Take a moment to think about the ocean. Not the water at the beach you wade into on hot days, but the deep, far-reaching ocean. Now think about what you’d see if you dove 10,000 feet under. Do you have an idea of what you might find in the depths of the ocean, a picture in your mind that you can attest is fairly accurate? Probably not – and many scientists don’t either.
Sunday’s Super Bowl, a hard-fought 24-10 victory for the Denver Broncos, was, by many accounts, not the most compelling football game in recent memory. Aside from mediocre play, the event was dominated by its halftime show. An aging Coldplay, peddling a multicolored message of peace, dusted off a collection of classics; Super Bowl regular Bruno Mars delivered a rendition of his hit “Uptown Funk;” and Beyoncé, leading a crew of backup dancers whose movements and clothing alternately evoked Michael Jackson and Malcolm X, performed an ode to blackness in “Formation,” a song whose politically charged music video had debuted 24 hours earlier.
After the New Hampshire primary, the Republican Party has successfully declared its frontrunners. A loud, obnoxious xenophobe and misogynist in Donald Trump. A quieter, more evangelical, equally obnoxious xenophobe and misogynist in Ted Cruz. Behind them Marco Rubio, the “moderate” and “establishment” Republican who is apparently really upset that Barack Obama is trying to make us more like the rest of the world, because being the nation with the highest amount of wealth inequality and the highest incarceration rate is something to be proud of. There’s also some guy who is, I guess, the governor of Ohio, and whose entire second-place speech in New Hampshire was some weird personal recollection in which he gave no indication of what policies he supports. But for all these candidates, attacks against Planned Parenthood, Mexicans and Muslims have become ways to score points. Two-thirds of voters in the New Hampshire Republican primary wanted to ban Muslims from entering the US – proving, as if we needed any more evidence, that the Republican Party is a national embarrassment.
The old model of our country’s penal system put heavy emphasis on punishment. Newer models of this system claim to place a greater importance on rehabilitation, yet they often fall short of achieving this goal. While swift justice and fair punishment are necessary and important for those who commit crimes, oftentimes, the punishment actually further disrupts the individual’s life and predisposes them to commit another crime.
In July 2015, a letter to The News raised concerns about the Northeastern University student government’s commitment to engage with and protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, asexual, etc. (LGBTQA+) students in recent years.
If you’ve been following science news at all the last two weeks, you’ve seen a slew of articles on the Zika virus, an epidemic that’s rapidly spreading across South and Central America. Zika virus is caused by infection from mosquito bites, and until last year, occurrences were fairly rare. The most recent outbreak of the virus – which was first documented in 1947 – happened in Brazil in early 2015. Until recently, scientists believed it to be fairly harmless, with more than 80 percent of those infected experiencing little to no symptoms. However, recent research has brought to light the possibility of a link between Zika virus and serious birth defects, including microcephaly (being born with an abnormally small head and brain), according to the Mayo Clinic.
College has been a process of falling out of love with feminism. Scratch that. College has been a process of changing my status to “it’s complicated” with feminism.
Earlier this week, President Barack Obama signed multiple executive orders banning solitary confinement for juvenile inmates in federal prisons and limiting its use on other federal prisoners.
I’m not much of a fan of religion in politics. That’s not to say that religious values can’t be a good thing. I went to a Catholic school myself, and although I disagree with many of the things I was taught, there were undoubtedly positive values to be learned.
On Jan. 14, it was announced that Northeasterns administration had reached a contract agreement with adjunct faculty. The announcement came almost two years after adjuncts voted to unionize and five days before a planned one-day strike meant to highlight their growing frustration with a perceived lack of progress in the negotiations.
