Technology

  • BUILDING TOOLKITS WITH BIOLOGY
    Graduate student Matthew Verosloff, hangs by one arm off a dirt ledge as he leans his body over the edge of a river. His free arm is reaching down with a test tube to collect a sample of water. He’s in Costa Rica escaping the frigid cold of winter in Chicago …
  • A NEW KIND OF ICE AGE
    Using cryoEM, amorphous ice allows scientists to observe specimens in a near-natural state Ice often evokes images of cold drinks on a summer’s day, icicles dripping off a roof in winter, or frost spreading on a windowpane. Its appearance and…
  • UNCOVERING A HIDDEN PICASSO
    It’s a Friday morning in the painting conservation offices at the Art Institute of Chicago. I’m ushered through security and brought to a staging room. It’s cavernous. I tilt my head up: Towering black matte walls meet a black ceiling somewhere out of sight, and I can …
  • ASTRONOMY FUGATO: TWO APPROACHES, ONE VAST FIELD OF DISCOVERY
    Last week, my mother called from the other side of the Pacific Ocean. After chatting about the weather in Chicago and what I had for dinner recently, she turned to my work. “Can you tell me again what you do for research? Do you observe the stars every night?” …
  • THE MILLION DOLLAR PROBLEM: THE SEARCH FOR ONE ALGORITHM TO SOLVE THEM ALL
    When then Senator Barack Obama visited Google in 2008, one of the questions he was asked was “what is the best algorithm to sort a million different numbers”? Obama, being up to speed on all the programming jargon, promptly replied …
  • THERMOELECTRICS: HARVESTING ENERGY FROM HEAT
    The discovery of fire was a turning point in human history for many reasons. Fire offered portable warmth, light, protection, and a new way of preparing food. It was also one of mankind’s most successful attempts to harness energy. Other major efforts include …
  • HOW IT WORKS: MICROWAVE OVENS
    When an oven bakes you can feel the heat, and on a stovetop you can see the flames emanating from the surface. A microwave oven, on the other hand, can cook food quickly, without any visible source of heat. They work because of the type of radiation …
  • THE CYBATHLON: THE OLYMPICS OF RESTORING DAILY TASKS
    The 2016 Summer Olympic Games were a chance to celebrate the world’s greatest athletes, who strive to constantly push the boundaries of what the human body is capable. As a biomedical engineer, I can fully appreciate the pinnacle of fitness these athletes have …
  • WARNING, MAY CAUSE SIDE-EFFECTS: NANOPARTICLES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
    If you watch television at all, you’ve seen advertisements suggesting that some new medicine is the best remedy for a particular disease. In stark contrast to a montage of agile women practicing yoga in a field of flowers and a pain-free granddad tossing a football to …
  • A GOLD STAR FOR CANCER RESEARCH: NANOPARTICLES DEFEND NEW CANCER DRUGS
    My father’s voice faltered as my family sat around the kitchen table. He was young for such a diagnosis. No one expected prostate cancer. I was speechless. At first, time seemed to slow down while I tried to process the news. As a daughter, my heart …
  • BEYOND INFINITY: CANTOR’S INCREDIBLE PROOF
    If you were one of the millions of people to go see last summer’s blockbuster film “The Fault in Our Stars,” based off the novel of the same name by John Green, you might have been struck by a piece of mathematical wisdom uttered near the end of the …
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