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What are Spotted Lanternflies, Why You Should Kill Them, and What Haverford Researchers Are Doing to Fight Them
Features

What are Spotted Lanternflies, Why You Should Kill Them, and What Haverford Researchers Are Doing to Fight Them

Sooyeon Jung

Are you not from the Mid-Atlantic? Have you been terrorized by a brown, spotted bug with the thick black legs? Congratulations, you are in the spotted lanternfly’s hotspot, where this invasive species first came to America a few years ago. Learn more about this insect and what is being done to prevent the spread of its population.

A mature spotted lanternfly. Photo by Matt Rourke on AP Images, via CNN.  Have you seen an insect with dots crawling on campus? When you try to kill it, does it jump and become a bright, flashing red? Does this insect escape easily, and when it does you feel deeply unsettled? Do your pacifist friends yell out when you try to stomp on it? Well, welcome to Pennsylvania, where the invasive species, the spotted lanternfly has completely taken over the state. Learn more about them, and why you are right in killing them. If you are not from around Pennsylvania...
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A Look into Mathematical Biology
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A Look into Mathematical Biology

Emily Almgren

Ever wonder how mathematics is used in biology? Professor Rebecca Everett uses differential equations to create mathematical models that represent biological systems. The models provide insight into these systems and predict long-term behavior.

Professor Everett (left) and her research students Maya Gong ‘23, Logan Post ‘23, and Anay Mehta ‘23 (left to right) presenting at Texas Tech University in 2021. The real world is full of complex biological relationships. A rabbit population might fluctuate depending on the fox population, the amount of edible plants, and the spread of disease. Mathematical biologists like Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Rebecca Everett make sense of these relationships using mathematical models. She explains that the mathematical models she creates represent biological systems much like a model airplane represents a real airplane. They are not perfect copies...
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Dinner in the Woods: A Catalog of Edible Fungi on Haverford’s Campus
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Dinner in the Woods: A Catalog of Edible Fungi on Haverford’s Campus

Oscar Garrett

Haverford’s nature trail has more delicious offerings than a pleasant place to gaunt and jog; you might find your next dinner!

Amanita muscaria (also known as “Fly Agaric”), a beautiful mushroom with a rich history. Image taken in the Haverford Pinetum. Note: All images featured in this article were taken by Oscar Garrett. Disclaimer: Foraging is a fun hobby with tasty rewards, but it can result in injury or death with the right combination of ignorance and misfortune. Do not eat anything you find without being 100 percent sure of its identity. The contents of this article are intended to educate you of these fungi's presence on campus, not identify them. Consult a field guide or foraging expert before consuming any...
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Researchers Highlight Concerns About Personality Testing in Workplace Training
Features Science in Society

Researchers Highlight Concerns About Personality Testing in Workplace Training

Andreas Wingert

The use of personality testing in the workplace has expanded from personnel selection to workplace training. However, several concerns regarding the use of personality testing in workplace training have been identified.

Personality Test Cartoon. Photo by breakthroughvisuals.com While personality tests in the workplace setting were originally used for personnel selection, human research departments (HRDs) have increasingly employed personality tests in workplace training despite the paucity of evidence supporting their use for this purpose. Several concerns about the use of personality testing in workplace training were identified in a 2017 study by Lundgren et al., who analyzed multiple case studies. Using data collected in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands between 2012 and 2016, the researchers reviewed interviews, test reports, product flyers and email correspondence from publishers, associations, psychologists and HRD...
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Seaweed: A Savory Solution to Save The Oceans
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Seaweed: A Savory Solution to Save The Oceans

Cat Kim

Eutrophication is a huge issue that is suffocating our oceans, and farming seaweed may be the key to saving them.

