Tracey Suter followed up earthquakes with some well-executed science of her own. Though some may think of animal experimentation as cruel, Tracey reveals that it’s necessary to use rats to study neuroscience phenomena as a model for humans since we couldn’t possible subject humans to what we do to rats. Following work on rats, it’s long been shown that a ketogenic diet, a diet of mostly fat, reduces seizures in patients because it starves the body of certain chemicals and promotes a kind of fuel known as ketone bodies. In the Masino lab, Tracey has been studying additional effects of the ketogenic diet, specifically the effect on pain. Rats on the diet were made to stand on a hot plate and were measured to have a higher pain tolerance when compared to rats not on the diet. Tracey also tested this in mice by injecting their paws with the burning chemical in peppers (capsaicin); once again, those on the ketogenic diet were found to feel less pain than those on normal diets. While the ketogenic diet may not be necessary for everybody, her research emphasized that proper and informed nutrition can be a valuable way to treat illness in addition to preventing it.

Justin Hallquist ended the talks with a literal bang as he talked about his work with Professor Silverman on “Prince Rupert’s Drop”, a special kind of glass teardrop that literally exploded if its tail end is broken off. These “drops” are formed by immersing molten glass in cold water, in which the outside of the glass instantly hardens and subjects the bulbous portion of the glass to incredibly high internal pressures. Snapping the tail off sends shockwaves through the glass, forming many shards and pieces. In particular, Justin studied the particle distribution of the shards; in other words, he counted the size and mass of the shards in order to determine whether they break just like objects destroyed through abrasion and impact. Universally, the statistics of these breakings are linear (a straight line) when the logarithm are plotted. Literally, though, this involved counting thousands and thousands of particles, which proved very difficult to figure out. Thus, Justin was developing a method to count particles through staining with indelible ink and using imaging software. If the statistics aren’t as normal, a new kind of physical phenomenon will be open for further exploration.
While the talks were all short, there was no doubt that they generated interest and excitement. Everyone there was proud to be part of an institution where such revolutionary research in so many different fields is being done by undergraduate students.