Nature
Simulism: How to Know if the Universe is a Computer Simulation
The premise stems from philosophy; are the universe and human reality real external phenomena? Mathematician Rene Descartes hypothesized the existence of a demon that presented a complete illusion of the external world to his bodily senses to hide the true world1,2. The Hindu philosopher Advaita Vedanta proposed the conscious experiences that comprise human reality are [...]
Review: The Disappearing Spoon
In The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean writes, “there’s a funny, or odd, or chilling tale attached to every element on the periodic table”. As Kean presents story after story it becomes clear that this is an understatement. There are, in fact, several stories for each element and Kean seems determined to share them all. Vanadium, [...]
Organs-on-Chips: Rethinking Animal Testing
If a technology developed by a group at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering gains widespread adoption, it could disrupt the entire pharmaceutical research and development industry. In both academia and industry alike, research involving the discovery and development of drugs and toxins has almost always involved overcoming certain degrees of in vivo animal [...]
Biological and Psychological Effects of Human Space Flight
In 2010, Barack Obama passed a bill that will have important ramifications for American space flight in the near future. The bill was called the NASA Authorization Act and introduced several budgetary reforms to the organization, including the cancellation of the program Constellation, which would have expanded the technology necessary for human space exploration. Nonetheless, [...]
Bacterial Hydrogen: What Does it Mean for Future Medicine?
By Jessica Kowalik, George Washington University From deep-sea hydrothermal vents to our own gastrointestinal biomes, bacteria that convert hydrogen to energy are a crucial and fascinating component of microbial ecosystems. Their hydrogen consumption may hold the key to explaining why certain animals are able to flourish several kilometers beneath the sea and how human pathogens [...]
NASA’s Life changing Arsenic Organism?
NASA held a press conference on December 2, 2010, about their discovery of a bacterium researchers claimed was able to use arsenic, instead of phosphorous, as part of its DNA backbone. This press conference was extremely well advertised and promised the existence of something extraterrestrial. But the organism in question, GFAJ-1, is far from extraterrestrial [...]
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