Month: February 2017

Antimicrobial Having the ability to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, fungi, and other microscopic life forms.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) DNA is a molecule. It contains your genes. It is a long chain of smaller molecules called bases that repeat in unique patterns. These patterns act as a code to tell your cells how you should look, act, grow, and adapt to your environment. You are you because of your DNA. An […]

In this picture you can actually see the remnants cell membrane after scientists froze and broke apart the cells (C). The very small circles are pores in the membrane. Source: PLOS One When we first learn about cells in biology, we are taught that bacterial cells are simple, and animal and plant cells are more […]

At the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole. This is normal — at the center of almost every galaxy there is a black hole that is millions or billions times heavier than our sun. As galaxies move through the universe, they occasionally collide (the Milky Way is currently colliding […]

Today, Nature published the landmark discovery of a system of seven planets around a star named TRAPPIST-1 about 40 light years away. This star is a red dwarf that is much cooler and smaller than our yellow sun; it is about the size of Jupiter. This is the first time that several planets the size […]

Galaxies come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Many galaxies are in the shape of spirals, including our own Milky Way Galaxy. The movement and evolution of these spirals is not well understood in astrophysics. There are a few hypotheses. Originally, these spiral arms were thought to be rigid arms attached to the center of […]

  Source: Wikimedia Commons Genes are bundles of DNA that exist in your cells that affect how you look, grow, and age. Since the human genome was fully decoded in the 1990s, researchers have been working to figure out what all the genes do. Height is one example of a trait that has been investigated. […]

Source: Wikimedia Commons Genes are bundles of DNA that exist in your cells that affect how you look, grow, and age. Since the human genome was fully decoded in the 1990s, researchers have been working to figure out what all the genes do. Height is one example of a trait that has been investigated. Although […]

Credit: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.03600v1.pdf Stars and planets are most often categorized by their mass. In astronomy, the “initial mass function” is used for this categorization. The initial mass function catalogues the number of planets and stars of a certain mass, and creates a diagram of the stars and planets ordered by their size. This initial mass function, […]

Every living thing on our Earth has to thank the Sun for its ability to survive, as it warms the Earth to liveable temperatures. It is hard for us to imagine how a civilization could function without a star shining bright in the sky of its host planet. Scientists in the Czech Republic have been […]