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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Beeware Climate Change! How Winter Temperatures Impact Bee Survival
Imagine a world without bees. Of the myriad insects, bees are indispensable for pollinating crops worldwide, as insect pollination represents 9.5% of the total economic value of agricultural production of human produce. Bees in particular can increase the yield of crops such as cotton by up to 62% (Khalifa et al., 2021). Despite their importance,…
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Bytes and Brains: Exploring Shifts in Human Cognitive Processes in the Internet Age
There is no question that the Internet was the single most impactful technological invention of the past century. Our constant usage of the Internet has fundamentally altered our memory processing and analytical cognition, such that us “Digital Natives” consume knowledge in completely different ways than previous generations (Loh and Kanai, 2016). The symbiosis of humans…
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Pumping Iron, Building Muscle the Easy Way or the Hard Way
For an avid gym enthusiast, it is essential that every moment spent dedicated to their craft is one of productivity. However, what is truly the best way to achieve the greatest muscle growth in the most optimal way? There are many different programs for working out using different techniques including, burnouts, drop sets, iso-holds, cheat…
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Mitochondrial Eve: The Powerhouse of Humanity
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited solely from the mother, making it useful in tracing maternal lineage and studying human evolution. Its resilience in damaged samples helps track population movements across continents, revealing our common ancestor, “Mitochondrial Eve.” It is theorized that the mitochondria were once a prokaryotic microbe that was engulfed by a eukaryote (Martin,…
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Seasoning Barrels – But Not With Spices!
The flavour of the wine you drink comes partly from wood, specifically, the wooden barrel it was aged in. Wooden barrels are an integral part of the wine aging process and affect the taste of wine in various ways. During fermentation, the wine is in contact with the wood, allowing chemicals from the barrel to…
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Musical Training: A Workout For Your Brain!
We all like to sing in the shower and play “Heart And Soul” on the piano, but did you know that playing musical instruments long-term can also make you smarter? Practicing an instrument not only improves your musical ability; it also works out your brain! Performing and practicing music is no easy task. Musicians take…
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How Pregnancy Tests Led to the Decimation of Frog Populations
With readily available pregnancy tests stocked across drugstore shelves, it is hard to imagine a time when determining pregnancy was not so simple a task. Instead of the easy-to-use plastic cartridge we commonly imagine, the earliest reliable pregnancy tests utilised Xenopus laevis, also known as the African clawed frog (Nuwer, 2013). This method for identifying…
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Love: A Social Construct or Just Science?
Despite the ridicule behind Love is Blind and The Bachelorette, the complex bridge that connects the realm of human emotions with the scientific understanding of our bodies does exist, in the form of love. From a scientific perspective, the early stages of falling in love behave similarly to the consumption of cocaine, with both processes triggering…
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Has Climate Change Been On Your Brain?
Climate change has been on many of our minds recently – but what if it physically affects some people’s brains? Emerging research predicts that elevations in climate change-related air pollution can increase incidence of neurological disorders (Xu, Ha and Basnet, 2016). One of these disorders is multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disorder characterized by neuroinflammation…
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Zombie Salmon: The Swimming Dead
The tranquility of a Muskoka chair, fishing rod, and glassy lake. What could disrupt this middle-aged man’s dream? The line is tugged, reeled back, and instead of yielding dinner – a corpse. The body of a salmon, missing skin, muscle tissue, an eye, and covered in fungal infection, yet it’s still fighting the line. Little…