Despite being such a tiny earth dweller, the roundworm species Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has become one of the biggest workhorses in the lab for biological researchers. Due in part to the organism’s transparent skin and compact size — just about the size of a comma at 1 mm in length — it’s the only animal to have successfully had a complete mapping of its connectome, or its neural circuitry comprised of 302 neurons and their 7,000 synaptic connections.
Exploring remote, exotic locations is a long-standing tradition among college students. For applied physics major Samantha Lomuscio ’20, that destination during her senior year has been Jupiter, nearly 390 million miles away.
Working with astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), where she began conducting high-energy astrophysics research last summer, her goal has been to detect the solar system’s largest planet in a way that has never been done successfully — through gamma-ray emissions.
Each spring around Commencement, NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts holds its very own celebration, awarding its standout student and faculty stars from across the college’s diverse academic spectrum of art, history and humanities to physics, biology and chemistry.
As a kid growing up in Omaha, Neb., Chloe Jelley ’20 had a major aversion to insects that many can relate with.
“I was one of the more careful kids and I was not into bugs at all when I was young … actually, I was really afraid of all bugs,” recalled Jelley.
The current pandemic has deeply influenced our social behavior in many ways, among the most obvious being that while physical interaction is way down, screen time is way up — some early estimates since March showed total web hits jumping up to 70%, and streaming content by at least 30% worldwide.
NJIT undergrads continue to earn the nation’s top academic honors, the latest being a new university record of four students named Goldwater Scholars this year by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. The scholarship is recognized among the country’s most prestigious for STEM undergraduates pursuing research careers.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues upending life for countless people around the world, threatening public health while disrupting everything from basic home and work routines, to air travel and financial markets. But what has the global slowdown meant for the environment and sustainable living, and what could it mean if some of the radical changes in our everyday lifestyles and consumption habits persisted long-term?
Plenty of fictional works like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein have explored the idea of swapping out a brain from one individual and transferring it into a completely different body. However, a team of biologists and engineers has now used a variation of the sci-fi concept, via computer simulation, to explore a core brain-body question.
NJIT researchers will look to continue a successful string of space-bound studies at the International Space Station (ISS) when a new payload of experimental samples launches to the station with the SpaceX CRS-20 commercial cargo resupply mission on Mar. 7.
NJIT has announced the launch of a new initiative dedicated to the growing professional practice of creative placemaking — a field that places arts and culture at the center of community, social and economic development.
