Science

The Future Belongs to the Curious

By |

What if Mendel never wondered about how pea plants inherited characteristics? What if Rosalind Franklin was never curious about the structure of the odd new molecule DNA? What if the Curies never asked how radioactivity worked? The world today would have been very different, indeed. Barry Stoddard, the speaker at this week’s Seminar Series hosted by the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, emphasized this undeniable importance of curiosity in fuelling research.

Science

NASA Scientist Mary Beth Wilhelm ’12 Aids Discovery of Water on Mars

By |

By KATHERINE QUINN
At the age of 25, not many people can say they are on track to receive a doctorate degree within a year. Fewer can say they are concurrently employed at NASA. And fewer still can say they discovered the evidence of water on Mars. Mary Beth Wilhelm ’12 is a Ph.D. candidate in Geological and Planetary Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology and a planetary scientist working for NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. In April, she and fellow scientists affiliated with NASA Ames published a paper of their discovery of hydrated salts on Mars, signifying the presence of contemporary water activity on the surface.