Category: public posts
The select public posts from syn·op·sis, written and reviewed by iSci students at McMaster University. Each post is interdisciplinary in nature, and a wide variety of subject matter is covered. So sit back, relax, and start learning.
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Sleep It Out
On average humans spend a third of their lives sleeping (Underwood, 2013). Sleep deprivation had been shown to lead to poor decision-making, impaired learning and heightened risk of migraines and epileptic attacks. Even more severe, chronic and complete insomnia has been seen to result in death in humans (Herculano-Houzel, 2013). Yet for something so vital,…
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The Cure to Cancer could be Skin Deep
Our society has a fixation with the youth. Everywhere we look, there are emerging new products to overcome the aging process. Interestingly enough, a vast majority of these products employ the use of retinoid compounds, and a deeper understanding of retinoid metabolism in cancer cells could potentially yield a new target for anticancer drugs.…
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C’mon Baby Light My Fire (In Space)
Why would anyone want to light a fire in space? For starters, sometimes gravity isn’t all that helpful. For example, when studying the process of combustion, gravity actually introduces a number of complications. Most numerical and analytical models used in combustion research rely upon the simplifying assumption that buoyancy forces acting on fuel droplets are negligible (Space…
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The Root of Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotic resistance is becoming a more and more prevalent issue in healthcare, where relatively simple infections can no longer be treated and may end in death. Major healthcare facilities such as hospitals will become central locations of transmission and infection, instead of a place to heal. Based on a report by the CDC Antibiotic Resistance…
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Vulcanization, Thermodynamics, and Elastic Bands
Whether they are holding your newspaper together, being shot at you by a friend, or just cluttering your junk drawer, elastic bands are all around us. However, this seemingly mundane material has some amazing, and even surprising, properties which can be understood by considering the thermodynamics at play. Elastic bands are elastomers and, like other…
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Vioxx: The Controversy
As a strong analgesic with a significantly lower risk of stomach pain, rofecoxib (Vioxx) was a wildly successful painkiller with a worldwide annual revenue of 2.5 billion USD. However, following mounting evidence and public discovery that Vioxx doubles the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke, Merck & Co. withdrew the drug from the market on…
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The Shrinking Proton
For decades there has been a unanimous agreement in the scientific community regarding the size of the proton (Lambert, 2013). Through various experiments, the size of the proton has been proven to be 0.8768 femtometers in radius. This value was widely accepted and considered to be as absolute as the speed of light in a…
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Quasicrystals are a scientist’s best friend
Generally, one can predict the shape of molecules by applying the VSEPR theory and knowledge of intermolecular and intramolecular bonds to a molecule. However, how can one predict the shape of a crystal when the atoms are shaped in such a unique pattern that never repeats? A quasicrystal is a naturally occurring type of crystal…
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The 99 cent Cheeseburger
The 99¢ Cheeseburger is a miracle (Fig. 1). In a mere seven minutes a minimum wage worker in Ontario can earn enough to purchase one. It combines products from all over the world: onions, tomatoes, mustard, lettuce, pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup, beef and of course cheese. 160,000 years ago when modern humans first walked the earth…
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The Hunger Games and genetics (Spoiler Alert)
The Hunger Games best-selling novel, by Suzanne Collins, is about a dystopia where each year 24 individuals are forced to fight to the death in a well anticipated televised event (Blasdel, 2012). The Capitol is the omnipotent center controlling this event. The main character, Katniss Everdeen, selflessly volunteers for the Games in place of her…