Category: Science and Society

  • NYU’s “Street Science” Aims to Bridge the Gap Between STEM Fields and the Younger Generation

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    Johannes Buheitel “Cool” and “Awesome” are just two of many joyous exclamations I hear while I am trying to squeeze through the crowd of children, parents and other interested individuals filling up the NYU Kimmel Center to the brim. On Sunday, June 5, citizens from all boroughs came to Washington Square Park to engage in…

  • All Aboard the BioBus

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    Aileen Marshall What were your science laboratory classes like when you were in grade school or high school? Did you ever get a chance to use a fluorescence microscope? Or sequence DNA? I never did. What if you had never been exposed to much laboratory science during your school years, would you have gone into…

  • The price of mistakes in clinical trials

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    By Guadalupe Astorga Last January 11, a human clinical trial in phase I caused brain death in one healthy volunteer, while five others were hospitalized. Unfortunately, this is not the only case where healthy volunteers have died or been severely affected. The molecule (BIA 10-2474) produced by the pharmaceutical company Bial, is an inhibitor of…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes

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    Part XIX: Günter Blobel, 1999 Prize in Physiology or Medicine By Joseph Luna Let’s start with a fantastical scene: picture a band of Neolithic humans in a hot air balloon overlooking modern New York City. What would they see and experience? Lacking a vocabulary and a mental model of twenty-first century life, our ancient friends…

  • The Lowline

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    By Aileen Marshall Have you heard of the Lowline? No? Well maybe because it doesn’t fully exist yet. And no, it’s not under the Highline, although its name was inspired by it. It will be an underground park in an abandoned trolley terminal under Delancey Street. The park will use new solar technology to redirect…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes.

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    Part XVIII: Robert Bruce Merrifield, 1984 Prize in Chemistry By Joseph Luna By the time Bruce Merrifield sat down to write in his lab notebook in May 1959, a scientific puzzle had been twirling in his head for quite some time. What he wrote next summarized a Nobel-worthy problem and offered a bold but totally…

  • Searching the Nobel Prize

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    By Susan Russo There is a wealth of enjoyment in exploring Nobel Prize information online. There are videos, such as a documentary of the four 2012 Laureates’ discoveries in medical research; Mother Teresa’s and Elie Wiesel’s speeches after their awards of their Peace Prizes; and a 1994 interview with John Nash (prize in Economic Sciences),…

  • Growing vegetables in small spaces

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    By Guadalupe Astorga One of today’s global issues concerns the supply of fresh food to people in cities. While the carbon footprint for transporting fruits and vegetables from the areas where they are produced, to the consumers’ tables can reach high levels for longer distances, local production and consumption have several advantages. A number of…

  • Louise Pearce – An Extraordinary Woman of Medicine

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    By Susan Russo In 1913, the Rockefeller Institute appointed its first woman researcher, Louise Pearce, M.D., who worked as an assistant to Simon Flexner. Pearce was promoted to Associate Member in 1923, and continued in this position until 1951, when she became President of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. During her career, Pearce attained…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes.

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    Part XVII: Torsten Wiesel, 1981 Prize in Physiology or Medicine. By Joseph Luna In the late 1950’s, two scientists sat with a cat in a darkened room and flicked on a projector screen. For this particular movie night with kitty, the scientists showed a series of simple images to the cat, and between each one…

  • Neuroscience Night

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    By Aileen Marshall March 14 through the 20 was National Brain Awareness Week. In honor of that, the Rockefeller University’s Science and Media Group sponsored an event called Neuroscience Night, run by the organization KnowScience. The event consisted of several talks by local scientists about their fascinating research on the brain. The topics ranged from…

  • Reflections on the Updated Periodic Table

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    By Paul Jeng Where does science live? For me these days, it’s in the fifteen open tabs lagging my browser as I switch from email to PubMed. It’s in hot coffee in the morning and red velvet seminar cookies in the afternoon. It’s spelled out in Calibri on slides or floating around inside the heads…