This week, our aspiring anthropologist, Zach Kagan, trekked down to 112th and Broadway to talk with climate scientist Benjamin Cook about his research on the real Mayan apocalypse, not the one purported to happen on December 21st, 2012. Climate science tends to obsess with the far future. What will climate patterns be like in five, ten, fifty years from now? […]

Each week, amateur astronomer Zach Kagan watches the skies for signs of SCIENCE. We present here this week’s findings—a special offering that highlights the search for dark matter. Dark Matter is a term that’s thrown around a lot when people talk about unsolved mysteries in astrophysics. You’ve probably heard about the stuff, but you may not […]

It’s the end of the semester and the end of BunsenBwog for another year. While last week focused on science’s somber stories, today Bwog’s enthusiastic arborist Zach Kagan brings you amazing accounts of nature in a world altered by man. New York City is an “urban heat island,” a zone of increased temperatures caused by the high heat […]

Each week Bwog’s resident Cell Scrutinizer, Zach Kagan, takes the top science news and breaks it down for the rest of us. This week, it’s less launching rockets and cloning dinosaurs and more of the heavy stuff.  Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are common urban pollutants responsible for myriad health issues. Children of mothers exposed to […]

Back from Bacchanal? Get back in the spirit of science with more far out stories of the hubris of man, brought to you by your paleontologist pal Zach Kagan. There comes a point in the career of any great scientist where he or she can get away with a lot. Legendary chemistry professor and arbiter of first year orgo, Ronald Breslow, […]

Grab your lab coats and slap on your safety goggles, because the world of science is in turmoil. Sort of. This week Zealous Xenobiologist Zach Kagan brings you exciting tales of global warming, stem cells, the secrets of the the brain and more. Last Wednesday Havemeyer Hall became a battleground over the future direction of Neuroscience research. In a […]

Bwog’s resident Particle Pontificator again rounds up all the top science stories for the week and breaks them down for the rest of us. Fortunately for those who prefer to not be spontaniously annihilated, the universe is overwhelmingly made out of matter and virtually no antimatter. But why? An international collaboration of physicists have used powerful supercomputers to calculate the decay process of a kaon […]

Bunsenbwogger Zach Kagan returns to share the progress made last week in the wide world of science. BunsenBwog has previously reported on Columbia Engineering’s attempt to bring CSI technology into reality. Prof. Ken Shepard and his team have been doing this by sequencing DNA by dragging single strands though nanopores. The problem, however, has always been measuring the minute electrical signals that are […]

This week, our Erlenmeyer Expert, Zach Kagan gives Bwog the scoop on water flotation to staph infections and most importantly why it’s really geting so hot in here.  While you were sleeping all day last week, Columbia scientists were taking measurements—big measurements. Researchers at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory assisted in NASA’s Operation Icebridge Arctic (a […]

It’s Saturday, which means Chemical Charmer Zach Kagan has once again mixed a week’s worth of science news together in an erlenmeyer flask for your edification.  A landmark study from the Earth Institue suggests that ocean acidity is rising faster than any time in the history of the planet. Open water absorbs CO2 emissions, where it becomes carbonic acid. Normally […]

This week Zach Kagan, Bwog’s resident Research Rubbernecker has compiled tales of  mistakes, myth busting, and gut instinct for your enlightenment. Last year physicists at CERN observed that neutrinos seem to travel faster than the speed of light. The team sent the particles from the Swiss facility to an underground laboratory in Italy and found they […]

Each week Zach Kagan, Bwog’s resident Lab Rat Wrangler researches Columbia’s hottest advances in science and breaks them down for the rest of us. Even to seasoned physics majors the phrase “quantum memory” sounds like something coined by Deepak Chopra. It is, however, a real thing related to quantum computation.  The Air Force has awarded a […]

BunsenBwog had been stowed away in the metaphorical chemistry stock room over winter break, but science doesn’t take a holiday. Instead, Columbia’s tireless teams of professors and (let’s be honest) mostly graduate students have been toiling away during the winter months, presumably synthesizing the most chemically pure hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted. In reality though they were up to some cool stuff, and […]

When they aren’t whispering stories in our ear, Professors enjoy cooking up knowledge in the lab. In this weekly feature, Propugnator Scientiae Zach Kagan gives the low-down on what scientists at Columbia have been up to. In a new experiment neutrinos are detected to be still traveling faster than the speed of light. That’s right, the not-sure-if-trolling […]

When they’re not headbanging or falling for our anecdote baiting, Columbia faculty enjoy getting dirty in the lab. Bwog takes a moment to look back on this week in science. Headlines were compiled by pillow talk specialist Zach Kagan. A pair of Columbia graduates have designed a solar-powered pillow lamp for areas of the world where electricity is scarce. The LuminAID packs flat but […]