The “Blue Wave” of 2018?
By Elizabeth Miles
Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore has been accused of being a sexual predator. In December, Moore lost to Democratic Candidate Doug Jones. The race for this senate seat was fought in a district that nearly any Republican should have won, but Moore was a weak candidate with a controversial history. Because of the current political climate and Jones’s win in Alabama, some see a “Blue Wave” coming, but is it?
Blue is a color associated with the Democratic National Committee. The blue wave that is being discussed would be sweeping wins by the Democratic Party in the 2018 election cycle. Even right-wing commentarians like Tomi Lahren are warning of the coming blue wave. Opionion pieces accross the country are discussing the upcoming “Blue Wave.” The election was a surprise, but is it heralding a shift in our electorate and politics?
It was an unusual and messy election complicated with politics and race. Even after credible accusations of sexual abuse with a minor were leveled at Moore, he retained his senate candidacy. The Republican National Party funded Roy Moore’s campaign, and Moore was supported by many members of the Republican Party, including current US President Donald Trump. In support of Moore, President Trump tweeted, “LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already. The Pelosi/Schumer Puppet Jones would vote against us 100% of the time. He’s bad on Crime, Life, Border, Vets, Guns & Military. VOTE ROY MOORE!”
President Trump justified his support for Moore with reporters, “He says he didn’t do it. You have to listen to him, also.” A statement that has garnered criticism from many. While President Trump says he supports other women coming forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against other people, the president doesn’t believe the women who have accused Moore. Some argue that the president is playing politics with this issue.
At this point, the election has happened, and Doug Jones won. On the surface, that looks like a success for humanity: an accused sexual predator lost an election. But he didn’t lose by much. Doug Jones won by only 1.5%, according to CNN.
It’s important to note that one reason that Doug Jones won was due to the large turnout of black female voters. 98% of black women voted for Doug Jones, as opposed to 34% of white females. More men than women voted for Moore, but 63% of white women still voted for Moore. 64% of white voters voted for Moore, but 96% of black voters voted for Jones.
This trend of increased voter turnout and Democratic leaning is increasing throughout the nation, and might cause a “Blue Wave” come 2018. So far, Virginia has also elected a Democrat for senate seat, Ralph Northam. Seattle has elected their first openly gay democratic mayor, Jenny Durkan. Across the nation there’s been many historic wins, including the win of City Councilman Ravi Bhalla, who became Virginia’s first Sikh mayor, and many LGBT+ candidates.
Alabama and Virginia could be foreshadowing a “Blue Wave” of democratic wins across the nation, despite the President’s endorsements of republican candidates. Going into 2018, this trend may continue. However, politics are a complicated game. Even when a candidate has ample evidence suggesting that he sexually abused children, he nearly won with the support of his political party. This was a win for the Democratic Party, but is it really an indication of a coming “Blue Wave”?
Blue is a color associated with the Democratic National Committee. The blue wave that is being discussed would be sweeping wins by the Democratic Party in the 2018 election cycle. Even right-wing commentarians like Tomi Lahren are warning of the coming blue wave. Opionion pieces accross the country are discussing the upcoming “Blue Wave.” The election was a surprise, but is it heralding a shift in our electorate and politics?
It was an unusual and messy election complicated with politics and race. Even after credible accusations of sexual abuse with a minor were leveled at Moore, he retained his senate candidacy. The Republican National Party funded Roy Moore’s campaign, and Moore was supported by many members of the Republican Party, including current US President Donald Trump. In support of Moore, President Trump tweeted, “LAST thing the Make America Great Again Agenda needs is a Liberal Democrat in Senate where we have so little margin for victory already. The Pelosi/Schumer Puppet Jones would vote against us 100% of the time. He’s bad on Crime, Life, Border, Vets, Guns & Military. VOTE ROY MOORE!”
President Trump justified his support for Moore with reporters, “He says he didn’t do it. You have to listen to him, also.” A statement that has garnered criticism from many. While President Trump says he supports other women coming forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against other people, the president doesn’t believe the women who have accused Moore. Some argue that the president is playing politics with this issue.
At this point, the election has happened, and Doug Jones won. On the surface, that looks like a success for humanity: an accused sexual predator lost an election. But he didn’t lose by much. Doug Jones won by only 1.5%, according to CNN.
It’s important to note that one reason that Doug Jones won was due to the large turnout of black female voters. 98% of black women voted for Doug Jones, as opposed to 34% of white females. More men than women voted for Moore, but 63% of white women still voted for Moore. 64% of white voters voted for Moore, but 96% of black voters voted for Jones.
This trend of increased voter turnout and Democratic leaning is increasing throughout the nation, and might cause a “Blue Wave” come 2018. So far, Virginia has also elected a Democrat for senate seat, Ralph Northam. Seattle has elected their first openly gay democratic mayor, Jenny Durkan. Across the nation there’s been many historic wins, including the win of City Councilman Ravi Bhalla, who became Virginia’s first Sikh mayor, and many LGBT+ candidates.
Alabama and Virginia could be foreshadowing a “Blue Wave” of democratic wins across the nation, despite the President’s endorsements of republican candidates. Going into 2018, this trend may continue. However, politics are a complicated game. Even when a candidate has ample evidence suggesting that he sexually abused children, he nearly won with the support of his political party. This was a win for the Democratic Party, but is it really an indication of a coming “Blue Wave”?
Revenge of the FCC
By Ty Menlove
Recently net neutrality, a set of regulations that ensured all internet content is treated equally, was repealed by the FCC. With the decision to repeal Net Neutrality falling on a 3 to 2 vote, along party lines; Ajit Pai and the FCC have been successful in rolling back net neutrality laws despite the fact that 83% of the the American public disapproves of the repeal of net neutrality.
Proponents of the measure argue that removing these Obama-era regulations will allow companies like AT&T and Verizon to create improvements in innovation without government involvement. They also argue that this decision could spawn pro consumer actions, like family friendly packages that block inappropriate content. Another idea from repeal supporters is that there can be a “fast lane” for certain prioritized content, such as communications between electric cars or health applications.
It’s scary for consumers to consider what other applications could stem from the repeal as well. Streaming websites could be charged extra to broadcast to consumers at a faster rate, and in turn, charge consumers more for the service. Internet tycoons, like Comcast and Verizon, stand to benefit from having fast and slow lanes for websites, prioritizing content chosen by the company. This would mainly affect smaller websites and websites that have yet to be made. Small websites you like may load a lot slower than Netflix or Hulu, who have the money to pay for fast lanes. New generation content will have to go through a lot more work to find a place on the internet, having to be approved before you can move forward. To make matters worse, some websites may not even exist anymore because of their lack of funds to buy any lane, fast or slow.
Ajit Pai argues that this will allow smaller ISP businesses to compete in the internet game. This is a possibility because they could offer cheaper more affordable internet plans as opposed to Comcast or Verizon. The catch is they will have fewer options for what your internet can do compared to the heavy hitters. That may not be a problem as long as money can be saved.
One thing that’s been brought up is that in the past big companies making billions of dollars haven’t stopped to think about the little guy so “why would they now?” Another issue is that you are potentially paying more for less freedom and liberties than hou had before. Unless you have financial freedom or are a big company, this decision could make big waves in your bank account. The battle for net neutrality is far from over, though. Many politicians have made statements speaking about their plans to battle for net neutrality. ”I plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution that would restore the Open internet order and reverse the FCC’s historic mistake of repealing net neutrality. This fight is far from over.” Said Senator Ed Markey on Twitter. If you would like to support this movement to support net neutrality, speak up. Contact your congressperson, or just text “BATTLE” to 384-387.
Proponents of the measure argue that removing these Obama-era regulations will allow companies like AT&T and Verizon to create improvements in innovation without government involvement. They also argue that this decision could spawn pro consumer actions, like family friendly packages that block inappropriate content. Another idea from repeal supporters is that there can be a “fast lane” for certain prioritized content, such as communications between electric cars or health applications.
