Helix Magazine | Connecting Science to You

Top Stories

Uncovering a Hidden Picasso

It’s a Friday morning in the painting conservation offices at the Art Institute of Chicago. I’m ushered through security and brought to a staging room. It’s cavernous. I tilt my head up: Towering...

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The Magic of Magnets

As a young girl I could spend hours playing with my parents’ refrigerator magnets. I used to pretend that one magnet was a magic wand that was causing the other to move back and forth and rotate...

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A Mobile Future

On stage at the Steppenwolf’s Garage Theatre in 2016, actor and director Michael Patrick Thornton stood ready to play the part of Richard III, the crowned King of England often referred to as the “...

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2018 Northwestern Scientific Images Contest Winners

The 2018 winners of the Northwestern Scientific Images Contest represent advances across a wide range of disciplines including medicine, chemistry, engineering, physics and astronomy. This gallery...

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Ending an Epidemic

In the time it takes to read this paragraph, another American will be diagnosed with one of the nation’s most burdensome diseases. Every 15 to 20 seconds — or 5,200 times a day — an adult joins 30...

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Topics

A New Kind of Ice Age

By: Allessandra DiCorato

Aug 2, 2018

Ice often evokes images of cold drinks on a summer’s day, icicles dripping off a roof in winter, or... Read More

Image of sperm and egg

Not All Germ Cells Are Bad: Some Need to Grow for Us to Grow

By: Nisan Hubbard

Jul 9, 2018

Do you remember sex education and how awkward it was? Almost everyone had some form of sex... Read More

Some practical ways to build public trust with your science

By: Lawrence Crosby

Mar 28, 2018

Science is about more than just running experiments. We researchers know this, but we can often... Read More

Blog

Solar Cells of the Future: Inexpensive, Efficient Perovskites Gain Momentum

By: Julianne Beck

Jan 11, 2019

A new era of growth in the field of perovskite solar cells began this month, with the publication of a paper... Read More

The Mechanical Design and Control of Lower Limb Prosthetics

By: Bobby Bobbitt

Nov 5, 2018

Max Shepherd is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the McCormick School of... Read More

The Good, The Bad, The Plastics

By: Jennifer DiStefano, Nathan Bradshaw

Aug 6, 2018

It’s virtually impossible to read this blog without the aid of plastics. Our phones, our computers, our... Read More

When Your Car Must Choose Who to Kill

By: Suzy Lee

Jun 1, 2018

You are in a self-driving car. It is careening down a narrow alleyway, sandwiched between a brick wall and a... Read More