Understanding Science Archives - Strategian: Science Magazine

Why some storms brew up to extreme dimensions in the middle of America – and why it’s happening more often

April 24, 2025 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

Shuang-Ye Wu, University of Dayton (from The Conversation) A powerful storm system that stalled over states from Texas to Ohio for several days in early April 2025 wreaked havoc across the region, with deadly tornadoes, mudslides and flooding as rivers rose. More than a foot of rain fell in several areas. As a climate scientist who studies the water cycle, I often get questions about…

p53 is both your genome’s guardian and weakness against cancer – scientists are trying to repair or replace it when it goes awry

March 1, 2025 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

Prosper Obed Chukwuemeka, University of Pittsburgh (from The Conversation) Cancer arises when your cells grow uncontrollably and refuse to die when they should. Normally, your body is equipped with regulatory processes to prevent this chaos. One such mechanism involves a protein called p53. Often dubbed the “guardian of the genome,” this protein plays a pivotal role in ensuring that your cells grow, divide and die…

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): What is it? What are its risks?

February 9, 2024 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

“Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), and behaviors that drive them to do something over and over (compulsions). Often the person carries out the behaviors to get rid of the obsessive thoughts. But this only provides short-term relief. Not doing the obsessive rituals can cause great anxiety and distress. Health care providers…

Open educational resources (OERs) and science

June 13, 2022 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by the use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere.” “An OER can be any teaching & learning resource…

What is the microbiome?

March 6, 2022 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

The human microbiome involves the microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, and fungi) that live within or around the human body. Damage or changes or abberations of this “microbial organ” may affect human health and lead to disease. The microbiome, especially the microorganisms that inhabit the human gut, is seen as a key part in the initiation, regulation, and termination of all immune responses in the human body….

The Diels-Alder reaction: a mainstay of organic chemistry

April 25, 2021 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

The Diels-Alder reaction is one of the most important in Organic Chemistry and plays a role in the synthesis and manufacture of many products including pharmaceutical ingredients (including vitamins and drugs), agrochemicals (including fungicides), flavors, fragrances, and more. The reaction is also found in nature, in the synthesis of natural products. Background: For the current version of this bibliography, see — https://sciencebibliographies.strategian.com/the-diels-alder-reaction-a-mainstay-of-organic-chemistry/ *Boger, D. &…

Bacteriophages: basic science and applications

December 23, 2020 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

**updated July 2025** “We urgently need an alternative method to fight bacterial infection. One promising method for killing bacteria is to use bacteriophages: viruses that infect and kill bacteria … As a type of virus, phages cannot live and reproduce alone. Viruses need to invade a host cell, consume the host’s nutrients to make more copies of themselves, and lastly get out of the host cell…

Symmetry breaking and Biology

August 23, 2020 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

“During the latter half of the twentieth century, spontaneous symmetry breaking became important in biology. All organisms start off as highly symmetric entities, such as a single spherically symmetric cell. As the organism grows, this highly symmetric state becomes unstable, owing either to internal stresses and strains, or to influences from the environment. Enter spontaneous symmetry breaking: the organism will move to one of a…

Arabidopsis: model organism in Biology

August 9, 2020 Kevin Engel Understanding Science

Arabidopsis thaliana is a small, annual rosette plant. It belongs to the family of the Brassicaceae in the eudicotyledonous group of angiosperm vascular plants. This family also includes related oilseed crops, vegetables and spice plants–rapeseed, brussel sprouts, various cabbages, cauliflower, garden radish, and mustard. From: eLife 2015;4:e06100, “The Natural History of Model Organisms: Planting molecular functions in an ecological context with Arabidopsis thaliana“, Ute Krämer….