Algal bloom resulting from eutrophication. Photo by Lamiot, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Growing up Korean-American, I ate a lot of seaweed. My mom often made kimbap, vegetables and rice wrapped in seaweed, for me to eat at school. Every year for my birthday, I ate miyeokguk, a seaweed soup. I would have dried and salted strips of seaweed as a midnight snack. Seaweed has always been a huge part of my upbringing and diet, so I did not think much of it and never considered that it would have the potential to save the planet —...
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Haverford Bee Handbook
Features Science in Society

Haverford Bee Handbook

Emi Krishnamurthy

Which bees should I be afraid of? What should I do if a wasp lands on my sandwich? Did I just see a murder hornet? This is your guide to the bees on Haverford’s campus.

Bees run the world. They are widely recognized as being integral to biodiversity and food security. Their little lives impact our water cycle, carbon cycle, GDP, architecture, and so much more. Interior of the Vessel in Hudson Yards, NYC (left), honeycomb (right). Photos by Soly Moses and Archana GS. Honeybees First and foremost, the honeybee is an excellent pollinator, skilled honey maker, and close friend to Haverford’s campus. Our own beehive hosts thousands of fuzzy, golden-brown bees that help pollinate our produce at the Haverfarm. The honeybees you encounter on campus are most likely female worker bees collecting pollen and...
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Reef Shark Conservation: Is It Too Late?
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Reef Shark Conservation: Is It Too Late?

Lydia Guertin

Reef shark populations have severely declined in the past decade, and many species are now functionally extinct, according to a recent report. Is it too late to save them?

Blacktip reef shark. Shot by Talon Windwalker via Wikimedia Commons. Sharks are commonly heralded as an important species in oceanic and reef ecosystems, serving as an indicator of reef health, fish populations, and even seagrass growth. However, few people outside of the marine research community have noticed the alarming decline in shark populations, especially on reefs, until now, when it may be too late.  A July 2020 report published in Nature shocked many coastal communities across the globe when it announced that 20% of the reefs observed had no sharks over multiple months of observation. Although evidence of shark population...
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What is Dark Matter?
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What is Dark Matter?

Hannah James

Dark matter is mysterious to many, and exploring this phenomenon usually leads to more questions than answers. Professors Dr. Karen Masters, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. Daniel Grin, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy, provide key answers and explanations.

Dr. Karen Masters, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy (left), Dr. Daniel Grin, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy (right). Dark matter is mysterious to many, and exploring this phenomenon usually leads to more questions than answers. Professors Dr. Karen Masters, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Dr. Daniel Grin, assistant professor of Physics and Astronomy, provide key answers and explanations.  This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the distribution of dark matter in the center of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, containing about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. Dark matter is an invisible form of matter...
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How Quickly is the Universe Expanding? The Hunt for the True Hubble Constant
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How Quickly is the Universe Expanding? The Hunt for the True Hubble Constant

Lydia Guertin

Though scientists have researched the increasing expansion of the universe for years, a contentious debate still churns regarding the true value of this rate of expansion and how it may be changing right before our eyes.

Microwave emission map that shows the Cosmic Microwave Background, a distribution of early universe temperatures. The blue spots are colder than the red spots. Via NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day/Planck Collaboration It is now a well-known fact that the universe is expanding, but how quickly is it growing? Despite decades of cosmological research across the globe, no astronomer can definitively identify this rate of expansion, the Hubble Constant H0. Such uncertainty stems from Hubble Tension, the quantitative difference between two different methods used to calculate H0. Luckily, Dr. Bruce Partridge, one of the original collaborators on the Planck Satellite...
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Crystal Synthesis: A Sneak Peak into the Norquist Lab
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Crystal Synthesis: A Sneak Peak into the Norquist Lab

Asher Maitin

Asher Maitin ’21 explains the Oxide Project in the Norquist Lab, where students work to generate crystals using compounds that are largely neglected in published literature.