It’s scary for consumers to consider what other applications could stem from the repeal as well. Streaming websites could be charged extra to broadcast to consumers at a faster rate, and in turn, charge consumers more for the service. Internet tycoons, like Comcast and Verizon, stand to benefit from having fast and slow lanes for websites, prioritizing content chosen by the company. This would mainly affect smaller websites and websites that have yet to be made. Small websites you like may load a lot slower than Netflix or Hulu, who have the money to pay for fast lanes. New generation content will have to go through a lot more work to find a place on the internet, having to be approved before you can move forward. To make matters worse, some websites may not even exist anymore because of their lack of funds to buy any lane, fast or slow.
Ajit Pai argues that this will allow smaller ISP businesses to compete in the internet game. This is a possibility because they could offer cheaper more affordable internet plans as opposed to Comcast or Verizon. The catch is they will have fewer options for what your internet can do compared to the heavy hitters. That may not be a problem as long as money can be saved.
One thing that’s been brought up is that in the past big companies making billions of dollars haven’t stopped to think about the little guy so “why would they now?” Another issue is that you are potentially paying more for less freedom and liberties than hou had before. Unless you have financial freedom or are a big company, this decision could make big waves in your bank account. The battle for net neutrality is far from over, though. Many politicians have made statements speaking about their plans to battle for net neutrality. ”I plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution that would restore the Open internet order and reverse the FCC’s historic mistake of repealing net neutrality. This fight is far from over.” Said Senator Ed Markey on Twitter. If you would like to support this movement to support net neutrality, speak up. Contact your congressperson, or just text “BATTLE” to 384-387.
What You Need to Know About Sex Education
By Gabriel Britton
Sex education has been controversial in Utah for years. Many students don’t understand what the argument of sex education is about, and that there are laws that help schools teach it. There are both parents and students that may not understand or realize that sex education is meant to supplement and not take away from education in the home by parents, and in some instances, sex education may not be something discussed at home, therefore, the only opportunity is through the sex education offered in school.
The Jordan School District policy manual, AA411 Sex Education reads, “It is the primary responsibility of parents to provide sex education for their children. It is the responsibility of the schools to provide supportive instruction that will complement the efforts in the home. The Board authorizes the District Administration to conduct health, family life, and character instruction within the framework of guidelines established by the State Board of Education and as approved by Jordan School District.”
The Administration explains sex education in AA411, Administrative Policy A, in which it states that sex education is to help develop respect for human life, parenthood, and respect for moral standards. It includes information on not only the human body and its reproductive system, but also physical, mental,emotional, and social health. Sex education courses also explain how to maintain healthy relationships between people. In section B of the Administrative Policy it says, “Programs and materials relating to sex education shall be based on the abstinence only curriculum approved by the Board.” Webster Dictionary defines abstinence as, “The practice of not doing or having something that is wanted or enjoyable,” which means that the curriculum is meant to teach students not to have sex prior to marriage.
Essentially, the school administrators allow schools to teach sex education as long as certain words or discussions are not said within schools by teachers. The teachers are to only teach how the reproductive system works, how a child develops, and the consequences of having sex at an early age or unprotected along with other guidelines. These guidelines are set up in the Utah code HB 246.
According to an article in The Sale Lake Tribune, state representative Justin Fawson wanted to change Sex Education from being taught in schools to being taught online. The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed Justin Fawson who said, “Parents could really choose the type of education that they wanted their kids to have a la carte, or they could just choose to teach their kids in their home and not use the modules at all.” The proposed learning modules could be used to organize information through units over a certain amounts of time. It’s similar to how classes have certain content they’re supposed to be teaching in each quarter. The article also states that Fawson had no intention of loosening Utah’s content restrictions. He simply wanted to have the whole course be online instead of a classroom setting.
In an article published by KSL Fawson says, “When we start talking about sexuality, emotions and feelings and attractions, that’s where the problems, that’s where the conflicts and legal challenges happen.”
Other organizations such as ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Equality Utah, and others agree in some way with Fawson: “All students, both straight and gay, need age-appropriate, scientifically accurate information about sex. All teens need information to make healthy and smart choices in their lives,” executive director of Equality Utah Troy Williams said in a statement to KSL.com. “Utah shouldn’t be afraid of providing teachers and parents more resources to help toward that end. We will continue to work with Rep. Fawson to encourage that outcome.”
Marina Lowe, who is the legislative and policy counsel for the ACLU of Utah, in a statement said, “For many reasons, some students can’t get the right information in their homes. This is about education, and we need to make sure that our young people learn about reproduction and sexuality in a setting where they can get accurate answers to their questions in order to make the right decisions in their lives.”
Fawson’s bill brought a lot of backfire from parents who value having trained classroom educators help their children and from critics of Utah’s abstinence only curriculum. Ultimately Fawson’s bill was rejected. Sex education will be discussed and debated for the foreseeable future, and the rules that regulate how we teach it keep evolving. At some point, we may have to change how we look at this subject, so that we can better serve communities and support education in the future.
The Jordan School District policy manual, AA411 Sex Education reads, “It is the primary responsibility of parents to provide sex education for their children. It is the responsibility of the schools to provide supportive instruction that will complement the efforts in the home. The Board authorizes the District Administration to conduct health, family life, and character instruction within the framework of guidelines established by the State Board of Education and as approved by Jordan School District.”
The Administration explains sex education in AA411, Administrative Policy A, in which it states that sex education is to help develop respect for human life, parenthood, and respect for moral standards. It includes information on not only the human body and its reproductive system, but also physical, mental,emotional, and social health. Sex education courses also explain how to maintain healthy relationships between people. In section B of the Administrative Policy it says, “Programs and materials relating to sex education shall be based on the abstinence only curriculum approved by the Board.” Webster Dictionary defines abstinence as, “The practice of not doing or having something that is wanted or enjoyable,” which means that the curriculum is meant to teach students not to have sex prior to marriage.
Essentially, the school administrators allow schools to teach sex education as long as certain words or discussions are not said within schools by teachers. The teachers are to only teach how the reproductive system works, how a child develops, and the consequences of having sex at an early age or unprotected along with other guidelines. These guidelines are set up in the Utah code HB 246.
According to an article in The Sale Lake Tribune, state representative Justin Fawson wanted to change Sex Education from being taught in schools to being taught online. The Salt Lake Tribune interviewed Justin Fawson who said, “Parents could really choose the type of education that they wanted their kids to have a la carte, or they could just choose to teach their kids in their home and not use the modules at all.” The proposed learning modules could be used to organize information through units over a certain amounts of time. It’s similar to how classes have certain content they’re supposed to be teaching in each quarter. The article also states that Fawson had no intention of loosening Utah’s content restrictions. He simply wanted to have the whole course be online instead of a classroom setting.
In an article published by KSL Fawson says, “When we start talking about sexuality, emotions and feelings and attractions, that’s where the problems, that’s where the conflicts and legal challenges happen.”
Other organizations such as ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Equality Utah, and others agree in some way with Fawson: “All students, both straight and gay, need age-appropriate, scientifically accurate information about sex. All teens need information to make healthy and smart choices in their lives,” executive director of Equality Utah Troy Williams said in a statement to KSL.com. “Utah shouldn’t be afraid of providing teachers and parents more resources to help toward that end. We will continue to work with Rep. Fawson to encourage that outcome.”
Marina Lowe, who is the legislative and policy counsel for the ACLU of Utah, in a statement said, “For many reasons, some students can’t get the right information in their homes. This is about education, and we need to make sure that our young people learn about reproduction and sexuality in a setting where they can get accurate answers to their questions in order to make the right decisions in their lives.”
Fawson’s bill brought a lot of backfire from parents who value having trained classroom educators help their children and from critics of Utah’s abstinence only curriculum. Ultimately Fawson’s bill was rejected. Sex education will be discussed and debated for the foreseeable future, and the rules that regulate how we teach it keep evolving. At some point, we may have to change how we look at this subject, so that we can better serve communities and support education in the future.
Screens and Teens
Do we need new rules to help regulate phones in school?
