By Mariam Melkumyan Figure 1: Humans and animals alike yawn when they are tired, bored, or not stimulated enough. Figure from Doc & Phoebe’s Cat Co. After a long day of traveling to Maryland and back, I started yawning every few minutes, but I didn’t feel that sleepy yet, so I was confused as to … Continue reading The most contagious non-disease: yawning.

By Rebecca Fleeman If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be? Would you add a couple of inches to your height to improve your view at concerts? Maybe you’d tack on some IQ points to get into the school of your choice. Or, if you read my last article, maybe you’d increase … Continue reading From Changing Your Jeans to Changing Your Genes

By Kalin Z. Salinas Would you believe if I told you that your blood could be used as a new form of medicine in the future? Physicians often recommend annual blood tests because they may reduce your risk of various diseases by allowing you to gain information about your overall health. What if I told … Continue reading Not Your Average Neuron: Neurons From Your Blood

Thank you to everyone who voted for Lions Talk Science’s Best Blog Post of the Summer 2021 semester! The results are all in, and your favorite LTS article was "Feed Me Seymour! The Real-life Plants that Eat Meat" written by Ian Hayman! For his winning article, Ian will receive a $25 gift card! Additionally, our randomly chosen voter to win a $10 … Continue reading Winner of Summer 2021 LTS Best Blog Post

By Julia Simpson Imagine for a moment you’re in a bar with a group of friends; it’s science-themed trivia night – which you’re attending, because you’re awesome – and the announcer says, “okay folks, final question: the modern medical research industry and healthcare system depend on harvesting a critical chemical from what blue-blooded ocean-dwelling creature?” … Continue reading rFC: The Solution to Ending Industrialized Vampirism of Horseshoe Crab Blood

By Victoria Silvis Bacteria are an incredibly diverse domain of microorganisms which were among the first organisms living on earth. In order to survive through hundreds of millions of years’ worth of change, these bacteria have learned how to consume and survive on some fascinating and unbelievable substances! Not only have bacteria evolved to eat … Continue reading Fantastic Bacteria and What to Feed Them: A Glimpse into Rad Environmental Bacteria

By Ian Hayman Charles Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, famously said “A carnivorous plant is against the order of nature as willed by god” when he was presented with specimens and engravings of Dionaea muscipula 1. D. muscipula, the scientific name of the Venus Flytrap, was first exported to Europe in 1768 and became … Continue reading Feed Me Seymour! The Real-life Plants that Eat Meat

By Kaitlin Carson Are alterations in diet during pregnancy enough to change the course of offspring development? Insights from the Dutch Hunger Winter, a famine that occurred near the end of World War II in which food supplies were severely restricted for a period of 5 months, have helped us address the effects of diet … Continue reading The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: The Role of Maternal Nutrition

By Rachel Kallus, PsyD Over the last few years, organizing has evolved from your least favorite chore to a trendy topic on social media, Netflix reality shows, and loads of advertisements. Organizing icons and brands like Marie Kondo and The Container Store have become household names we refer to constantly. With people spending more time … Continue reading Treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): Is surgery an option?

By Stephen Matthews, Ph.D. TL;DR: Genetic variants can be linked to diseases through genome-wide association studies. While some variants are found in protein coding genes, many are found in non-coding regions of the genome, leaving their relevance to disease unclear. My work identified the role of a Crohn's disease-associated SNP in a non-coding region of … Continue reading What’s Diss? Explaining my (diss)ertation titled “Investigating the Wnt/MYC axis in the pathogenesis of Crohn’s disease”