The idea of invisibility has been around in mythology and fiction for thousands of years but the Harry Potter books and movies brought the idea of an Invisibility Cloak into the public eye.  Everyone has thought at some point about what possibilities being able to make themselves invisible would present.   But invisibility is only the stuff of fiction.. right?  Well, […]

Aspirin in our lives After a long hard day, you come home and you are ready to relax. But beforehand, you want to alleviate you headache first. Naturally you pop up an aspirin. Aspirin is also known as acetylsalicylic acid and it is commonly used as a painkiller, anti-flammatory drug and antipyretic to reduce fever. […]

30 years after the first reported cases of AIDS we still do not have a cure for a disease that has killed 25 million people.  The World Health Organization currently estimates at least 33 million people are currently infected worldwide and approximately 2 million deaths are attributed to the disease each year.  While in most western […]

The capability that living creatures have to repair themselves is astounding.  Imagine you accidentally cut yourself with a knife while you’re making dinner.  It’s not a huge deal, a little inconvientent perhaps, but nothing your body can’t handle.  Now imagine cutting a sheet of plastic with that same knife.  The plastic does not have the […]

Anemia is a common condition exhibited in one in four people around the world.  In fact, 50 percent of all patients that visit hospitals for surgery are anemic.  The condition has a multitude of causes, ranging from malnutrition, genetic mutation, pregnancy, infection and blood loss.  All of the above listed causes inhibit red blood cell […]

      In our session today, we brainstormed about some of the best practices for finding the research literature for your assignments. Here are some of the ones we came up with together:   Strategies for finding the best resources Summon – a Google-like interface to the library’s collections online and print  (books, journals, […]

  Among the many celestial objects in this galaxy, there are few that stand out more than this proverbial gem of a planet. This isn’t just any gem, it’s a massive, super dense crystal made of carbon; it’s a diamond. Recently, a research team at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia lead by Professor […]