Cell Biology and the Journal of Cell Biology.

Continue reading “Interview with Dr. Linda Hicke of Northwestern University”

By Jeanne Kolker

Excerpts are taken from Jeanne Kolker interview with Rebecca Skloot for the Wisconsin State Journal.

Since the book was published, has anyone else come forward and told you anything you wish you could have included in the book?

Not in terms of the story of the HeLa cells and the progress of it. One of the questions that often comes up is, “Why did HeLa cells grow when no other cells did?” The answer is we don’t exactly know. Continue reading “Wisconsin States Interview with Rebecca Skloot”

Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of HEnrietta LAcks tells the story of the Lacks family and how their mother’s cells changed medical research.  Skloot’s book fills in details about Henrietta’s life and the cervical cancer that provided science with the first cell line, HeLa.

Without her knowledge, Henrietta Lacks’ (HeLa) cells were collected and used for cervical cancer research.  These immortalized cells – reproducing still today – would eventually be used to generate the first-ever human cell line and distributed world-wide for use in millions of experiments benefiting human health from the polio vaccine to gene mapping.

Continue reading “HeLa, by Elizabeth Sefton”