| Term | Definition | | Computer Simulation | An imitation of a real-life system, simplified and designed on a computer. See also "Scientific model". |
| Conjugate Vaccine | A vaccine in which two compounds (usually a protein and polysaccharide) are joined to each other to increase the vaccine's effectiveness. |
| Conspiracy Theory | Beliefs that scientific findings are fabricated or manipulated by powerful, corrupt actors (e.g., vaccine conspiracies). |
| Context length | Context window is how much history or text an AI model can process at once. More technically, it's the maximum number of tokens an LLM can consider in one request. |
| Contraindication | A condition in a recipient that increases their risk for a serious adverse reaction. |
| Control Group | One of the tested groups in a scientific experiment, which is not exposed to any experimental treatment but is tested under the same conditions as all other groups. This helps the scientists confirm that the experimental treatment actually makes a difference. It also provides a baseline to compare the results of the experiment against. Every good scientific study must have a control group if it wants to reach valid results. That is how the scientists confirm that their findings are not just a coincidence. |
| Coral Bleaching | The process in which a coral colony, under environmental stress expels the microscopic algae (zooxanthellae) that live in symbiosis with their host organisms (polyps). The affected coral colony appears whitened. |
| Correlation | A relationship between two trends in the data, when the two change in sync with each other: as one increases, the other increases too (if it's directly correlated) or the second one decreases (if it's inversely correlated). Correlations are easy to demonstrate - you just need to plot the data. They do not, by themselves, prove causation. |
| COVID | COVID-19 is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. |
| Creationism | In its broadest sense, the belief that the universe was created by a Supreme Being; in common usage, the belief that all life on earth is not descended from a common ancestor. |
