“Prepare for the Complete Living.” Authored by Herbert Spencer, the quote has adorned the UW College of Arts and Science building since it was constructed on campus. “Spencer was fascinated by this idea of evolution and more accurately perfecting… humanity,” said Adam Blackler, an Assitant Professor in the Department of History studying modern German history,…
Anthony Rodd arodd@uwyo.edu The University of Wyoming invited jr. high and high school students from across the state Saturday and Monday for the Wyoming State Science Fair. The students in attendance presented research projects in the form of posters on an area of personal scientific interest in one of 14 fields such as microbiology, engineering…
Brett Maciech bmaciech@uwyo.edu The new science, technology, engineering and mathematics facility is nearing completion and is expected to be open by the start of the spring semester. The three main floors of the facility will be broken up between physics and astronomy, life sciences, chemistry and math. When designing the interior space, the focus was…
Finals week is looming, and we’re all overwhelmed. Does it feel impossible to get to school or finish your work these days? It’s worth trying the following learned argument to convince your professors that it really is. To get to school or finish an assignment, you have to complete infinitely many tasks. This assertion has…
Two recent announcements about university projects say a lot about our messed up priorities as a society. The School of Energy Resources got $15 million from Hess Corporation to buy equipment for research into rock physics and fluid flows. Then a few days ago, the university announced the $44 million renovation and expansion of the…
The chair you’re sitting on was once an exploding star. At least, the metal part was. We know that because most metals can’t be formed anywhere else. This includes the gold and silver in jewelry, the copper and rare earth metals in electronics and the iron in your chair’s steel fasteners. While it’s easy to…
The Wyoming Union filled with kids eager to see water vortexes and dry ice bubbles as a part of the Wyoming State Science Fair. Ryan Goodrich, a 7th grader from Pinedale, said that the fair is good for showing kids that science can be done in more fun and interesting ways. He said he enjoyed…
Listen up, Science Standard debaters: Students are thinking people, not sheets of blank paper. The Next Generation Science Standards are designed to raise the bar and improve K-12 science education. A main objection in this state is that the standards aren’t aligned with “Wyoming values,” according to the interest group Wyoming Citizens Opposing Common Core….
Members of the faculty senate sat stunned with jaws agape as Senator Robin Groose called the senate for being “impotent.” “Is this Senate impotent?” Groose said. “Why don’t we have the courage and initiative to take a stance?” In what Faculty Senate Chair Edward Janak later said was the “academic equivalent of a temper tantrum,”…
Outer space is generally—and rather accurately—viewed as being inhospitable to life. According to a Scientific American article from 2008, a human being can survive exposure to the vacuum of space for only about two minutes. The best-known space survivors, microorganisms called tardigrades, can survive a mere ten days. Clearly, life in its functional form doesn’t…
The first shots in the ongoing battle between pathogenic bacteria and medical science were fired in 1928, when Sir Alexander Flemming discovered penicillin. His landmark discovery kicked off a chemical arms race that continues to this day, with scientists striving to develop effective antibiotics faster than their disease-causing counterparts can evolve strategies to foil them….
The first “Men in Black” film came out in 1997, eliciting rave reviews from anyone and everyone who had a soft spot for corny sci-fi. The film had it all: alien weaponry, Will Smith cracking wise, giant cockroach monsters, and, of course, the nifty memory-erasing “neuralizer.” The neuralizer was a sleek pen-sized device that fired…
