Every year on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus would drive through my home town sitting on top of a firetruck waving to people lined up on the sidewalks as he drove by. My father and I made it a tradition to hold hands and huddle together in the cold night air, as we eagerly awaited Santa to pass by my house. Santa never stopped for anyone along his 3-hour ride, but he would stop and hop down off the firetruck for me. I felt super special. To be honest, as a child, Santa terrified

Biobased plastics are neither a new idea nor a new material. British metallurgist Alexander Parkes developed Parkesine, a celluloid plastic made from cellulose with nitric acid and a solvent, in 1855. Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), the first bioplastic created by bacteria, dates from 1926. If the concept of producing plastics from natural materials is not new, why is bioplastic development only accelerating in the late 20th and early 21st centuries? One impetus is to create new p

Deep brain stimulation from a device similar to a cardiac pacemaker was demonstrated by Ohio State University researchers to slow the decline of problem-solving and decision-making skills in Alzheimer’s patients. Thin electrical wires were surgically implanted into the frontal lobes of the brains of patients to determine if using a brain pacemaker could improve cognitive, behavioral and functional abilities in those with this form of dementia. The researchers observed that

From Bio-physics to nanotechnology Mercedes Cornelius and Lisa Goel delve into the future of everything from medicine to clothing. ​This episode is brought to you by IEEE GlobalSpec. 9:20 | 7/1/19 | Season 1 ​ #S1E9BioPhysics

Lisa Goel was born and raised in a rural town in Mississippi. Her father, a general and vascular surgeon as well as a family physician, moved to this small town because of its great need for doctors. She was inspired by his “daily service and dedication toward helping people who could not afford basic health care,” and she knew that, like her father, she wanted to spend her life helping others. She may have considered becoming a physician like her father, but throughout her c

Mercedes Cornelius was the kind of child who ended up in the principal’s office once in a while—but at the same time she was smart. She loved to read and spent hours at the library finding every reason she could to stay there, even working there for a time. She was very good at arguing, and so, when people told her that intelligent people often become doctors or lawyers, she decided she would become a Supreme Court justice. At the age of 13, she worked in a federal attorney’s