My father was a fighter pilot. Because of this, I grew up never being able to enjoy any media that had anything at all ever to do with the military, planes, aviation, or space. There was always something done incorrectly for the sake of horrible, horrible Hollywood Magic. In true dad fashion, he couldn't let Hollywood's technical fibs slide. “Goose never could have smashed into the canopy as he ejected! That’s not how the ejection sequence works!” Now that…
I had chickenpox when I was 5. At the time, I was going through a bit of a puckish phase. My parents indulged in my demands to only wear dresses. I have a vivid memory of itching my shins until blood appeared between the tiny pink hearts on the previously white tights. My sister wouldn’t get chickenpox until a few years later while on our family’s first trip to Disney…
Before I start my science-story, let me tell you a little about myself. I’m working on my doctorate in evolutionary neuroscience at Emory University. My research focuses on the anatomical specializations in the human brain that support language and conceptual thought.
“But where’s her degree?!” I hear you folks asking. Don’t worry, guys – even if I am still in grad school, I am a legit serious scientist-lady. Like we’re
I really did not mean to end up on a dark energy project.
In fact, the year I applied for jobs, it was a running joke. Inevitably every year there is some “cool” topic that you must insert into your job applications. My year it was dark energy. Studying planets? Better mention dark energy. We all chortled as we applied for all the jobs we would not get, and figured out
As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. I got my first gel manicure last week and it was AWESOME.
Recent studies have confirmed what scientists have long suspected -- the average person is not actually "bad with names," as they so often tell you, but are in fact only bad at remembering your name, specifically. "There seems to be something about your name in particular, whatever it is, that proves difficult for the average person to find in any way memorable or valuable long enough to store in their long-term memory," lead scientist Maria Kempler…
Most people understand cryonics to be the freezing of bodies after death, and they're mostly correct. Cryopreservation stores biological material at an incredibly low temperature for use at a later date. The main goal of cryonics is to preserve brain functions before it's undergone irreversible damage in the hopes that technological advancements will be able to revive it in the future. This requires quick action once the heart has stopped, not to mention a relatively…
As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Let’s talk about mold. Nope, not the stuff colonizing the fruit drawer…
Previously: Scientists are casually ruining mice's brains. "Researchers have found a way to make see-through mice, but you won't find these critters scampering in your kitchen. The transparent rodents aren't alive and they're for research only, to help scientists study fine details of anatomy. Before they are treated with chemicals, the animals are euthanized and their skin removed. Researchers made their inner organs transparent, but not their bones." "What's wrong, Carol?" "What?" "I…
The 2013 Showtime television show Masters of Sex introduced viewers to William H. Masters (1915–2001) and Virginia E. Johnson (1925–2013), two of the best-known American sex researchers of the twentieth century. Current posters for the second season depict the actors playing the couple, Lizzie Caplan and Michael Sheen, staring intensely at the camera while curled around each other on rumpled sheets. The fictional Johnson is portrayed as a proto-feminist, sexually liberated heroine, while the
Thanks to the ever-so-convenient Internet, it was fairly simple to prove to my friends that, yes, a rectal thermometer was indeed a real thing, and no, my mom didn't accidentally misuse a thermometer. My mother, though, in all her un-technological glory, decided to send me (through real mail) a rectal thermometer to show my friends. So there I was in college, with a rectal thermometer.
Cooking is my haven from research science. It’s funny, because cooking isn’t really all that different from bench work. I mix things together with precision while following written instructions and wait given periods of times.
Stage I - Initiation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeNaK3sOKqI "I remembered my friend's birthday, which is good." Friend, are you troubled by persistent waking blackouts? Do you tremble and shudder and flicker out of consciousness when asked to recall basic facts about your acquaintances? Does your right eye fill with blood whenever you have to try to remember your PIN? Let Lumosity patch over those mysterious missing blank spots in your sick and addled mind.
Anathema didn't only believe in leylines, but in seals, whales, bicycles, rain forests, whole grain in loaves, recycled paper, white South Africans out of South Africa, and Americans out of practically everywhere down to and including Long Island. She didn't compartmentalize her beliefs. They were welded into one enormous, seamless belief, compared with which that held by Joan of Arc seemed a mere idle notion. On any scale of mountain moving it shifted at least…
