Michigan’s pride in being a “Great Lakes state” may provide fun summers, but Michigan’s winters lead to a host of difficulties for its residents in the form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or “SAD.” “I feel trapped in Hillsdale under a permacloud in the winter,” said Hillsdale resident Jessica Franklin, wife of associate professor of English Kelly Franklin. “I noticed the...
Science and Tech
‘CheatGPT’: new AI platform poses a threat to academia
When Associate Professor of Politics Khalil Habib saw the writing of artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, he removed all his essay assignments for his courses. “I decided to do in-class exams this semester until I get more of a handle on this new technology and how to work around it,” Habib said. Available for free online, this new program can write...
Research Spotlight: Quin Colhour
My research project is on the thermal tolerance of a specific type of caddis fly in North America; Pycnopsyche guttifera trichoptera is the scientific name. It’s essentially about the differences in survivability between flies that are exposed to oxygen from their environment, as opposed to those not exposed to oxygen from their environment, in a way that relates to heat. ...
Physics students take first field trip to Thorlabs Optics Facility
Assistant Professor of Physics Michael Tripepi took 10 Hillsdale College students on a field trip to Thorlabs Ultrafast Optoelectronics facility in Ann Arbor last weekend. Thorlabs, Inc. produces photonics equipment used in research and biomedicine, with this Michigan facility specializing in high-speed optoelectronic products. Freshman Henry Lennington said the tour made concepts about lasers easy to grasp. “At Thorlabs they...
New Alzheimer’s drug promises to slow cognitive decline
The efficacy of a new Alzheimer’s drug is under scrutiny after it was granted accelerated approval by the Food and Drug Administration this month. Leqembi, a treatment developed by Japanese biotech company Eisai and American biotech Biogen, has demonstrated more success in trial studies than any Alzheimer’s drug before. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine—co-authored...
Research Spotlight: Jaiden Frantz
Senior Jaiden Frantz received the award for best student presentation from the Michigan Entomological Society Research Conference last fall for her research on mayflies. But this fall, she’s heading off to law school. “I think over time, she realized that pre-med was not for her and she was really interested in pre-law to be a lawyer,” Chair and Professor of...
Fungi’s future, present, and past is more than a trend
There’s an underground renaissance in wellness culture. Whether it’s advertisements like those of MUD/WTR offering coffee replacements or your hippie cousin swearing by a capsule to aid your memory problems, mushrooms are the stars of the alternative health world at the moment. There are many reasons people venture into alternative medicine. Some people don’t trust public health institutions or they...
Bite-size Psych: Hillsdating
Most have seen it, few have been part of it, but all acknowledge it: Hillsdating. Hillsdating is a colloquial term used to define a relationship in which both parties are interested and spend large amounts of time together but avoid the commitment of a label. But it is not commitment that Hillsdating “couples” are afraid of, it is the label....
UFO breaks sound barrier
While UFOs have been around for decades, recently they have started playing by different rules. Unidentified flying objects, also called unidentified aerial phenomena or flying saucers, have made a lasting impact on popular culture. Often, talk about them has connotations of extraterrestrial life. Strictly speaking, a UFO is just what the name says it is: an unidentified flying object. The...