By Madison Rose Riley
You’re in class… about twenty minutes in. Your teacher won’t stop talking… and talking… and talking... *PING* A text from your girlfriend! Oh, man, she’s so perfect, you have to see what she has to say, even though you know your teacher has been repeatedly asking students to stay off their phones and pay attention to the lesson. Like second nature, your thumb slides across your phone onto the home button without hesitation. You read the text, and before you reply to your girlfriend about going to lunch - “HEY!!” Your teacher screams, “Leave my class! I’ve asked you millions of times to-” *record glitch*
Sadly, this situation happens more often than you think, even at our own Valley High School. Cell phone usage amongst the teenage population in America is through the roof. Studies have shown that 94% of teens ages 12-18 have cell phones and spend over 200 minutes a day playing on their cell phones, catching up on Kendall Jenner’s Instagram feed, watching your friend drive over the speed limit on Snapchat, reading the Mike and Eleven fan fiction stories on Tumblr… Our phones have so much for us to see, but when is it appropriate to see it? Is it appropriate at school?
We can all admit, we are guilty of sneaking on our phones during class when we are not supposed to, really not supposed to. CJ Dzuback, a health teacher at Valley High said, “It really destroys my confidence as a teacher to see students on their phones when I prepare a lesson for them. I feel disrespected, betrayed, even.” Why do teachers feel this way? Why do teachers try to keep kids off of their phones? Lanny Sorenson, a Mythology and English teacher said, “I’m offended when students are watching videos and playing games. Especially when they and I know they are supposed to be doing something else. It makes me feel small because they think that little electronic squares are more important than me, a person.”
Looking around class, you can spot a few students with a phone in hand, or a phone sitting right in front of them. A term, “nomophobia”, has come into usage this year. Nomophobia means “no mobile phone phobia,” the condition is a fear of not using your device for a certain amount of time. Studies have shown that phone addiction can harm you… literally!
According to a CNN article, constant cell phone usage harms your mind because it causes damage to your social life, relationships, and it’s a root of some anxiety. “You should never have a phone out while having a face to face conversation, we need to vibe together. Make connections,” Says Josh Pope, a senior at Valley.
Friendships can be impaired because many people are focused on their phobes and do not really pay attention to what the other person is saying to them. Some people even experience lack of a social life because of addiction to social media, not leaving their bedroom and making friends. Instead, they post on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, not ever really leaving the house. That alone is very unhealthy for your mind and body. “Part of your health is your social health,” says health teacher CJ Dzuback, “you lose building that by being on your phone constantly and not putting it down, and exploring outside of your bubble. I feel like some people would have more friends if they weren’t constantly on their phone, locked away from the world.”
Teachers have strong opinions about cell phones, some have even gone as far as bringing it into the rules of their classroom. Melinda Fatani, a resource teacher at Valley High school, has enforced a rule that started at the beginning of the second quarter. Her rule being that if she catches you on your phone during her class at all, you are given an absence. Leading to several absences, to an NG, then an NC. Is this fair? Students have different opinions on the topic. Amelia Connors, a senior at Valley, is for the rule. She said, “It is fair. You should be listening to your teacher while class is in session.” Josh Pope, is against the rule. His opinion is, “That is not fair, what if you get an important text from a loved one? Sometimes, you can’t just leave it there. We’re human, things happen at home. Good, and bad. We shouldn’t be scolded for checking on what’s going on.”
Why is Melinda enforcing this? Is it her right to police this on her students? “Before I implemented this rule, my policy was ‘Don’t make me feel less important than your electronic device,’” Melinda said, “ I felt like this was giving students a chance to use their devices responsibly, but I still had a huge problem with students while I was talking and delivering instruction. Basically, what this says to me as a teacher is that they don’t feel what I am trying to teach them is important to them. This offends me because I feel like it is important.”
Rules like Fatani’s differ from student to student. It will be effective for some and not for others. Looking around a classroom, you will see students with earphones in, listening to music. Music can aid in coping with anxiety, focusing, tuning out noise, according to some. “Boys in my class are so irritating, sometimes all I can hear are boys talking about their cars. Music is a nice getaway, it helps me focus.” Says Amelia Connors. Your phone is also a fantastic way to research for projects, sometimes it is a lifesaver. Calculator apps, dictionary websites, Wikipedia, you name it. Fatani does not see it this way. Fatani said, “I provide computers, chromebooks, and calculators for use in my classroom.” That is understandable, as using your phone for researching can lead to temptation to use social media apps while in the process. As this rule seems extreme, is it working? Are grades going up, or down? “I was hesitant to implement this policy because it is extreme, but I have been very happy with the results,” says Fatani, “ I have been interacting with my students, and we are discussing more. They are more engaged in what is happening since I enforced my new policy.”
If Fatani’s rule is so effective, should other teachers enforce this rule or bring new cell phone rules in their classroom? Lanny Sorenson, a Language Arts teacher at Valley, has rules of his own. “My rules are that emails and phone calls are OK. If someone rings you up, quietly stand up and take the call. If you receive an email from a job, answer it. But what is not allowed is games, texting, and Snapchat. If you cannot go a solid three minutes without your phone, you are truly brainwashed. I have seniors who tell me they are drowning in credit they need to make up, but they are failing by being on a phone.” For the seniors graduating in the Spring, this year is crucial. Especially with all of the added work and responsibility - but some seniors are failing and not earning credit because they are on their devices during class. It is up to those students to fix the problem. “If you’re a senior, trying to graduate, and you are on your phone slacking off all period, you probably don’t deserve to graduate,” says senior Josh Pope.
Why do teachers feel the need to enforce no phone usage so strongly on students? Better yet, why do students feel the need to be on their phone? Are social media apps really that addicting? Some social media can have negative in young girls and boys. According to statistics, 60% of teenagers ages 13-19 have been diagnosed with a mental illness, most being anxiety and depression. 30% of teenage girls suffer from anxiety, some the result of pressures of social media. “I see beautiful girls on Instagram, looking like Barbie dolls and Victoria’s Secret models. Their makeup and hair looks almost perfect, and I’ll see my friends try to look that way too. I try so hard to look like those girls do, and sometimes it ruins my self-esteem because it is so hard. It makes my anxiety go over the clouds,” said a student at Valley.
Young teens seem to be addicted to their devices, attempting to reach unreasonable standards of beauty, following bad influences on social media, failing class.. How can we put a halt on this? You’ve heard it all, “maybe teachers should be more interesting”, “maybe assignments should be more fun”, etc.. Or, maybe, it’s just you. Valley High has a three minute long meditation pause at the beginning of every school sesion, where students are advised to turn their phones off, and take in their surroundings before class starts. Perhaps, students should keep their phones turned off after the pause is over.
If you catch yourself on your phone in class when you’re not supposed to, put it away. If your teacher asks you to put it away, do so. If you’re with family, talking to a friend, or on a date with a significant other, put it away. There are things more important in your own personal life than what other people online are doing with theirs. Don’t miss out on experiences because you had to press like on a cute girl’s picture, that picture will still be there when you’re alone. There are so many different, wonderful people in the world, make friends with those people. Share stories. Get to know the quiet girl who sits across from you in English, get to know the boy who plays guitar in a band. Stay in class, and “put that phone away!”
Sadly, this situation happens more often than you think, even at our own Valley High School. Cell phone usage amongst the teenage population in America is through the roof. Studies have shown that 94% of teens ages 12-18 have cell phones and spend over 200 minutes a day playing on their cell phones, catching up on Kendall Jenner’s Instagram feed, watching your friend drive over the speed limit on Snapchat, reading the Mike and Eleven fan fiction stories on Tumblr… Our phones have so much for us to see, but when is it appropriate to see it? Is it appropriate at school?
We can all admit, we are guilty of sneaking on our phones during class when we are not supposed to, really not supposed to. CJ Dzuback, a health teacher at Valley High said, “It really destroys my confidence as a teacher to see students on their phones when I prepare a lesson for them. I feel disrespected, betrayed, even.” Why do teachers feel this way? Why do teachers try to keep kids off of their phones? Lanny Sorenson, a Mythology and English teacher said, “I’m offended when students are watching videos and playing games. Especially when they and I know they are supposed to be doing something else. It makes me feel small because they think that little electronic squares are more important than me, a person.”
Looking around class, you can spot a few students with a phone in hand, or a phone sitting right in front of them. A term, “nomophobia”, has come into usage this year. Nomophobia means “no mobile phone phobia,” the condition is a fear of not using your device for a certain amount of time. Studies have shown that phone addiction can harm you… literally!
