Author Archives: Justin

COVID-19 in the Brain?

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Justin

There is news circulating about COVID-19 and the brain that is worth a closer look. I first saw this in multiple news reports that did not cite the original article. A quick search pulled up a university press release that … Continue reading →

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Reaching for the End

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Justin

The pandemic is not over yet, but we have some clear ways to reach that endpoint. A vaccine is the long-term goal while masks are the obvious short-term solution. Continue reading →

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Wishful thinking and COVID-19

Posted on September 27, 2020 by Justin

With wishful thinking, we can just make an assumption and ignore the work being done to answer these questions. The scientific method tells us that we should not make such assumptions when we have the ability to test a hypothesis. Continue reading →

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COVID-19: what is known and what do you need to know?

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Justin

There’s a lot of information out there and justifiable anxiety even when looking at the facts. So what is it that we know about this disease, what causes it, where it came from, what we need to be aware of, … Continue reading →

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GMO My!

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Justin

GMO products and GMO labeling have been at the forefront of many people’s news feeds over the last few years. Some people have strong opinions one way or the other, but many people are unaware of what these terms mean … Continue reading →

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Communicating Science: Part 2

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Justin

This is the continuation of talks on communicating science and confronting pseudoscience  at IFT16, a massive conference of food scientists. Part 1 can be found here. We continue with a short summary of Ben Goldcare’s talk, “Telling the Story of … Continue reading →

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Communicating Science: Part 1

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Justin

This site was created to be good citizens of the scientific community and to help communicate scientific knowledge and understanding to our family, friends, and anyone else who wanted to listen. I recently attended the Institute of Food Technologists conference … Continue reading →

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So you think you can pH

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Justin

Cells contain small membrane-bound compartments called vesicles. These vesicles can be so small that you can’t even see them in your typical light microscope. They are used for all sorts of things, from transporting compounds around the cell to deconstructing … Continue reading →

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Citizens Hip in Science!

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Justin

Today we give thanks to those citizens of the world who we consider to be hip in science. Science wasn’t always hip. Science history is riddled with boring experiments ranging from watching planets and stars meander around the universe to … Continue reading →

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How I learned to stop worrying and love my bacteria (Part 2: The bad and the ugly)

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Justin

In part one, we talked about the benefits of bacteria we live with every day. As you are likely aware, not all bacteria are friendly. In fact, there are plenty of bacteria that we never want to encounter. Nonpathogenic bacteria … Continue reading →

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