It wasn’t until I moved to the desert that I noticed the rain. Pregnant dark clouds smudge the sharp contrasts drawn by the punishing summer sun. The palette changes from verdant amber to moody violet. A sweet earthy smell wafts through the air. Bird songs and cricket chirps are hushed, replaced by booming clouds and howling winds. A pause. And then, in a grandiose and fearsome display, mile-wide opaque curtains of rain drench the scorched earth.

In the desert, the monsoon season slows down the pace of life and refreshes the arid landscape. In this time-pressed, deadline-obsessed, attention-less society, a monsoon season is what our brains are thirsting for.

Can you get "Behind the Groove"? I know I can if Teena Marie is telling me to do so.  Today's episode we are diving into the Teena Marie's hit song "Behind the Groove" and learning about the major and minor grooves in DNA. Also, giving updates on my graduate career and my life.

Plus,  we take a visit to Not Quite Scientific to hear in on some customer service calls.

A new database compiles all the available pieces of information about Colombia’s geochronology, offering scientists a consistent framework in which to view and study the data in a broader context.

In the 1980s, the NIH began a chimpanzee breeding program. The initiative was meant to produce animals that could be used for future research. While some chimp moms gave their infants the appropriate care needed to support brain development, others struggled to deliver the same parenting. In those instances, the babies were placed in a nursery under human care. Separating the chimps from their mothers was not an intentional experimental design, but it was necessary at the time because of the inadequate treatment their mothers were giving them.

We all start out as a single cell. That cell divides many, many times to form the trillions of cells in an adult human body. Each of these cells has two copies of all the genes in the human genome, inherited from our biological parents. While copying the genome trillions of times, unsurprisingly, some mistakes are made. Slight genetic variations, called mutations, accumulate in our cells as we grow from a single cell to an adult.