Exploradio Origins

Scientists have spent centuries studying how matter works. They’ve boiled it, they’ve frozen it, and they’ve even thrown it into particle colliders and smashed it up. They’ve learned a lot about what matter does in these conditions, but--that’s just what we can do on Earth.

Scientists have spent centuries studying how matter works. They’ve boiled it, they’ve frozen it, and they’ve even thrown it into particle colliders and smashed it up. They’ve learned a lot about what matter does in these conditions, but--that’s just what we can do on Earth. “A neutron star is basically the densest object aside from a black hole. When they collide, the matter itself is deformed in such a way that we can probe densities inaccessible to laboratories on Earth,” Leslie Wade said.

When Dr. Robert Brown started teaching physics at Case Western Reserve University, he had no idea he’d be using his expertise in magnetic fields to hunt malaria. The earlier malaria is diagnosed, the more likely you are to survive, but most lab techniques can’t be used in rural villages.

What if I described a plant that has nutrient-rich beans, protein-rich roots, produces high quality oil, and, grows in desert regions where rural communities desperately need a drought-resistant crop? Sound too good to be true? Maybe not. I’ve just described the wild Marama bean, native to Africa. “It has never been grown as an organized crop, it’s just collected out of the bush. The idea is can we find ways of developing a set of lines that give you decent yield which we can give to farmers,”

How do embryos know how to become male or female? Prof. Mike Weiss, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Indiana University, is studying how one protein, known as the sex-determining protein Y, or “SRY,” can program gender. “SRY is like the light switch. The bulb is this downstream developmental pathway that leads to the formation of the organs,” Weiss said. Mammalian embryos are hard-wired to be female, but SRY puts bends in the embryo’s DNA that tell it to shift the

In 1916, Einstein made a bold prediction- that gravity actually travels in waves. These “gravitational waves” would be ripples in the fabric of space a bit like ripples on a pond, and would slightly stretch and squash the distances between things as they passed. “Einstein himself who came up with the theory didn’t think that this would ever really be detected,” Kenyon College professor Leslie Wade said. Anything with mass can make gravitational waves by moving around, but they’re so small, the

We all enjoy the moon on a clear night, but what if it could do more for us? Glenn Starkman, professor of physics at Case Western Reserve University wonders if the moon could be a detector for dark matter--the stuff that causes the extra gravity needed to hold galaxies together as they spin. It turns out that finding it is….hard. “For a long time people have thought that dark matter was particles that would fly through matter, but another possibility is that dark matter comes in really big

Mark Turner is an Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University. He studies how our brains can innovate or form new ideas, and one of his methods actually involves digging into our use of language. “If I say, ‘You’re digging your own financial grave,’ well, that’s advice about investing. And think of all of the great network in investing. It involves hundreds of thousands of people, and lots of causation, and it goes over time and space, different

Ketones are small molecules your liver makes from fats. They have featured in popular diets recently, but they first drew attention in the 1920s when clinicians found that some children with epilepsy recovered on the zero-sugar ketogenic diet, but nobody knew why. "The brain ordinarily loves to work on sugar," said Joseph LaManna, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. "But if ketones are available, the brain uses those first." LaManna was studying

"Well, I think one of the real big questions for evolutionary biology is how do the small scale evolutionary processes, genetics and things like that, function over large spans of time?" Darin Croft is a professor of anatomy at Case Western Reserve University . He teaches head and neck anatomy to medical students, but, he’s also a world-renowned expert on South American paleontology and paleo-mammals. "South America’s a really neat place if you’re interested in mammals because for most of the