Category: BSJ Features

Breast cancer is the world’s most common cancer, with over 300,000 new cases diagnosed yearly in the United States alone. However, due to non-optimal cancer visualization techniques during surgery, the invasive e-excision rates for breast cancer (the need for a second surgery) are around 20-30%.

In the chemical sciences, there is an enduring fascination with the art of manipulating matter. Numerous visionary chemists have embarked on a mission to improve the way new molecules are designed with a groundbreaking approach known as skeletal editing.

In an era where global challenges like climate change, economic instability, and public health crises transcend borders, international cooperation is paramount. However, cooperation on a smaller scale is as important in reaching our environmental goals. It is through these small changes that the general population is able to contribute to goals for a better environment.

Highly resistant to most antibiotics, intricately-structured Gram-negative bacteria (GNB), such as E. coli and K. pneumoniae are the cause of some of the world’s most rampant infections. These bacteria continuously develop powerful antibiotic resistance mechanisms, making common antibiotics increasingly ineffective.

Pain is an alarm system which rings at any indication of damaged tissue, flushing electrophysiological signals towards our brain like fire through weeds. Humans then learn to avoid any future actions that could stimulate the same reaction or cause the same wounds. Sometimes, however, there is no wound, and yet the alarm system still rings.

While dopamine is best known as the chemical responsible for the satisfying feeling from rewards like ice cream, it is also critical for the function of many parts of the brain, from mood to motion.

Since 2019, the spread of a new nondenominational church, known as the Church of Ambrosia, has sparked nationwide controversy. This church has made headlines for using entheogenic (or psychedelic experience-inducing) plants for spiritual and personal improvement. What entheogenic plants are they referring to? Psilocybin, also known as Magic Mushrooms. 

Fossil fuels have been the main culprit for causing climate change—electric vehicles have emerged as one of the solutions to mitigate climate change in wealthy countries. The production of their batteries relies heavily on minerals which, if not sourced responsibly, can exacerbate environmental degradation and contribute to the very issue they seek to address.

The degree to which language shapes cognition, thought, and perception is an ongoing debate in the field of linguistics—a debate without clear consensus. Some veins of thought appear to believe that the relation between language and perception is so inextricable that they give form to one other.

Death has inspired countless philosophical, theological, and scientific studies. A strange phenomenon described in a May 2023 study raises questions about whether death should be determined by heart functionality: scientists from the University of Michigan School of Medicine revealed that brain activity surges as a human dies.