Global Mosquito Alert: UN Backed Citizen Science Platform to Fight Mosquito-Borne Diseases

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

With the summer approaching, so are the mosquitoes. Now a UN-backed global platform will align citizen scientists from around the world to track and control these disease-carrying species. By Yujia He Mosquitoes are an annoying and unavoidable part of the warmer season. Their constant buzzing follows you whenever you step outside of your house, and the females feast on your blood to produce their offspring. In many parts of the world, mosquitoes bring not just annoyance but also disease ...read more

3-D Printed Ovaries Yield New Life

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Mice with artificial, 3-D printed ovaries have successfully given birth to healthy offspring. It's another success for members of the same Northwestern University team that in March reproduced an entire menstrual cycle using organs-on-a-chip. This time, they've created ovaries from a type of gelatin hydrogel and infused them with immature egg cells before implanting them in female mice. The ovaries behaved like the natural ones, picking out an egg cell to mature and pass along, allowing t ...read more

Why you should take hyperventilating headlines about CO2 with a grain of salt — but still be quite concerned

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Back in late April, there was a spate of hyperventilating headlines and news reports about the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This one in particular, from Think Progress, should have made its author so light-headed that she passed out: The Earth just reached a CO2 level not seen in 3 million years Levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide hit record concentrations. That story and others were prompted by measurements at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory showing t ...read more

Drinking makes you feel less pain: proven fact or old wives’ tale?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Before the advent of anesthesia, patients undergoing surgery were often given copious amounts of alcohol to help make them more comfortable. But is there any scientific proof that alcohol can actually dull pain, or is the person simply too drunk to care? Surprisingly, previous studies on this topic have been mixed, so these researchers performed a meta-analysis to get to the bottom of the matter. By systematically reviewing 18 studies on over 400 subjects, they found that yes, alcohol not on ...read more

Citizen Science Recruitment, Retention, Research & Evaluation Workshop at Citizen Science Association Conference

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The SciStarter 2.0 Research and Evaluation team will host a hands-on workshop on May 17, the first day of the Citizen Science Association conference.  (Note: there’s still time to register for the conference and workshop!) When: Wednesday May 17, 2017 11:30am – 12:30pm Meeting Room 11 With an Advancing Informal STEM Learning (Pathways) grant from the National Science Foundation, SciStarter, Arizona State University and North Carolina State University (in collaboration w ...read more