Spring is officially here, so it’s time for some science about some of the most adorable baby animals. In my past training as an animal scientist at UC Davis, spring…
Continue ReadingToxins are everywhere these days. In your water, in your food, in your beauty products, in mostly everything you consume or surround yourself with. Most importantly, toxins are in the…
Continue ReadingHave you ever marveled at a gecko climbing on glass? Or wondered why mosquito bites are painless unlike the injections we get at the doctor’s office? The natural world has…
Continue ReadingWhen feeling under the weather, we commonly end up sitting in a doctor’s office chair. Blood and saliva samples are whisked away to a room filled with instruments, some as…
Continue ReadingIt was March 2019, I was at the end of my fourth year of graduate school, and finally taking a ‘real’ vacation. This meant I tried my best to unplug…
Continue ReadingEvery living thing on earth is made from a genetic sequence that contains four different nitrogenous bases – adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and thymine (T). You can think…
Continue ReadingMarch Madness has arrived, which means my alter ego – the one that worships Coach Roy Williams, mumbles curses against Zion, and says words like “offensive rebound percentage” – has…
Continue ReadingUnfortunately, the link between dietary supplement use and negative health impacts is not new. This is likely because the selling of these supplements is not controlled by the U.S. Food…
Continue ReadingA key part of the fight against climate change is to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). So, when a massive corporation reduces their emissions by an amount equivalent to taking 900,000…
Continue ReadingMarch in North Carolina brings out one of the country’s greatest rivalries. No, I’m not talking about UNC vs Duke basketball. I’m talking about when the flowers start to bloom…
Continue ReadingImagine a future in which we can edit genes like a sentence in Microsoft Word. We could highlight, delete, and correct a section of a gene known to cause disease,…
Continue ReadingIn the digital age, our world revolves around data. Archives of data provide proof of our own existence, such as birth records and proof of the mundanity of everyday life,…
Continue ReadingIt was about this time last year that I found myself falling flat on the admirable New Year’s resolutions I had set. My daily yoga routine had evolved into a…
Continue ReadingDo you remember when Wilmington, NC made national news in 2017 for having serious chemical contamination in their drinking water? An investigation by the EPA had identified that a chemical-manufacturing…
Continue ReadingBacteria are a big part of who we are as humans. They live all over us, forming distinct communities, or microbiomes, on our skin, in our hair, in our mouths,…
Continue Reading“Mom, I think I have a fever,” was the sure fire way to stay home from school as a young child. One such instance, my mom put her hand to…
Continue ReadingThere is this notion that people who study science had a lifelong fascination with it, implying that those who lack this history should pursue another career. Let me tell you:…
Continue ReadingOne of the goals of the Pipettepen blog is to train science communicators to share science with nonscientists. However, as both scientists and nonscientists know, this communication is not always…
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