According to a CNN article, constant cell phone usage harms your mind because it causes damage to your social life, relationships, and it’s a root of some anxiety. “You should never have a phone out while having a face to face conversation, we need to vibe together. Make connections,” Says Josh Pope, a senior at Valley.
Friendships can be impaired because many people are focused on their phobes and do not really pay attention to what the other person is saying to them. Some people even experience lack of a social life because of addiction to social media, not leaving their bedroom and making friends. Instead, they post on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, not ever really leaving the house. That alone is very unhealthy for your mind and body. “Part of your health is your social health,” says health teacher CJ Dzuback, “you lose building that by being on your phone constantly and not putting it down, and exploring outside of your bubble. I feel like some people would have more friends if they weren’t constantly on their phone, locked away from the world.”
Teachers have strong opinions about cell phones, some have even gone as far as bringing it into the rules of their classroom. Melinda Fatani, a resource teacher at Valley High school, has enforced a rule that started at the beginning of the second quarter. Her rule being that if she catches you on your phone during her class at all, you are given an absence. Leading to several absences, to an NG, then an NC. Is this fair? Students have different opinions on the topic. Amelia Connors, a senior at Valley, is for the rule. She said, “It is fair. You should be listening to your teacher while class is in session.” Josh Pope, is against the rule. His opinion is, “That is not fair, what if you get an important text from a loved one? Sometimes, you can’t just leave it there. We’re human, things happen at home. Good, and bad. We shouldn’t be scolded for checking on what’s going on.”
Why is Melinda enforcing this? Is it her right to police this on her students? “Before I implemented this rule, my policy was ‘Don’t make me feel less important than your electronic device,’” Melinda said, “ I felt like this was giving students a chance to use their devices responsibly, but I still had a huge problem with students while I was talking and delivering instruction. Basically, what this says to me as a teacher is that they don’t feel what I am trying to teach them is important to them. This offends me because I feel like it is important.”
Rules like Fatani’s differ from student to student. It will be effective for some and not for others. Looking around a classroom, you will see students with earphones in, listening to music. Music can aid in coping with anxiety, focusing, tuning out noise, according to some. “Boys in my class are so irritating, sometimes all I can hear are boys talking about their cars. Music is a nice getaway, it helps me focus.” Says Amelia Connors. Your phone is also a fantastic way to research for projects, sometimes it is a lifesaver. Calculator apps, dictionary websites, Wikipedia, you name it. Fatani does not see it this way. Fatani said, “I provide computers, chromebooks, and calculators for use in my classroom.” That is understandable, as using your phone for researching can lead to temptation to use social media apps while in the process. As this rule seems extreme, is it working? Are grades going up, or down? “I was hesitant to implement this policy because it is extreme, but I have been very happy with the results,” says Fatani, “ I have been interacting with my students, and we are discussing more. They are more engaged in what is happening since I enforced my new policy.”
If Fatani’s rule is so effective, should other teachers enforce this rule or bring new cell phone rules in their classroom? Lanny Sorenson, a Language Arts teacher at Valley, has rules of his own. “My rules are that emails and phone calls are OK. If someone rings you up, quietly stand up and take the call. If you receive an email from a job, answer it. But what is not allowed is games, texting, and Snapchat. If you cannot go a solid three minutes without your phone, you are truly brainwashed. I have seniors who tell me they are drowning in credit they need to make up, but they are failing by being on a phone.” For the seniors graduating in the Spring, this year is crucial. Especially with all of the added work and responsibility - but some seniors are failing and not earning credit because they are on their devices during class. It is up to those students to fix the problem. “If you’re a senior, trying to graduate, and you are on your phone slacking off all period, you probably don’t deserve to graduate,” says senior Josh Pope.
Why do teachers feel the need to enforce no phone usage so strongly on students? Better yet, why do students feel the need to be on their phone? Are social media apps really that addicting? Some social media can have negative in young girls and boys. According to statistics, 60% of teenagers ages 13-19 have been diagnosed with a mental illness, most being anxiety and depression. 30% of teenage girls suffer from anxiety, some the result of pressures of social media. “I see beautiful girls on Instagram, looking like Barbie dolls and Victoria’s Secret models. Their makeup and hair looks almost perfect, and I’ll see my friends try to look that way too. I try so hard to look like those girls do, and sometimes it ruins my self-esteem because it is so hard. It makes my anxiety go over the clouds,” said a student at Valley.
Young teens seem to be addicted to their devices, attempting to reach unreasonable standards of beauty, following bad influences on social media, failing class.. How can we put a halt on this? You’ve heard it all, “maybe teachers should be more interesting”, “maybe assignments should be more fun”, etc.. Or, maybe, it’s just you. Valley High has a three minute long meditation pause at the beginning of every school sesion, where students are advised to turn their phones off, and take in their surroundings before class starts. Perhaps, students should keep their phones turned off after the pause is over.
If you catch yourself on your phone in class when you’re not supposed to, put it away. If your teacher asks you to put it away, do so. If you’re with family, talking to a friend, or on a date with a significant other, put it away. There are things more important in your own personal life than what other people online are doing with theirs. Don’t miss out on experiences because you had to press like on a cute girl’s picture, that picture will still be there when you’re alone. There are so many different, wonderful people in the world, make friends with those people. Share stories. Get to know the quiet girl who sits across from you in English, get to know the boy who plays guitar in a band. Stay in class, and “put that phone away!”
Pet Adoption: A Second Chance
By Elliot Emery
Driving to the shelter with excitement as well as anxiety, we pull into the parking lot and get out of the car. Approaching the door at the same time as a couple with their child who are exiting with a small dog on a leash, their faces are lit up, and the child’s grin stretches from ear to ear. We walk inside. Muffled, and low pitched barking echoes behind hushed voices of people sitting in plastic waiting room chairs. We grab a ticket from a printer that reads “684” and wait. When the number is called, we tell them what dog we saw online and a small older woman helps us free the brown dog from his cage. The dog was given the name Murphy when he was rescued. The vet at the animal shelter concluded he was a one year old male, his breed, an Irish Setter Lab mix.
Walking into the kennel room was somewhat like a movie, seeing the aisles of dogs bark and paw at chain link barriers, trying not to breath through my nose, and feeling the excitement and also nerves of adopting a dog made me realize how important pet adoption really is. The difference between pet adoption and buying a pet is not only huge but very important to understand, and is why most won’t adopt in the first place.
Many people hear or see the words “adopt don’t shop” but don’t realize what this means. Although pins, tee shirts, and stickers are probably scattered across your local coffee shop, as well as billboards that rise above freeways and highways, people still buy dogs from pet stores and places like The Puppy Barn. Many choose not to adopt because there are negative stigmas associated with shelter pets. Large puppy mills and animal breeders want you to believe that shelter animals are violent, dirty, and are unhealthy mutts, of course this is not the case. More than 25% of animals in shelters are purebred.
Many dogs that enter shelters are usually from puppy mills. Puppy mills are large scale, and commercial style dog breeding. These dogs are raised in small enclosures with a variety of health issues. One of the biggest issues with these breeders is, although they are inspected they can keep as many breeding mothers and animals as they would like. There are no requirements for the amount of employees per animal. They are allowed to store dogs six inches longer than their bodies (not including tails).In some of these institutions the animals are housed in small, and unsanitary cages with little to no medical care, or sufficient nutrition. Many puppy mills focus on money and not the general welfare of the animals. Puppy Barn is an excellent example of this. They classify themselves as a “rescue center” yet they sell dogs for profit, and will not show where, or how they got their animals.
So why don’t people adopt? Many tend to believe that If you want a puppy or a purebred animal you should go to a pet store. That’s not true at all. Popular stigma around shelters and shelter animals is they are dangerous and that is ridiculous. Most animals that end up in shelters are there for reasons like domestic issues (divorce), financial issues, and moving to an area that doesn’t allow pets. Violent animals, or dogs with a history of aggression in Salt Lake City, and other parts of Utah usually get taken to what’s called “The Sanctuary.” A large piece of land bought by “Best Friends Animal Shelter,” and, those animals stay there for the remainder of their lives away from the public for the animals safety and people’s safety. This makes it easier to pick a good, well behaved dog. Adopting a dog is cheaper, safer, and all around better for the animal.
