Art by Sierra Smith

Calcium by Erin Donnelly

Dissection of Morality

Aleksandr Smirnov There it lay in front of me. A little worm, bent to the right, smaller than a pair of manicure scissors. After being submerged in liquid nitrogen for 10 minutes, it couldn’t feel anything. Neither could I.

Fish on Drugs

I wish I could myelinate. Some big scientist messed with my grandpa’s grandpa’s genes And now my neurons don’t fire right. I was just swimming along with my siblings When some big scientist decided I was going to do drugs today. They’re trying to understand if my nerves can be fixed, But when did I […]

Petri Fish

The mutant fish With twisted spine Was born to live and breed and die Under the microscope’s glass eye Like schools of fish before it. Its eggs all laid Its time had come To be disposed Like well-chewed gum But just in time This mutant fish Was saved by guilty scientist. So now it swims […]

62% Water

By Kirollos Mikhael It was 7:50 am on a sunny Monday when I woke up to the sound of my alarm filling my spacious room with Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” It took less than a minute to get myself all dressed up and ready for a new day. With earbuds in my ears, I […]

Near Death

By Meheret Ourgessa Many of us get a similar picture of what dying is like when we try to imagine it. Slowly walking through a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, calling for you. Being overwhelmed with feelings of joy, love, or tranquility as you move into the light. Coming out the […]

Kenyon oStem presents: LGBT+ Scientists

Can you name a gay scientist? Being able to see a part of yourself in someone else who has succeeded in your field can make a big difference. For this reason, a part of our oSTEM (Out in STEM) mission is to increase visibility of LGBTQ+ people in STEM.  Here we present four figures in […]

A Short Autobiography

Dr. Thomas Greenslade There were seventeen physics majors in the Amherst class of 1959, including me. Physics can be a disheartening field: there is always someone who is smarter, faster, cleverer than you. I found this out quite early in our freshman year, when, like a good many of my classmates, I flunked our first […]

The Truthful Beauty

Alexsandr Smirnov In July of 1974, the Journal of Theoretical Biology published an article that is now considered the missing piece in theory of evolution. In it, Amotz Zahavi, an evolutionary zoologist at Tel Aviv University, proposed an answer to the question that has been riddling biologists for decades – is beauty random or functional? […]