5.2 trillion USD: the combined valuation of a mere 5 companies rivals the GDP of Japan, the world’s third-largest economy as of March 2020. These technological behemoths: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, have become household names over the past decade. Astonishingly, as vast as the Internet is, it is highly likely that a majority of services accessed by users today, are offered by one or more of these conglomerates. The enormous and pervasive influence of the software industry has led authorities to question their practices, and protect competition in a thriving field. On Octob ..read more

A few years ago at an airport in Florida, I remember a memorable experience while dining at Chili’s for breakfast. The peculiar thing was that a waiter or waitress never approached us to jot down our orders. Instead, plain black tablets stationed at each booth recorded every diners' request and sent it directly to the kitchen. Additionally, while at the grocery store aisles, I recall a form of customer service robot rolling through, asking if customers required assistance. Indeed, automated services sparsely existed in the beginning of the 21st century, although automation has claimed an incre ..read more

Asteroids are rocky bodies that are smaller than a planet and have not entered a planet’s atmosphere, a necessary prerequisite to become a meteoroid. Usually, the term is used to refer to bodies specifically within the solar system, although there are certainly millions of asteroids outside of the solar system. As with tons of objects within our solar system, asteroids can have unique orbits around the sun, and pass within the orbits of other bodies, including that of the Earth, which are dubbed near-Earth asteroids. In fact, dozens of asteroids pass between the Earth and the Moon each year, w ..read more

“Yelp”, “shriek”, “holler”, “cry” and “howl”. What do all these words have in common? They express pain. What do plants do when they’re in pain? While humans scream physically, grass scream… chemically. You know that fresh grass smell that you love so much after you mow the lawn? Well, that’s grass’ screams, also known as green leaf volatiles. Don’t you feel evil now? What Are Green Leaf Volatiles (GLVs)? When grass is cut, it releases green leaf volatiles (GLVs), a type of volatile organic compound found in plants that act as a chemical warning against danger. Volatile organic compounds (VO ..read more

1. Introduction Over the past few years, the Chinese Social Credit System (SCS) has attracted assiduous media attention as critics say that it is a new government initiative by the Chinese government to spy on its citizens and businesses by collecting information and promoting government-approved behaviours and policies. As with any government initiative to place greater scrutiny, there are very many objections being raised by the press and regular people around the world for the invasive nature of the SCS framework. The SCS, while not completely implemented as of yet, is being slowly crept in ..read more

The institution of slavery hindered the ability for many African-Americans to live a life of independence, without being viewed as an asset. Slaves were first brought to British colonies in 1619 to replace costly indentured servants. The Southern economy was fueled through the exploitation of human labor and the profits made by rich plantation owners can be evaluated based on the bloodshed of slaves. The desire for cheap labor caused many to be easily beguiled by the unethical opportunity of owning other human beings and using them as cheap means of production. Many slaves were mortified by th ..read more

For generations, the topic of extraterrestrial beings has fascinated society to a prodigious extent. To this day, it remains one of the most iconic subjects for sci-fi movies and media as a whole. Many people have also claimed to have witnessed an Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) before, and there are numerous widespread conspiracy theories on aliens (case in point, those regarding the remote government establishment Area 51 hiding them from the public). However, it is important to note that none of these have been proven, and so far haven’t noticed any trace of other life in the universe. In ..read more

Since the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the WHO, hospitals have become packed with COVID-19 patients and are suffering due to staff shortages. The healthcare industry has been devising new solutions to cope with the current situation and one of these solutions is the use of 5G. 5G is the 5th generation of wireless communication and the successor of 4G, which it aims to improve on by enhancing upload and download speed while significantly reducing latency between users. 5G is able to achieve this through the use of mid and low band frequency waves, which are a combination of wave fre ..read more

If you hear the words 'Particle Accelerator', you might picture the largest machine ever made by man, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). With dozens of kilometers of its tunnels, large electromagnetic plates and coils, vacuum lines, and delicate hardware, it is 27 km long and 50 to 175 meters below the ground. For the majority of the history of particle physics, everytime we wanted to discover a new elusive particle like the Higgs boson, the motto has been: we need a bigger particle accelerator because a larger particle accelerator until recently meant that it can accelerate the particles to eve ..read more

In this time of financial uncertainty for millions around the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic, universal-basic income has been proposed and discussed as a potential method of relieving economic stress. Many have doubted the empirical effects of an unconditional guaranteed income. They cite the danger of an expensive and unsustainable program that fails to generate motivation and economic growth. Proponents, however, say a universal basic income has the potential to alleviate millions above the poverty line. As the debate circulating around universal basic income becomes increasingly politic ..read more