Bringing the dog home was a somewhat surreal moment. The nervous, and visibly shaking brown shaggy dog sat next to me in the back seat of the grey Chrysler. The ten minute drive home couldn’t end any sooner. I kept looking at the nervous dog and smiling, wondering what the future held, finally we had arrived. I exited the car to the right. Opposite of the dog’s side, skipped to the other door and grabbed the thin leash we were given at the shelter. I opened the red door to his new home where toys, tennis balls, and frisbees awaited. This was the beginning of something new, something exciting. Although I didn’t know much about the dog I knew that we had given him a new life, a life away from busy streets, fast cars, and cold night. We saved a dog’s life that day. A feeling you could only get from adoption.
Walking into the kennel room was somewhat like a movie, seeing the aisles of dogs bark and paw at chain link barriers, trying not to breath through my nose, and feeling the excitement and also nerves of adopting a dog made me realize how important pet adoption really is. The difference between pet adoption and buying a pet is not only huge but very important to understand, and is why most won’t adopt in the first place.
Many people hear or see the words “adopt don’t shop” but don’t realize what this means. Although pins, tee shirts, and stickers are probably scattered across your local coffee shop, as well as billboards that rise above freeways and highways, people still buy dogs from pet stores and places like The Puppy Barn. Many choose not to adopt because there are negative stigmas associated with shelter pets. Large puppy mills and animal breeders want you to believe that shelter animals are violent, dirty, and are unhealthy mutts, of course this is not the case. More than 25% of animals in shelters are purebred.
Many dogs that enter shelters are usually from puppy mills. Puppy mills are large scale, and commercial style dog breeding. These dogs are raised in small enclosures with a variety of health issues. One of the biggest issues with these breeders is, although they are inspected they can keep as many breeding mothers and animals as they would like. There are no requirements for the amount of employees per animal. They are allowed to store dogs six inches longer than their bodies (not including tails).In some of these institutions the animals are housed in small, and unsanitary cages with little to no medical care, or sufficient nutrition. Many puppy mills focus on money and not the general welfare of the animals. Puppy Barn is an excellent example of this. They classify themselves as a “rescue center” yet they sell dogs for profit, and will not show where, or how they got their animals.
So why don’t people adopt? Many tend to believe that If you want a puppy or a purebred animal you should go to a pet store. That’s not true at all. Popular stigma around shelters and shelter animals is they are dangerous and that is ridiculous. Most animals that end up in shelters are there for reasons like domestic issues (divorce), financial issues, and moving to an area that doesn’t allow pets. Violent animals, or dogs with a history of aggression in Salt Lake City, and other parts of Utah usually get taken to what’s called “The Sanctuary.” A large piece of land bought by “Best Friends Animal Shelter,” and, those animals stay there for the remainder of their lives away from the public for the animals safety and people’s safety. This makes it easier to pick a good, well behaved dog. Adopting a dog is cheaper, safer, and all around better for the animal.
Bringing the dog home was a somewhat surreal moment. The nervous, and visibly shaking brown shaggy dog sat next to me in the back seat of the grey Chrysler. The ten minute drive home couldn’t end any sooner. I kept looking at the nervous dog and smiling, wondering what the future held, finally we had arrived. I exited the car to the right. Opposite of the dog’s side, skipped to the other door and grabbed the thin leash we were given at the shelter. I opened the red door to his new home where toys, tennis balls, and frisbees awaited. This was the beginning of something new, something exciting. Although I didn’t know much about the dog I knew that we had given him a new life, a life away from busy streets, fast cars, and cold night. We saved a dog’s life that day. A feeling you could only get from adoption.
Twilight Concert Series Ending? |
Girls In The Dark
|
|
By Danni Newell
Laughter and love parade through the air while the warm scent of summer wafts through the trees. Your favorite band is playing on stage while you and your friends stand amidst a thousand strangers who have all come together to celebrate one common interest. Bright, colorful lights dance across the crowd and arms raise above heads in unison, swaying softly to chaotic rhythm. This is the epitome of summer.
The Twilight Concert Series gathers thousands of people together mid-summer each year in Pioneer Park, downtown Salt Lake City, to celebrate their love of music, the arts, and to participate in just plain, old-fashioned, positive socialization. The series was first established back in 1987 by Casey Jarman and the Salt Lake City Arts Council, but the renowned concert series could be turning out its lights very soon. For several years now, the concert series has run six figures in the red. According to an article written in the Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City Council members have expressed serious concern due to the fact that Twilight has asked and received additional funding for the past three years, but the budget overruns continue. Twilight’s annual funding of $1.6 million has ceased to be enough. They requested $150,000 in emergency funding to book acts for this past season. The year before that, they requested $60,000 in emergency funding as well. City council chairman, James Rogers, said that although the city’s funding has increased, so has the overall cost of booking artists, providing insurance, public safety, and clean-up cost as well. Under these circumstances, there is currently no funding for next year’s Twilight Series in the city’s budget. If the Twilight Concert Series were to end permanently, we as a community would be losing one of our main resources in reviving Pioneer Park, which has become known as a desolate place in Salt Lake. Twilight has been a thirty year tradition and staple in our community that expands awareness and access to all arts in the city. Each year, local artists rent booths at Twilight in order to sell their original works. From painters to sculptors and crafters. Even your neighborhood food trucks can reserve a spot in the park to distribute their mouth-watering culinary creations. Twilight is one of few events in Salt Lake that supports and promotes artists, arts organizations, and arts activities. Being all-inclusive, the series provides a high-quality entertainment experience for all-ages at a low price, with tickets being $5 in advance and $10 at the door. If you and your friends or family have attended just one of many Twilight concerts, a question you may be asking is, “How can I help?” Although no decisions have been made final quite yet, Twilight shutting down is something we should not allow to occur. It would be a very sad and ugly thing to let that happen to our own community. There is still hope saving Twilight and other arts programs by showing support. In order to better ourselves as a people, we as a community need to show our city council that the arts are not only a want, but a need. If you are concerned for the endangered series, contact a representative of the Salt Lake Council or the Salt Lake Arts Council. Go to saltlakearts.org for more information on how you can support your local arts organizations. |
By Kayla Savage
October 9, 2012, in Swat Valley, Pakistan, a masked man boards the school bus on route from Khushal High School ordering everyone on board to identify Malala Yousafzai, a fifteen-year old girl who was approached by the man who proceeded to shoot her in the head, neck, and shoulder seconds later. The masked man was apart of the Islamic terrorist group known as the Taliban. Malala had been gaining attention from her BBC blog, where for awhile, she was an anonymous blogger discussing girl’s education rights in Pakistan. Later, she revealed her identity and was featured in a profile by the New York Times. Just seven years earlier, in December 2008, the Taliban released a mandate which banned girls from attending school. Soon after, the order was removed when the Pakistan army invaded Swat Valley and retook control. That’s when Malala’s activism began and the Taliban started to notice her influence. After days in critical condition and four months of rehabilitation, Malala survived the risk of brain swelling, paralysis, and most importantly--death. She went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and continue her fight for girl’s education.
