The image of the staid scientist holed up in the laboratory surrounded by similarly tempered collaborators is a quaint and ill-founded one. Not that they don’t knuckle down in the lab. They do. However, there’s a lot more old-fashioned, boots-on-the-ground, adventuring-to-distant-lands than you’d think. The same way there are photographers like James Nachtway and Don … Continue reading Conversations with Rick Cavicchioli: Antarctic clues to virus evolution
Conversations with Bert Wuyts: Deforestation and Amazon resilience
Deforestation is a worldwide problem that is particularly acute in tropical regions. Causes include urbanization, conversion to farmland, or even fuel insecurity which causes a population to turn to wood as the primary means of cooking and heating. Meanwhile, negative effects include soil erosion, desertification, and changes to climactic conditions. In the case of Amazon … Continue reading Conversations with Bert Wuyts: Deforestation and Amazon resilience
Conversations with Ivana Burić: Mind, body, and DNA
For over a thousand years, mind-body techniques like yoga have been practiced by devoted followers as a means of maintaining physical and mental well being. In its most traditional form, yoga involved a spiritual aspect that had its basis in meditation and the study of its own metaphysics. In more recent times, Western cultures have … Continue reading Conversations with Ivana Burić: Mind, body, and DNA
Conversations with Saito Susumu: Saving the world from plastics
Everyone knows that plastics are destroying the world. It's really no secret. Yet since the 1950s, when mass produced plastics started appearing everywhere from Tupperware to telephones, the amount of non-biodegradable, barely destructible plastics manufactured around the world has increased every year. In time, they won't only full landfills but also our streets. Microplastics already … Continue reading Conversations with Saito Susumu: Saving the world from plastics
Conversations with Katriona Shea: Controlling Ebola outbreaks
Outbreaks of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever - caused by the Ebola virus - have ravaged the African continent, garnered countless headlines, and stoked worldwide fears of its spread. In particular, the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic was the largest in history. Since then, the scientific community has moved to address the threat from different angles, ranging … Continue reading Conversations with Katriona Shea: Controlling Ebola outbreaks
