BY SHREYA SHRIRAM | SQ ONLINE REPORTER | 2018-2019 A few decades ago, the idea that one could know their risk of developing a specific medical condition would have been considered far-fetched. However, recent advances in the fields of genetics and genomics have made several types of genetic testing available. These techniques have the ability…
The arts and the sciences have long maintained a tense relationship which has only escalated in recent decades. Over the years, many schools and institutions have cut art programs or been forced into defensive stances regarding the need for education about skills such as painting and sculpture. Despite this reductionary trend, an increasing number of…
Whether you’re a biology major or not, you’ve probably heard about something called the microbiome—or have at least heard of antibiotics and probiotics. The microbiome refers to tiny microorganisms that inhabit a specific environment. For instance, UC San Diego’s BILD 4 class (Introductory Biology Lab) looks at soil from the Scripps Coastal Reserve and analyzes…
BY ELEANOR WANG | SQ ONLINE WRITER | SQ ONLINE (2018-19) A couple weeks ago, I found myself looking up the lab website of Aviv Regev, an up-and-coming computational biologist running a successful lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is one of the pioneers of single-cell genomics, the co-chair of the…
Vaccines are a complex innovation in disease prevention. Their widespread administration, both in the past and in contemporary society, has led to the eradication of diseases like smallpox and the near-eradication of ailments such as polio. Research into both existing and novel vaccines still takes place today, contributing to many fields including immunology and genetics….
BY ARJUNE NIBBER | SQ ONLINE REPORTER | 2018-2019 For biomedical researchers and physicians, the most complicated and at times frustrating questions are those concerning the human brain. The brain remains one of the most mysterious organs in the human body, yet also one of the most studied. The reason for this disconnect is the…
BY ARJUNE NIBBER | SQ ONLINE WRITER | SQ ONLINE (2018-19) Research biologists are hard at work in laboratories all over the world, performing carefully constructed experiments to produce answers for longstanding questions about life, disease, and humanity. The biological sciences have catapulted into the future through the 20th and 21st centuries due to novel…
Fig 1. Phaeodaria, as depicted above, play a key role in the global carbon cycle (Source) With heated debate currently taking place about global warming, several scientists are expressing their concern about the rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, suggesting that it is one of the key reasons for global warming. A…
BY ARJUNE NIBBER | SQ ONLINE WRITER | SQ ONLINE (2018-19) Hospitals and clinics across the world have to contend with a disturbing phenomenon — infections that were once cured with conventional courses of antibiotics or antiviral drugs no longer respond to these therapies. Documented cases of resistant infections have been increasing exponentially over the…
BY MAYA GOPALAKRISHNAN | SQ ONLINE WRITER | SQ ONLINE (2017-18) There are two kinds of students: STEM and non-STEM. These adversaries have been treated as the Batman and Joker, the Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort of UC San Diego. However, the influence that science and humanities have on each…