by Lauren Tam Brushing twice a day is standard practice for almost everyone. But, I never knew that people brushed their teeth after breakfast until late into elementary school. My friend brought up the topic again. She fiercely stands by brushing after eating. One time, she was even “forced” to brush her teeth before eating […]
Possible Local Covid-19 Treatment
It often seems that Covid-19 vaccines and treatments are developed in far-off countries, like China and the US. However, the University of British Columbia is conducting research on a few potential Covid-19 therapeutics. Dr. Josef Penninger and his team at UBC developed one of the most promising research for Covid-19 treatments. As a researcher in […]
Why Do We Yawn?
Yawning often connotes being tired, but it happens much more than that. We yawn when we wake up from a night’s sleep, when we’re bored, or when we’re anxious. There are many triggers to yawning, not just fatigue, and it’s very contagious. People yawn when others yawn, or when they’re reading about yawning. I bet […]
Artificial Gravity in Space
By: Davan Mulligan Artificial gravity may be the key to long-term space travel. A number of health issues arise while in zero-gravity environments, like loss of muscle mass, bone density, space blindness, and more. Artificial gravity seems like a solution that solves all of these problems at once. So, how can we achieve it? A […]
Caffeine – the most popular drug?
By Megan Wang What do you think are some of the most popular drinks in the world? After water, the top two most popular beverages are coffee and tea. As an avid coffee and tea drinker, I find that these two drinks vary wildly in terms of taste. However, the one thing they do have […]
How To Improve Memory
What is memory? Studying for school would be much easier if we had photographic or even exceptionally reliable memory. Sometimes I can study for hours and when the test day arrives, I can barely remember anything. The good news is it’s possible to improve your memory significantly. It just requires a couple of extra steps. Firstly, where are memories stored? They reside in the hippocampus, which is in the brain’s temporal lobe. The different categories of memory are semantic, episodic, or procedural. For instance, some memories, such […]
The Blue Whale’s Cancer Secret
Cancer is a disease that arises when your body makes mistakes during cell division. Several mutations in strategic genes of your DNA can cause cells to go berserk, dividing uncontrollably and forming a tumor. Our bodies have defense systems in place to track and eliminate cancer cells, but the odds are really stacked up against […]
The puzzling world of ciphers
By Megan Wang As someone who loves brainteasers, logic puzzles have always appealed to me. At our most recent FSL session, we had the pleasure to learn about ciphers and try to crack some of our own! We looked at Caesar ciphers (more on that later), but there is still a wide variety of ciphers […]
Daylight Savings – You Lose More Than Time
by Lauren Tam About a week ago, I wrote an essay and found an example that talked about the negative side of daylight savings. I made sure to write it down for this specific blog post. While I was researching, I found out that it was just in time for daylight savings! This year, daylight […]
How Space Effects the Human Body
By: Davan Mulligan Travelling beyond our planet has been a dream for many people for generations. We may be ready for this fantasy to become a reality, but are our bodies ready? For 50 years, NASA’s Human Research Program has studied the effect space travel has on the human body… and the findings may be […]