After an eventful day of Family and Friends Weekend programming, students and their guests concluded the evening of Oct. 26 by enjoying a tradition of cosmic conversations and observations with astronomy faculty and students in Mount Holyoke College’s oldest continuously-used academic building, Williston Observatory.
Every Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m. in Clapp Laboratory’s Lewine Room, faculty members from the Neuroscience and Behavior department of Mount Holyoke College provide snacks and activities for students at the Cortex Café, a meeting for students interested in Neuroscience and Behavior to come together and casually chat about the field.
While climate change has always been a prominent election issue, a series of devastating hurricanes in the southern United States this past month may place it at the forefront of some voters’ minds as they head to the polls this November. Climate action has become especially contentious in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton, which battered Florida and other nearby states between late September and early October. The Miller Worley Center for the Environment, Mount Holyoke College’s center for environmental leadership, has urged community members to address climate change by casting a ballot in the Nov. 5 general election.
As the Mount Holyoke College campus has become populated with students arriving for the fall semester, some may have noticed the ongoing construction throughout the grounds. Places like Skinner Green, Mary Woolley Hall and the Reese Psychology and Education building continue to be renovated while students, staff and faculty live and work across campus.
Proteins are commonly associated with foods such as meats, lentils and eggs. While they are crucial for building muscles, they are also involved in numerous other life processes. Scientists are developing artificial intelligence models that are advancing the process of protein structure determination, making it faster and more accurate and opening up new possibilities for future study.
This summer, Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Travis Hodges is conducting two different studies involving cognitive bias in lab rats, aided by five student interns and research assistants. Through his research, Dr. Hodges aims to show how a negative bias may develop as a result of stress. The findings of his experiments may help us understand these factors in humans and potentially reveal the mechanisms connecting cognitive biases and depression.
