The FIFA World Cup, which took place in Qatar this past winter, included the most extensive concussion guidelines and regulations we have seen implemented in the world’s most-watched tournament. If a player was suspected to have sustained a concussion, teams were allowed to use a single additional permanent…

WHOOSH! A powerful wind sweeps across the prairie, engulfing all flora and fauna lying in its path. Yet, underneath the prairie soil, sleeping peacefully in its cozy winter burrow is the 13-lined ground squirrel (aka Ictidomys tridecemlineatus). The 13-lined ground squirrel hibernates every winter, passing into a deep,…

Each year the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves around 50 drugs for human use, some of which are submitted for consideration years in advance. It is a widely known fact that it can take a long time for drugs and vaccines to be approved for entering the…

Being a leading cause of death each year, cancer is a word that strikes fear into many of us. All it takes is for a rogue cell to divide uncontrollably and feed off your body until you’re worn out. We sometimes take solace with the assumption that it’s…

The human body has feet, arms, a spine, a heart and a brain. In comparison, an octopus has eight arms, blue blood, no bones and a bulbous head. Given these many differences, what could an octopus and a human have in common? The answer lies in the brain.…

“In a matter of six weeks, you couldn’t even tell he had a stroke.” This is what Arik Yates, a physical therapist assistant, said about a chronic stroke patient who had tried virtual reality therapy for the first time. The aforementioned stroke patient was a huge action movie…

Hearing is a complicated process. To help decode how we hear and the issues that can occur within the ear, researchers have been studying chinchillas for over 50 years. Chinchillas hear similarly to the way in which humans do, making them great models for researchers to use. For…

Learning that their child has been born with a heart defect is devastating news for parents and for good reason. Some congenital heart defects can be fatal though many, including heart valve abnormalities, can be successfully repaired. The surgical ‘fix’ usually involves replacing a faulty natural valve with…

Imagine you wake up one morning with a tickle in your throat and the dull headache of a seasonal cold throbbing behind your eyes. You go to school, thinking it’s just a simple illness and that you can shrug it off. The constant anxiety over your sloppy handwriting…

Even though COVID-19 is currently on a downward trend, pharmaceutical scientists are working hard to find additional vaccines and treatments as variants continue to emerge. Computers have also been at the forefront of the fight to understand this disease, from computational modeling of disease trends to determining the…