Oberlin College Science Magazine
Darrin Schultz It’s lunchtime. Your friend wants to meet for sandwiches at DeCafé, but you politely decline because you ate a salad several months ago and haven’t been hungry...
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Take a moment to look around you. What do you see? If you’re reading this in Oberlin, chances are you’re seeing low-rise collegiate buildings, paved pathways through grassy...
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Darrin Schultz It’s lunchtime. Your friend wants to meet for sandwiches at DeCafé, but you politely decline because you ate a salad several months ago and haven’t been hungry...
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New methods are being explored for synthesizing samples of the cis,cis and trans,trans isomers of 1,4-difluorobutadiene-1-d1. New methods depend on exchanging bromoethylene with...
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Sep 27, 2012
“Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.” Jean Rostand, a French biologist, expressed this fear nearly 70 years ago. Today, science has advanced to a state where there is more convergence between scientific research and ethical concerns than ever before. At the core of this convergence between philosophical anxieties, progress,...
Sep 27, 2012
The kitchen section at the Oberlin Walmart has a myriad of pots and pans, but non-stick pans are clearly the dominant option. On a shelf to the side, amid assorted culinary oddities, there’s one stack of cast iron skillets, in one size. This contrast mirrors a common belief that new technologies are better than old ones. Now, only 50 years after...
Sep 27, 2012
Some may only know of ginger, or Zingiber officinalle, as a pungent and spicy flavor used in Asian cooking or the secret ingredient in grandma’s dessert. Astonishingly, this root has been used to cure ailments of all kinds since the 16th century. Ginger has been shown to relieve nausea, intestinal problems, heart conditions, and the common cold. Scientists...
My neuroscience research over Winter Term made me think. It made me think about poking needles in rat brains, it made me think about how rats might secretly like morphine injections, and it made me think about how terrible an evening commute in a city like Madison can be. (edit: But I still love Madison!) Anyway, it made me think so much that I just had to...
Sep 27, 2012
Ever wonder how your minifridge keeps those Great Lakes and leftover Black River pancakes nice and cold? Obviously by utilizing the principles of high pressure and the effects of rapid evaporation on air temperature! Inside your refrigerator is a complex network of pipes filled with, tetrafluoroethane, a chemical refrigerant with a boiling point below 0° C....
Apr 15, 2012
Darrin Schultz It’s lunchtime. Your friend wants to meet for sandwiches at DeCafé, but you politely decline because you ate a salad several months ago and haven’t been hungry since. Instead, you decide to spread nude outside, Harkness style, soaking up the sun’s rays. You’ve been doing this every day and are quite con- tent with your seemingly...
Feb 17, 2012
New methods are being explored for synthesizing samples of the cis,cis and trans,trans isomers of 1,4-difluorobutadiene-1-d1. New methods depend on exchanging bromoethylene with basic D2O to give its 1-d1 isotopic species, a new process that has been confirmed, and finding a way to convert this material into fluoroethylene-1-d1. The analysis of rotational...
Feb 17, 2012
My research focuses on the neurological underpinnings of human decision-making through an EEG and computational modeling analysis. Specifically, I am looking at activity in the fronto-central midline electrodes (Anterior Cingulate Cortex, Orbito-frontal Cortex) while participants make predictions in a computerized task. This work has implications for cheap and...