Malala stated, “I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away by a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.” She explained that girls in her country were always to be escorted by a man, and a boy’s education would always be more important than her own. But Malala wasn’t the only girl being kept from school. In Pakistan alone, 62% of girls do not attend school and out of the girls who do attend, 49% leave before graduation. The global campaign, Girl Rising found that “130 million girls are out of school around the world today and that women make up two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults.” Most Americans think that this problem is just in the Middle East, but it’s happening in countries all over the globe. Problems with women’s education rights go far beyond the Middle East. From Syria, to Somalia, to South America, to India girls are out of school worldwide. And it doesn’t just have an impact on them individually; it affects everyone in society. The United Nations Educational Organization discovered that “mothers who are educated are less likely to die in childbirth, can help improve child malnutrition, are less likely to have children at an early age, and are more likely to find work.” By educating an additional 1% more girls in India it is also estimated that their GDP would rise by 5.5 billion, which in comparison is the entirety of Japan’s GDP. Education can not only transform the economies of multiple countries, but it can save children from starvation, and help mother’s provide for their children and future children. The influence of one girl who grew up in the worst of circumstances defied the odds of past tradition. She has made a worldwide difference. From educating one girl like Malala, she has educated thousands from creating the Malala Fund, that has allowed girls in many different countries to receive an education. Instead of promoting our girls to just become mothers or wives we should also be promoting them to be educated and to be empowered. Inspiring them to follow their passions instead of following the tradition that keeps them from learning. Malala said, “I speak not for myself but for those without voice...those who have fought for their rights...their right to live in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equal opportunity, their right to be educated.” Ignorance is often represented as darkness and learning is represented as light. It is time we let these girls step into the light and out of the darkness of ignorance. |
Anthropogenic Climate Change
By Jessica Martilla
Knowledge of the effects of global warming tends to trigger a sense of fear in people, when really many people just aren’t educated enough on the topic. Global warming is an increase in the earth's average atmospheric temperature that causes corresponding changes in the climate. The choices we make everyday on what to eat, driving, or what we buy emit greenhouse gases. The U.S. is known for being a country that is full of consumers. According to the National Wildlife Foundation, if everyone were to live the way people do in the U.S., it would take five Earths to supply enough resources. Climate change has no sign of slowing down if we don’t change our lifestyles and become more aware of the consequences of our actions.
The greenhouse effect is the way that the earth’s atmosphere traps the sun’s heat, which in return warms our planet. Carbon dioxide emissions are worsening this effect because they remain for a longer period of time in the atmosphere. It would take hundreds of years for the world to return to pre-industrial levels of natural gases in our atmosphere. The biggest contributors to man-made carbon emissions are the burning fossil fuels and cutting down the carbon absorbing forests. Only so much CO2 and other emissions can be soaked up by natural reservoirs like oceans and other large bodies of water. Other natural gases such as methane and nitrous oxide is released the human activity. Since the industrial revolution CO2 levels have risen by more than 30% and methane levels have risen more than 140%. Methane is the primary component of natural gas. Methane and CO2 absorb the sun’s heat which warms our planet. The average person emits 16.1 tons of emissions per year. This is less than the average person in the 1970’s, emitting over 22 tons per person. We have made some progress in this aspect but it is still very little. With people releasing so many emissions the effects of climate change are continuing to worsen.
It all started many years ago with the invention of the steam engine, the first widely used steam engine was invented. BBC says that the need for more resources grew when the world population flourished in 1800. The world population increased massively in the 20th century reaching 600 billion people. The industrial revolution kickstarted the increase in CO2 emissions. Fossil fuels replaced wind, water, and wood as energy sources. The industrial revolution and population growth go hand in hand in contributing to natural gas emissions.
The biggest contributors to emitting greenhouse gases are humans. We live in a consumer based society where more is better. We keep buying more and more without thinking of how these resources or materials are being disposed of or how they could be possibly be hurting us in the long run. In the U.S. percents of CO2 emissions are: electricity 29% of CO2 emissions, transportation 27%, industry 21%, commercial and residential 12%, agriculture 9%. 96%-97% of climate experts agree that humans have been the main cause of global warming since the 1950’s.
As global warming continues, we begin to see some of its effects. According to BBC, global warming modifies rainfall patterns which amplifies coastal erosion, lengthens the growing seasons for crops in some regions, melts ice caps and glaciers which makes sea levels rise as the result of rising temperatures. There will be longer and more intense heat waves. Storms, floods, and droughts will become more severe. The rising sea levels will affect the people living in lower level coastal areas destroying their homes. Satellites have shown that sea levels have risen 3 mm per year globally. Global warming affects us daily but we’ve grown used to ignoring the signs.
Climate change has already started to take its toll. Grocery prices will spike even higher, this will happen because the agricultural supply is affected from the intense heat and rapid weather change. Forests in the Western U.S. are being decimated by forest fires and pine beetles. With warmer winter these beetles stay alive all season and produce two generations of pine beetles instead of just one. The coral reefs are dying and the oceans are acidifying rapidly. Ocean acidification could wipe out food webs, change the habitats in which ocean life lives, and wipe out entire ecosystems, livelihoods, and civilizations. The Great barrier reef is roughly the size of 70 million soccer fields, 93% has been bleached. Water supply for billions is endangered. Lake beds in the Western U.S. and globally are drying up affecting over 3 billion people. You may think that it is not apart of your life, but it is already endangering billions of people.
There have been many natural disasters happening all over the world that are related to climate change. The recent natural disasters hurricanes Harvey and Irma have ravaged the south of the U.S. Global warming doesn’t start these disasters, but it amplifies the intensity of these storms. Hurricane harvey sucked up enough vapor off the gulf of Mexico to dump 33 trillion gallons of water on the land. Irma, a Texas sized hurricane, became the most extreme hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic ocean. It also caused tornadoes in Alabama from the wind gusts and flooded creeks in Tennessee from the excessive water. Global warming is more than just melting ice caps and rising sea levels, it’s these real and life-threatening and economy-shaking disasters.
The best thing we can do is to help slow down climate change. Helping save the planet may seem like a daunting task, almost impossible even. If you change a few things about how you live you are contributing more than you could even imagine. Some researchers suggest there are just a few years to fight global warming before we face some of the worst effects. We cannot completely avoid climate change but if we start to lower our carbon emissions the effects won’t be as extreme. Some of the suggested ways of reducing carbon emissions are having fewer children, living without a car or make use of public transit and bikes, avoid transatlantic flights or taking fewer flights, eating a plant-based diet, line drying clothes, washing clothes in cold water. The Paris Climate Accords have set a goal for the year 2050 that each person only emits 2.1 tons of carbon a year. We need to hand off the planet to the next generation. They shouldn’t have to clean up after our mess because we weren’t aware of the consequences of our actions.
The greenhouse effect is the way that the earth’s atmosphere traps the sun’s heat, which in return warms our planet. Carbon dioxide emissions are worsening this effect because they remain for a longer period of time in the atmosphere. It would take hundreds of years for the world to return to pre-industrial levels of natural gases in our atmosphere. The biggest contributors to man-made carbon emissions are the burning fossil fuels and cutting down the carbon absorbing forests. Only so much CO2 and other emissions can be soaked up by natural reservoirs like oceans and other large bodies of water. Other natural gases such as methane and nitrous oxide is released the human activity. Since the industrial revolution CO2 levels have risen by more than 30% and methane levels have risen more than 140%. Methane is the primary component of natural gas. Methane and CO2 absorb the sun’s heat which warms our planet. The average person emits 16.1 tons of emissions per year. This is less than the average person in the 1970’s, emitting over 22 tons per person. We have made some progress in this aspect but it is still very little. With people releasing so many emissions the effects of climate change are continuing to worsen.
It all started many years ago with the invention of the steam engine, the first widely used steam engine was invented. BBC says that the need for more resources grew when the world population flourished in 1800. The world population increased massively in the 20th century reaching 600 billion people. The industrial revolution kickstarted the increase in CO2 emissions. Fossil fuels replaced wind, water, and wood as energy sources. The industrial revolution and population growth go hand in hand in contributing to natural gas emissions.
The biggest contributors to emitting greenhouse gases are humans. We live in a consumer based society where more is better. We keep buying more and more without thinking of how these resources or materials are being disposed of or how they could be possibly be hurting us in the long run. In the U.S. percents of CO2 emissions are: electricity 29% of CO2 emissions, transportation 27%, industry 21%, commercial and residential 12%, agriculture 9%. 96%-97% of climate experts agree that humans have been the main cause of global warming since the 1950’s.
As global warming continues, we begin to see some of its effects. According to BBC, global warming modifies rainfall patterns which amplifies coastal erosion, lengthens the growing seasons for crops in some regions, melts ice caps and glaciers which makes sea levels rise as the result of rising temperatures. There will be longer and more intense heat waves. Storms, floods, and droughts will become more severe. The rising sea levels will affect the people living in lower level coastal areas destroying their homes. Satellites have shown that sea levels have risen 3 mm per year globally. Global warming affects us daily but we’ve grown used to ignoring the signs.
