All in Science & Nature

Leveraging AI and Machine Learning in DNA Sequencing for Tree Phylogenetics

Leveraging AI and Machine Learning in DNA Sequencing for Tree Phylogenetics

Aidan O'Leary
Science & Nature

Scientists have been able to uncover evolutionary relationships between different plant species utilizing DNA sequencing. Studying these relationships is beneficial for our understanding of biodiversity and conservation biology. Additionally, we can improve our conservation efforts, detect invasive species, and understand the effects of climate change. Today, artificial intelligence plays a crucial role. It helps monitor read alignment, variant detection and analysis, and Genome assembly. In addition, it serves other functions that we will further explore throughout the article.

Cuteness I: How Feeling Fuzzy Helps Your Mind

Cuteness I: How Feeling Fuzzy Helps Your Mind

Valeria Li
Science & Nature

The concept of “cute” is highly dependent on the cultural context. In essence, the concept can be defined as anything that seems appealing in a pretty or endearing way. Cuteness has long been a subject of research, even before a dedicated field was developed. Psychologists, neurologists, and anthropologists have all observed the way that cuteness as a concept is embedded into the human species.

Extinction By The Bowl

Extinction By The Bowl

Caroline Foltz
Science & Nature

To this day, a threat to our ocean and to our future lurks beneath the surface of global waters. Sharks—de-finned and slowly descending to the seafloor. Unable to move oxygen through their gills. Unable to escape an excruciating death. Familiar species, such as the Great Hammerhead, are already nearing extinction (Rigby, C.L. et al., 2019). The culprit is a long-established practice known as shark finning. The motivation is a bowl of soup.

The Role of Quantum Computing in Drug Discovery

The Role of Quantum Computing in Drug Discovery

Timothy Kilimo
Science & Nature

Quantum computing is an emerging field that promises to revolutionize numerous industries, particularly those involving complex computational problems.

One such industry is pharmaceuticals, where drug discovery involves sifting through vast chemical spaces to identify potential therapeutic compounds.

Traditional computational methods, while powerful, often fall short in handling the complexity and scale of these problems efficiently.

This analysis explores the potential impact of quantum computing on drug discovery, highlighting its advantages, current challenges, and future prospects.

The Significance of Moss

The Significance of Moss

Grace Klein
Science & Nature

When it comes to plant species, many vibrant plants catch the eye. Many plants are overlooked but are vital to ecosystems. One such species is moss. The soft, lush growths that carpet forest floors and tree bark are essential for the environment. While easily ignored, mosses provide many benefits to the world around them. Not only are they a source of food and shelter for vertebrates and invertebrates, but they also aid in carbon sequestration and support multiple ecosystem services. 

Endometriosis and Barriers in Women’s Healthcare

Endometriosis and Barriers in Women’s Healthcare

Grace Klein
Science & Nature

While healthcare is an ever-progressing field, gender bias and racial discrimination continue to create barriers. These barriers can make it nearly impossible for people to receive the care they need. One such disease that is surrounded by these obstacles is endometriosis.  Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 people, and on average, it takes up to 11 years to be diagnosed (DotLab | Bringing You DotEndo for Endometriosis, n.d.-b). Currently, there is no cure, and the recommended diagnosis and treatment options are difficult to receive. 

Listening to the Forest with Bioacoustics

Listening to the Forest with Bioacoustics

Aidan O'Leary
Science & Nature

Observing the health of ecosystems is important as it helps with species preservation, population monitoring, stress detection, and climate monitoring. In fact, “biodiversity loss is ranked as one of the top five global risks, both in impact and likelihood” (European Commission). Keeping an eye and or ear on an ecosystem over time can be hard for a person to do without any tools as there are many different sounds from animals coming from different directions, overlapping, etc. 

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 5: Plant-eating Meat-eating Dinosaurs

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 5: Plant-eating Meat-eating Dinosaurs

Stefan Lungu
Science & Nature

Early in the Cretaceous, a revolution was afoot. Not in the continents or climate but in the organisms themselves. To modern eyes, Jurassic floras would have looked like an odd mix of familiar ferns and conifers with tropical relicts like cycads and ginkgos. Most conspicuous would be the absence of any flowering plants: there were no broadleaf trees, no fruits or nuts, and no social insects to pollinate them (Benton). As these new plants spread with the continents (Gurung et al), there came an array of new herbivores, each specially adapted for feeding on them: first iguanodonts and ankylosaurs, later ceratopsians and hadrosaurs. And radiating out alongside them was an unprecedented diversity of theropods, including, for the first time, a wide range of non-predators (Zanno and Mackovicky). Where pencil-toothed diplodocids and narrow-mouthed stegosaurs had previously scraped pine needles and cropped cycads, there were now therizinosaurs munching leaves, oviraptorosaurs crushing seeds, and alvarezsaurs digging up ants.

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 4: TYRANNOSAURS!

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 4: TYRANNOSAURS!

Stefan Lungu
Science & Nature

The tyrannosaurids of the late Late Cretaceous were in a unique position. While earlier theropods had spread freely across the continents, tyrannosaurs lived in a world of fragmented continents and inland seaways. In Asia and western North America, where they were restricted, rising mountains and ebbing seaways formed a huge diversity of habitats, inhabited by a huge diversity of hadrosaurs and ceratopsians. For the first time in theropod history, there were not only no other giant apex predators, but the next biggest carnivorous dinosaurs - dromaeosaurs and troodontids - were over an order of magnitude smaller than they were (Holtz). This meant they were free to not only inherit the role of big-game hunters but, throughout their ontogeny, to maintain their ancestral roles as mid-sized, long-legged pursuers of small, fast animals. 

Technology, the Cause of Possible Mutilation and the Murder of Small Talk

Technology, the Cause of Possible Mutilation and the Murder of Small Talk

Ijeoma Anaka
Current Events, Science & Nature, Technology

In an era dominated by smartphones and constant connectivity, the art of small talk seems to be dwindling. With our attention constantly fixated on screens, interactions that once formed the fabric of social cohesion are now becoming obsolete. But could our dependence on technology be more than just a cultural shift? Could it actually be shaping our physical evolution? This article explores the intriguing hypothesis put forward by some researchers that our reliance on technology might lead to the evolution of a physical trait: a node at the back of our necks.

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