Many of us tend to see Israel in terms of its seemingly unique attributes – perhaps as the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people or as the target of more than 70 United Nations resolutions. Yet, in terms of the way that residents there handle intransigent bureaucracies and slow-to-change norms, Israel is no different than other advanced, industrial democracies facing both internal and external challenges.
It’s no secret that women have been historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. For many women of the early 20th century, becoming a scientist wasn’t exactly encouraged. Marie Tharp, a female geologist at a time when women earned less than 5 percent of degrees in the earth sciences, discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Earth’s largest physical feature beneath the ocean floor. However, her finding, which would later play a crucial role in ocean drilling initiatives, was at that time dismissed by a male colleague as “girl talk.” Another victim of this offhand discrimination is British chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose images of DNA in the early 1950s were the first evidence of its double helix shape. However, Franklin received almost no credit for the discovery, which is now primarily attributed to male colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick.
The U.S. Army ruled Tuesday that Private Chelsea Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison term for passing classified files to WikiLeaks, will be allowed to receive gender transition surgery, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
A federal judge temporarily halted construction Tuesday on some, but not all, of a $3.8 billion oil pipeline slated to pass through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. The Dakota Access Pipeline has been met with resistance by Native American tribes who say they will be affected by the pipeline’s close proximity to their sacred sites and water supplies. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe took its complaint a step further, suing the federal agency responsible for the construction.
Two weeks ago, the University of Chicago found itself in the center of national debate after Dean of Students John Ellison sent a letter to incoming freshmen condemning the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces.
You are on a boat. Its captain brings everyone on deck together and makes an announcement. As the leader of the boat, the captain has set a course for the foreseeable future. However, some of your fellow passengers are unhappy about the direction the captain has chosen for the vessel. It is about 20 degrees off the direction they hoped to go in—and they are pissed. And that’s fine. People disagree; people have opinions they feel strongly about. That is simply a fact of life. But the people unhappy with the captain’s decision decide this simply won’t do.
By Gwen Schanker, editorial columnist
During my six-month internship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), I wrote about a number of exciting questions that oceanographers attempt to answer in their research. The researchers I covered ranged from a doctoral student...
Videos showing two tragic and brutal killings of black men by police officers two weeks ago marked the latest iteration of a shocking—yet too familiar—pattern of police violence against African-Americans in this country. Within 48 hours, Alton Sterling was shot in the chest while pinned to the ground by officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile was shot in the arm while reaching for identification after an officer pulled him over for resembling a robbery suspect with “a wide-set nose.”
Northeastern University announced on Monday its plans to invest in environmentally sustainable practices rather than to divest from fossil fuel companies. The university said it will contribute $25 million of its $700 million endowment to investments in “clean energy, renewables, green building, and sustainable water and agriculture.”
Ramadan is about righteousness. Ramadan is about learning to empathize with the suffering of others. Ramadan is about stripping down the material parts of yourself to bring forth kindness and devotion. Ramadan is about family.
As a person who prides herself on having a strong vocabulary, I have always had a particular interest in unusual adjectives. Some of my favorites include pompous, effervescent and volatile. In the past three years of my college career, the term interdisciplinary has loomed large, particularly since my studies combine two very different disciplines: Biology and communications.
