Someone who loves to participate in marathons may say “running is in my blood”. Or someone who adores sweets (like myself) may claim “it’s in my DNA”. Individuals have tossed around this saying to help describe their interests. But what if our lifestyles or diets are actually affecting our DNA?
DNA, an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid, is our genetic makeup. We have thousands of genes coding for proteins and cellular machinery that allow our bodies to function...
**Editor's note: This post is part of a series highlighting members of the ComSciCon community who recently attended the AAAS Annual Meeting, which took place from February 13-16, 2020 in Seattle, WA.
Ellen Brennan spent five months poking brain cells with a tiny wire, yet all she had to show for it was a bunch of weird data. “I went through my notebook,” she says, “to find anything worth talking about.” But instead of finding the typical signals of...
**Editor's note: This post is part of a series highlighting members of the ComSciCon community who recently attended the AAAS Annual Meeting, which took place from February 13-16, 2020 in Seattle, WA.**
Edna Chiang, a fourth year microbiology PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studies the gut microbes of hibernating ground squirrels, but the research’s bigger picture is way beyond the...
Kevin Tindell is a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at Arizona State University and is also a research affiliate at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale. He works on... Read more about Kevin Tindell
J. Alex Grizzell (he/him/his) is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Psychology and Neuroscience at The University of Colorado at Boulder where he... Read more about J. Alex Grizzell, Ph.D.
Maria Carnovale (she/her/hers) is a Lead Policy Analyst at the Duke Initiative for Science and Society. She writes and curates content on policies related to... Read more about Maria Carnovale, Ph.D.
**Editor's note: This post is part of a series highlighting members of the ComSciCon community who recently attended the AAAS Annual Meeting, which took place from February 13-16, 2020 in Seattle, WA.
Spinal cord injuries affect ~17,810 people each year in the U.S.1 and can leave surviving patients physically and financially paralyzed for a lifetime. Jessica Chen was researching a treatment for this condition when a car accident left her...
**Editor's note: This post is part of a series highlighting members of the ComSciCon community who recently attended the AAAS Annual Meeting, which took place from February 13-16, 2020 in Seattle, WA.
The past decade has seen enormous landscape transformations, whether from the expansion of agriculture, wildfires like those in Australia and California, or even the slow changes of ecosystems. Such dramatic changes have led to an increased demand for...
**Editor's note: This post is part of a series highlighting members of the ComSciCon community who recently attended the AAAS Annual Meeting, which took place from February 13-16, 2020 in Seattle, WA.
In Puerto Rico, rice and beans (“arroz y habichuelas”) are a unifying meal — whether you’re rich or poor, they are likely to be a key part of your diet. This is why Attabey Rodríguez Benítez called her first science blog Arroz y...
Candice is a doctoral student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University. Her current research focuses on understanding how...
PhD Student in Neuroscience at University of Pennsylvania
Sarah is a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania where she works in Dr. Max Kelz's lab in the Department of Anesthesiology and...
Postdoctoral Researcher in Neuroscience at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Dr. Dulka is a writer and a scientist. She is currently a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she studies the neurobiology of age-...
PhD Student in Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University
I am a PhD student in Soil and Crop Sciences at Cornell University where I study the ecology and evolution of bacteria in the soil. I am interested in how...
