Category: syn·op·sis beta

Tuesday has no colour. At least, it shouldn’t. It’s just a day of the week, nothing more. You can’t point to Tuesday, hold it in your hands, or shine light through it. There is simply nothing there to see, and yet, the question doesn’t really feel meaningless.  Give it a moment, what colour is Tuesday?…

Biomimicry is an interdisciplinary field that combines engineering and biology to design machines and tools based on plant traits (Hayakawa et al. 2024). Scientists were interested in creating an extremely water-repellent material that would prevent liquids from adhering to surfaces, thus superhydrophobic surfaces were made(Xue et al. 2010). Superhydrophobic surfaces which are areas with small…

Before the advent of modern medicine, bacterial infections ravaged human society. A lack of treatment options available rendered infections such as bacterial pneumonia deadly. However, an accidental discovery would lead to the development of bug-fighting medications known as antibiotics. In 1928, physician Alexander Fleming was studying the bacterial genus Staphylococcus by cultivating it in petri…

How the world’s largest mammals challenge what we know about cancer It is possible for the bowhead whale to live for over 200 years and to weigh more than 80,000 kilograms. The majority of people would expect such a large size and long life span to be associated with a serious problem; cancer. Since a…

If I asked you what colour the ocean is, you would probably say blue. After all, this is a fundamental truth that we’ve been taught since we were young. Trees are green, fire trucks are red, and the ocean is blue. But how do we know if we are all perceiving the same colours? In…

Radiation therapy is an important component of cancer treatment, with about 50% of all cancer patients requiring it at some point through the course of their illness (Basker et al. 2012). Despite being critical in current cancer treatment schemes, it carries risks due to its tendency to damage nearby cells while destroying cancer cells. This…

As the world moves towards greener technology in many different areas, period products are no exception.  Although slowed by stigma around the topic of menstruation, focus has been shifted from regular plastic pads into ones with biodegradable materials, especially in green chemistry to fulfill the focus of degradation in the environment. (Fourcassier et al. 2022)…

Imagine lying ready to fall fast asleep after a long day of classes and assignments. Then you suddenly notice a small black anomaly moving ever so slowly. Your eyes lock onto it, and within seconds you realize it is a spider crawling across the wall. Even though it is tiny and probably harmless, your body…

Music is ubiquitous in today’s world. It’s used in advertising, movies and film, and in establishments to influence people’s mood. People listen to music while they commute, work out, clean, and more. Is there a reason people are drawn to and influenced by melodies so much? Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, or “survival of the…

Press two neighbouring piano keys together, and the combination may sound unpleasant. Does that make it noise rather than music? To understand this distinction, we need to look at how sound is structured, how the brain processes it, and how our experiences shape what we hear. While the physical properties of sound alone cannot define…