Category: Articles

Amherst College Science Center

What Can Spatial Separation of Ribosomes and DNA Tell Us About The Evolution of Eukaryotic Cells?

Where do eukaryotic cells come from? The simple answer is, we do not know. However, Asgard archaea is currently seen as the closest prokaryotic relative of eukaryotes, and recent research has been conducted to explore Asgard archaea on a microscopic level. Eukaryotic Signature Proteins (ESPs) are proteins that differentiate eukaryotes from prokaryotes. Interestingly enough, genomes…

Back in Action: Psychology SURF Presentations

On Friday, September 24, nine students from the psychology department presented their summer research in the Powerhouse to a crowd of students and professors. Topics ranged from prejudice to mental health to child development, and everyone was excited to share their findings. The first poster in the lineup was presented by Nyla Guadalupe ‘23, who…

Reflecting on LIGO SURF

As one of the postdocs who mentored the LIGO SURF program put it, there are five goals to an REU, which are, in order of importance: Safety and health Have fun I learn something My mentors learn something The project A major aim of a summer research internship is to learn what it means to…

A Research Reflection

With one more week left in my internship, I have been spending some time recounting my experiences and thinking about how they have helped me grow as a student, researcher, and person. Research I loved being in a space surrounded by people who were challenging previous assumptions and asking a variety of questions to narrow…

Educated and Enlightened by E. Coli Experiments

The past seven weeks at the Wu Orr Lab have zipped past me so quickly. It feels like just yesterday that we were attending the Boston Bacterial Meeting and setting up our goals for this summer. And although I may not have been able to fully analyze all 32 of my mutant strains before I…

A new kind of astronomical collision!

Still image from a numerical simulation of a black hole / neutron star merger. Image credit: S.V.Chaurasia (Stockholm University), T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), N. Fischer, S. Ossokine, H. Pfeiffer (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), ,https://www.ligo.org/detections/NSBH2020/files/BHNS_GW200115.png. Scientists have long predicted that neutron stars and black holes could orbit…

Reflecting on Stowers

I participated in the Stowers Summer Scholars program this summer and have gotten a good amount of advice from people I’ve talked to during its duration. Upon reflecting on my summer, I have decided to share a list of the advice, information, and realizations I have found valuable. 1. You need to figure out what…

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Conversations and Lab Work

Image courtesy of Vecteezy. Web Vectors by Vecteezy With the summer still far from over (right?!), the past couple months have been both valuable and satisfying. It would be misleading to say that this summer went by quickly, because the time I spent working in Professor Totton’s lab sticks with me. The three projects I…

The marriage of marine larva ASOs

From “,https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-12-7” When you’re faced with weighty decisions like where to attend school or work full-time, you may naturally wonder what the location you will settle down at is really like. Ideally, you’d get to visit the location and see what it’s like for yourself. To ultimately make a good decision, you will need to…

Truth or Dare: Distrust of Trans Folks

Photo courtesy of City of Toronto Twitter account (@cityoftoronto) In order to give some background on my research this summer, I thought it made sense to discuss a paper written by my internship professor. In 2019, Rebecca Totton and Kimberly Rios published “,Predictors of anti-transgender attitudes: Identity-confusion and deception as aspects of distrust.” This paper…