Tag Archives: BEACON Researchers at Work

BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolving Bio-Inspired Robots

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by Michigan State University graduate student Jared Moore(@j_redmmoore). If you had asked me during my undergrad years what a computer scientist did, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to give you … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: What's a Genetic Algorithm?

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU graduate student Matt Ryerkerk. A genetic algorithm is a method often used for optimization, or finding the best solution to a particular problem. When I first heard of genetic … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Electrical Life

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Ben Liebeskind.  All life stores energy in the form of electrochemical gradients. These gradients drive nutrient uptake in bacteria, water uptake in plants, … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Ecology and evolution of scent production in PNW Sasquatch

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Washington students Sarah Hammarlund and Katie Dickinson. The existence of the Sasquatch (also referred to as Bigfoot) has been debated for centuries. Alleged witnesses have described the forest-dwelling … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Evolving Virtual Creatures

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by University of Texas graduate student Dan Lessin and Nicole Lessin. As an undergraduate in the 1990s, I was studying studio art, animation, and computer graphics at Harvard when I first came … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Survival of the Rarest

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by MSU postdoc Noah Ribeck. We are all taught the basic tenet of evolution by natural selection: occasionally an individual is born with a mutation that improves its chances of having … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Effective Science Outreach

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Eben Gering. What if, after years of work in the field or laboratory, every scientist had a chance to invite the public to dinner, … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Males have no taste… at least if you are a Heliconius butterfly

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work post is by BEACON Faculty Affiliate Adriana Briscoe, from University of California, Irvine. Males have no taste… at least if you are a Heliconius butterfly Unlike their male counterparts, female Heliconius butterflies have taste … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Bioinformatics tools

This week’s BEACON Researchers at Work blog post is by University of Idaho graduate student Ilya Zhbannikov. I graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University, Russia) with a Masters Degree in Information Systems in 2009. After a year … Continue reading

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BEACON Researchers at Work: Expanding the Genetic Code

This week’s post is by UT Austin graduate student Michael Hammerling. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to philosophical questions about the nature of life and its relationship to the physical world. While it became clear … Continue reading

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