Designing MixStix Space Biology Experiments: A Teacher’s Guide

One of my favorite parts of being involved in space biology, is getting to do outreach for students. I’ve had the pleasure of zooming with several classes of kids involved in the STARward STEM program, a project-based learning experience where elementary students design experiments for spaceflight. I’m writing this blog post for teachers involved in […]

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DIY Clinostat: Retrofit a Tube Mixer

I’ve mentioned before how plants sense gravity and how we can trick them into thinking they are “weightless” like astronauts in spaceflight by using a slowly rotating device called a clinostat. This post is the first of DIY Clinostat instructions that may be useful for other students and home hobbyists interested in ground-based astrobotany research. […]

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What Does Extracting RNA Look Like?

mRNA is all in the news these days, since it’s a key component of Covid vaccines. I’ve written before about how RNA functions, but that’s all very abstract. What does it actually look like to work with RNA? It’s very much like cooking with miniature equipment: tiny smoothie makers, tiny coffee filters, and very fast […]

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Mutant Powers

Movies are full of mutant creations that cause havoc. Sometimes these mutants are science experiments gone awry; sometimes they got too close to radioactive waste. (Occasionally, the mutants are turtles with a penchant for pizza.) Whatever the origin story, mutant creatures usually gain some amazing new ability or super strength; so when I tell people […]

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Picturesque Plant Cells

You are a spectacular specimen. If you zoom in on any part of your body, you would discover that you are made up of thousands of microscopic self-contained living entities—your cells. Each of these tiny packages of life can grow, feed, sense, and reproduce like an independent living thing. But your cells are not independent; […]

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