Climate change has already started to take its toll. Grocery prices will spike even higher, this will happen because the agricultural supply is affected from the intense heat and rapid weather change. Forests in the Western U.S. are being decimated by forest fires and pine beetles. With warmer winter these beetles stay alive all season and produce two generations of pine beetles instead of just one. The coral reefs are dying and the oceans are acidifying rapidly. Ocean acidification could wipe out food webs, change the habitats in which ocean life lives, and wipe out entire ecosystems, livelihoods, and civilizations. The Great barrier reef is roughly the size of 70 million soccer fields, 93% has been bleached. Water supply for billions is endangered. Lake beds in the Western U.S. and globally are drying up affecting over 3 billion people. You may think that it is not apart of your life, but it is already endangering billions of people.
There have been many natural disasters happening all over the world that are related to climate change. The recent natural disasters hurricanes Harvey and Irma have ravaged the south of the U.S. Global warming doesn’t start these disasters, but it amplifies the intensity of these storms. Hurricane harvey sucked up enough vapor off the gulf of Mexico to dump 33 trillion gallons of water on the land. Irma, a Texas sized hurricane, became the most extreme hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic ocean. It also caused tornadoes in Alabama from the wind gusts and flooded creeks in Tennessee from the excessive water. Global warming is more than just melting ice caps and rising sea levels, it’s these real and life-threatening and economy-shaking disasters.
The best thing we can do is to help slow down climate change. Helping save the planet may seem like a daunting task, almost impossible even. If you change a few things about how you live you are contributing more than you could even imagine. Some researchers suggest there are just a few years to fight global warming before we face some of the worst effects. We cannot completely avoid climate change but if we start to lower our carbon emissions the effects won’t be as extreme. Some of the suggested ways of reducing carbon emissions are having fewer children, living without a car or make use of public transit and bikes, avoid transatlantic flights or taking fewer flights, eating a plant-based diet, line drying clothes, washing clothes in cold water. The Paris Climate Accords have set a goal for the year 2050 that each person only emits 2.1 tons of carbon a year. We need to hand off the planet to the next generation. They shouldn’t have to clean up after our mess because we weren’t aware of the consequences of our actions.
This Is Your Brain on Music
By Kasen Hogan
Studies conducted by Penn State, The American Music Therapy Association, and Harvard University, suggest that music can directly affect the way your brain works. From improving your mood, to helping your brain open up to learning new information. Some studies are more focused on how to use music to beneficially affect our lives, while others are more interested in the specific effects of different genres of music.
A study conducted by Leah Sharman and Genevieve A. Dingel at Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, a journal which conducts studies to further our understanding of the brain's mechanisms, focused on the effects of Heavy Metal on listeners between the ages of 18 and 34. The researchers started by getting all of the participants in the study to the maximum anger level on the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, a questionnaire that consists of two ten-item scales that measure positive and negative effect, then allowed half to sit in ten minutes of silence, and the other half to listen to heavy metal from their own playlists for ten minutes. The music did not make angry participants more angry, which is what many of us might assume is the natural reaction, but rather calmed them down similarly to the silence and even increased positive emotions. According to the same study, regular listeners of heavy metal have been found to be more creative, hard-working, gentle, and calm.
If Heavy Metal relaxes listeners, what about classical or indie? A study published in the Journal of Health observed that listeners of classical and indie music have marginally lower blood pressure than people who didn’t listen to any music. They also found that their volunteers were much more emotionally vulnerable and more willing to be open and disclose information while listening to classical or indie than volunteers that didn’t. Additionally, a 2006 study found that people with sleeping disorders slept better with classical music than those without. The same study notes that listeners of these genres commonly have high self-esteem, are creative, introverted, and at ease. The researchers stated that these studies will generally apply with any genres that consist of slow tempos.
According to researchers at Florida International University, there is a direct correlation between the amount of time adolescents spend listening to rap music, and how likely they are to engage in violent crimes, sexually risky behavior, and drug use. One might wonder if this is correlation or causation. On the other hand, a study at Cambridge University stated that rap music has also been found to greatly increase listeners problem solving skills, creativity, and vocabulary. Listeners generally are found to have high self-esteem and be more outgoing.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s studies have found that music genre may not be the biggest factor when it comes to the effects of music. Researchers suggest that what matters is whether or not you enjoy the music you’re listening to. Researchers ran a test where they connected 21 people to a machine that depicts brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. The researchers then played the music that the participant said they liked and disliked from five genres (classical, country, rap, rock, and chinese opera), and then a song that they previously said was their personal favorite. The scans consistently showed that it didn’t matter what the listeners genre preference was, the connection to their brain circuit known to be involved in internally focused thought, empathy, and self-awareness, was more strongly connected when the listeners were listening to music that they enjoyed.
Researchers also stated that drivers were more likely to make errors while operating vehicles if they were listening to their preferred music. Another connection they found, is that when listening to your favorite music, connections in your brain between auditory brain areas and a region responsible for memory and social emotional consolidation are formed. Meaning that you are more open to absorbing and remembering new information if you are listening to music from your prefered genre.
Whether or not you recognize it, the music you listen to affects you in one way or another. You can use it as a powerful tool to influence your own emotions and learning, motivate and empower others, or just something to inhabit background noise. Regardless of its use, music undoubtedly affects the way you feel, think, and act.
A study conducted by Leah Sharman and Genevieve A. Dingel at Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, a journal which conducts studies to further our understanding of the brain's mechanisms, focused on the effects of Heavy Metal on listeners between the ages of 18 and 34. The researchers started by getting all of the participants in the study to the maximum anger level on the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, a questionnaire that consists of two ten-item scales that measure positive and negative effect, then allowed half to sit in ten minutes of silence, and the other half to listen to heavy metal from their own playlists for ten minutes. The music did not make angry participants more angry, which is what many of us might assume is the natural reaction, but rather calmed them down similarly to the silence and even increased positive emotions. According to the same study, regular listeners of heavy metal have been found to be more creative, hard-working, gentle, and calm.
If Heavy Metal relaxes listeners, what about classical or indie? A study published in the Journal of Health observed that listeners of classical and indie music have marginally lower blood pressure than people who didn’t listen to any music. They also found that their volunteers were much more emotionally vulnerable and more willing to be open and disclose information while listening to classical or indie than volunteers that didn’t. Additionally, a 2006 study found that people with sleeping disorders slept better with classical music than those without. The same study notes that listeners of these genres commonly have high self-esteem, are creative, introverted, and at ease. The researchers stated that these studies will generally apply with any genres that consist of slow tempos.
According to researchers at Florida International University, there is a direct correlation between the amount of time adolescents spend listening to rap music, and how likely they are to engage in violent crimes, sexually risky behavior, and drug use. One might wonder if this is correlation or causation. On the other hand, a study at Cambridge University stated that rap music has also been found to greatly increase listeners problem solving skills, creativity, and vocabulary. Listeners generally are found to have high self-esteem and be more outgoing.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s studies have found that music genre may not be the biggest factor when it comes to the effects of music. Researchers suggest that what matters is whether or not you enjoy the music you’re listening to. Researchers ran a test where they connected 21 people to a machine that depicts brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. The researchers then played the music that the participant said they liked and disliked from five genres (classical, country, rap, rock, and chinese opera), and then a song that they previously said was their personal favorite. The scans consistently showed that it didn’t matter what the listeners genre preference was, the connection to their brain circuit known to be involved in internally focused thought, empathy, and self-awareness, was more strongly connected when the listeners were listening to music that they enjoyed.
Researchers also stated that drivers were more likely to make errors while operating vehicles if they were listening to their preferred music. Another connection they found, is that when listening to your favorite music, connections in your brain between auditory brain areas and a region responsible for memory and social emotional consolidation are formed. Meaning that you are more open to absorbing and remembering new information if you are listening to music from your prefered genre.
Whether or not you recognize it, the music you listen to affects you in one way or another. You can use it as a powerful tool to influence your own emotions and learning, motivate and empower others, or just something to inhabit background noise. Regardless of its use, music undoubtedly affects the way you feel, think, and act.
Why Aren’t We Using Cleaner Energy Sources?