Simulated image of crystal structures. The work done in Alex Norquist’s Chemistry Lab at Haverford College involves both the synthesis of novel compounds with exciting properties as well as addressing inequalities in material chemistry datasets. For instance, some materials can be used for material synthesis but are not due to various human-driven biases and decisions. One example is the material availability bias, referring to the cost of a material, or how readily available the material is to locate and use.  The Norquist Lab at Haverford is divided into several different projects, all pertaining to material chemistry and machine-learning, which can...
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Lightning and the Origins of Life on Earth
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Lightning and the Origins of Life on Earth

Ashley Schefler

Lightning strikes could have provided the phosphorus needed for the development of life on Earth, according to a new study.

Lightning during a thunderstorm. Photo by Felix Mittermeier via Unsplash. Phosphorus is an essential element for all life on Earth. Without it, we would not have the DNA that stores our genetic information, the ATP that provides energy for chemical reactions, or the phospholipids that make up our cell membranes. While phosphorus is abundant in Earth’s rocks, it is present in an oxidized form that makes it unreactive, and is therefore inaccessible to biological organisms. So how did early life on Earth gain access to phosphorus? Until now, the prevailing theory has been that meteorites brought phosphorus to Earth in...
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The Ocean as a Key Resource in the Antibiotics Arms Race
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The Ocean as a Key Resource in the Antibiotics Arms Race

Emi Krishnamurthy

One key solution to fighting antibiotic resistance is to discover new antibiotics. Shreya Kishore ’21 shares how she screens marine bacterial cultures in pursuit of discovering a novel antibiotic.

Shreya Kishore ’21 in the Whalen Lab at Haverford College. Shreya Kishore is currently a senior Chemistry major with a biochemistry concentration and health studies minor at Haverford College. As a peer tutor and member of the Chemistry Student Group, Kishore is passionate about increasing the transparency of Haverford’s chemistry department. She plans on working toward her Chemistry PhD at Stanford University this fall. One key solution to fighting antibiotic resistance is to discover new antibiotics. Shreya Kishore ’21 shares how she screens marine bacterial cultures in pursuit of discovering a novel antibiotic. Almost 100 years ago, Sir Alexander Fleming...
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The Twenty-Two Percent: A Review of Gender in Physics
Features Science in Society

The Twenty-Two Percent: A Review of Gender in Physics

Ashley Schefler

Recently, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University published a study ten years in the making investigating the relationship between gender and performance in introductory physics courses. This article will review the results of the study, as well as the underlying problems that have led to the underrepresentation of women in the field.

Naval officer Gretchen S. Herbert speaks with young women participating in a Pre-College Experiences in Physics (PREP) Summer Program at the University of Rochester. Photo by U.S. Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Katrina Sartain, via Wikimedia Commons. Note: This article will use some binary gender language (“women” and “men”). These were the genders studied and language used in the papers this article covers, but I acknowledge that this language does not encompass the whole spectrum of identities. Recently, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University published a study ten years in the making investigating the relationship...
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Halting Misinformation is Crucial in Battling Conspiracies
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Halting Misinformation is Crucial in Battling Conspiracies

Lukas Voelkner

Was the moon landing faked? Is the Earth flat? Does Bill Gates inject microchips in Americans? There are many popular conspiracy theories held amongst the American population. With very little to no evidence backing up conspiracies, why do so many people believe in them? A recent study from the Philipps-University emphasizes the importance of limiting the spread of misinformation.

At a QAnon rally in Los Angeles (2020). Photo by Joel Muniz. Was the moon landing faked? Is the Earth flat? Does Bill Gates inject microchips in Americans? (The answer to all of these is no.) There are many popular conspiracy theories held amongst the American population. With very little to no evidence backing up conspiracies, why do so many people believe in them? A recent study from the Philipps-University emphasizes the importance of limiting the spread of misinformation. A conspiracy theory is a belief that some covert but influential organization is responsible for a circumstance or event. Conspiracy theories...
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What are Spotted Lanternflies, Why You Should Kill Them, and What Haverford Researchers Are Doing to Fight Them

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A Look into Mathematical Biology