By Cameron Justice
Modern technology continues to advance at an unparalleled rate, we’re never late to pick up on the newest phone or gaming console yet when presented with a cheaper and cleaner power source, we refuse to attempt to make a change. Change on a massive scale is difficult, but if put in the limelight it’s the furthest thing from impossible. The possibilities of clean and renewable energy sources in this day and age are almost ubiquitous, while all of which have downfalls and consequences of their own none of them match the consequences we’re paying for natural gases and petroleum.
According to a late 2016 study conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), natural gases make up 33% of our energy usage and petroleum makes up 28%, while renewable sources make up only 12%. It is strange that the only power sources we have that we can renew permanently without severe harm to the environment, are the ones we use the least. We’re practically surrounded by clean energy sources. The resources we need to bring this clean energy into mainstream use are all around us; the sun's light, the wind, aquatic power etc. Humans have the technology to live almost entirely clean, yet we are not, why?
Often, when climate change is brought up, the first thing mentioned is our transportation rather than our natural gas extraction process, which is actually more harmful to the environment than our transportation (according to USEIA). When we extract natural gases from our environment, we create pockets of methane from which methane is rapidly released in massive amounts until the pocket runs out of methane entirely. Methane is the primary element in natural gas and traps 32 times more heat in our atmosphere than Co2. This is not to say that Co2 is not harmful, simply that it's the less of two avoidable evils. The problems created by greenhouse gases being released unnaturally into our atmosphere in such massive amounts is that it they get trapped underneath our atmosphere, and remain there. This causes our earth or hold in much more of the heat and radiation that travels in rays from the sun, which causes our earth to heat up more and more every year until eventually our planet will no longer be habitable.
Thanks to USCUSA we know that Solar panels work by taking the sun's rays, and using and making them knock electrons free from atoms. When an electron is knocked free from an atom it can create either a flow of electricity or stored electricity, but in either case it's creating electricity. Solar panels cost of production is much lower than the cost of any other renewable power source we have at the moment. Wind turbine power, though slightly expensive to build, once built is cheap as ever. Wind turbines work by the main blades being spun in the wind, which spins a generator in the shaft of the turbine, creating flowing electricity that can then be directed, stored, or used immediately. Hydroelectric power, the most expensive too build of these three but also the lead in power generated, works by a giant reservoir letting water rush through, the force of which spins a giant power turbine at a constant rate, creating a perfect flow of power.
USCUSA concluded that the average cost of solar panels is 12.2 cents per KWh (kilowatt per hour) yet the average for natural gas is 11.23 cents per KWh, the average for coal is also at 11.23 cents per KWh. Wind Turbine power is only at four to six cents per KWh, and hydroelectric power is up at 14. It isn’t a matter of affordability, technological inability, or accessibility, So why have we not made the change to cleaner, more affordable, and more accessible energy sources? Perhaps it could be because of the massive amounts of people in denial about the existence of climate change? Or perhaps that overall, clean energy is slightly more expensive. Whatever the reason or lack thereof we thought we had to avoid making this change, we need to do it. The only time to make the changes we need is now, and many countries such as India, China, and many more, have already started putting forth effort to make this a broadscale change. Climate change is just over the horizon, yet we refuse to come together and take on the only thing that really will destroy us all. And it comes down to the younger generations to really put these changes in place.
According to a late 2016 study conducted by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), natural gases make up 33% of our energy usage and petroleum makes up 28%, while renewable sources make up only 12%. It is strange that the only power sources we have that we can renew permanently without severe harm to the environment, are the ones we use the least. We’re practically surrounded by clean energy sources. The resources we need to bring this clean energy into mainstream use are all around us; the sun's light, the wind, aquatic power etc. Humans have the technology to live almost entirely clean, yet we are not, why?
Often, when climate change is brought up, the first thing mentioned is our transportation rather than our natural gas extraction process, which is actually more harmful to the environment than our transportation (according to USEIA). When we extract natural gases from our environment, we create pockets of methane from which methane is rapidly released in massive amounts until the pocket runs out of methane entirely. Methane is the primary element in natural gas and traps 32 times more heat in our atmosphere than Co2. This is not to say that Co2 is not harmful, simply that it's the less of two avoidable evils. The problems created by greenhouse gases being released unnaturally into our atmosphere in such massive amounts is that it they get trapped underneath our atmosphere, and remain there. This causes our earth or hold in much more of the heat and radiation that travels in rays from the sun, which causes our earth to heat up more and more every year until eventually our planet will no longer be habitable.
Thanks to USCUSA we know that Solar panels work by taking the sun's rays, and using and making them knock electrons free from atoms. When an electron is knocked free from an atom it can create either a flow of electricity or stored electricity, but in either case it's creating electricity. Solar panels cost of production is much lower than the cost of any other renewable power source we have at the moment. Wind turbine power, though slightly expensive to build, once built is cheap as ever. Wind turbines work by the main blades being spun in the wind, which spins a generator in the shaft of the turbine, creating flowing electricity that can then be directed, stored, or used immediately. Hydroelectric power, the most expensive too build of these three but also the lead in power generated, works by a giant reservoir letting water rush through, the force of which spins a giant power turbine at a constant rate, creating a perfect flow of power.
USCUSA concluded that the average cost of solar panels is 12.2 cents per KWh (kilowatt per hour) yet the average for natural gas is 11.23 cents per KWh, the average for coal is also at 11.23 cents per KWh. Wind Turbine power is only at four to six cents per KWh, and hydroelectric power is up at 14. It isn’t a matter of affordability, technological inability, or accessibility, So why have we not made the change to cleaner, more affordable, and more accessible energy sources? Perhaps it could be because of the massive amounts of people in denial about the existence of climate change? Or perhaps that overall, clean energy is slightly more expensive. Whatever the reason or lack thereof we thought we had to avoid making this change, we need to do it. The only time to make the changes we need is now, and many countries such as India, China, and many more, have already started putting forth effort to make this a broadscale change. Climate change is just over the horizon, yet we refuse to come together and take on the only thing that really will destroy us all. And it comes down to the younger generations to really put these changes in place.
Poetry Slam!
By Apollo Crabtree
|
The poetry slam returned last quarter, and though it has always been interesting in the past, this quarter it was a spectacle to behold. With the many performances that came up, there was a wide diversity in the tones, spirits, and voices on stage, providing an interesting blend of tragedy and comedy. With so much ground to cover, I’ve been left to pick only a few; rest assured, each work was fantastic in it’s own right.
One of the more refined performances, Julian performed John Cage’s 4’33”. His esoteric choice left the audience speechless, with any vocalizations sung with the voice of an angel that would move the souls of his spectators nearly to tears. The silence spoke measures beyond human comprehension, leaving us to contemplate the meanings of our miniscule existences. Rarely do we find such talent among our peers, and rarely can we witness such silent perfection. On a less sarcastic note, Corinne sang something more culturally rooted: Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” It came as a significant shock to hear someone sing. Though poetry has many mediums, few have the talent to perform it in song. And few would be as well-suited to do so; Corinne’s voice radiated through the auditorium and warmed our hearts and ears. Jordan dealt a severe blow to our heartstrings, with a potent piece on tragic loss. I daresay this was one of the highest points of this slam, and words can’t describe the experience she delivered. It takes courage to come up on stage and speak of something so personal. But pain kindles beauty, and I’m glad Jordan could share it with us. Lanny Sorenson, one of Valley’s many beloved teachers, managed to blow us away with a work like few others. Lanny doesn’t usually project such profoundness, yet he ushered in something powerful with eloquent phrasing. It truly felt like a genius in motion, and I’d be fascinated to hear more of his writing in the future. Of the poetry slams before, this one will likely linger in our memories for quite a while, at least until the next to come. It showcases the talent and creativity of our students here at Valley, something oft undervalued at other schools. It was a momentous occasion, and I feel sorry for anyone who missed this wonderful event. For your own sake, make sure not to miss the next one. |
|
Artificial Intelligence
By Julian Newland
What is the biggest advancement to human civilization you can think of? Flying cars? Time travel? Imagine a machine that could do thousands of years worth of research in any field within the course of a week. Now, imagine that same machine with emotions, similar to that of a human, and an ability for information processing far more complex and advanced than our own.
Artificial intelligence is being called the next big breakthrough, and its success would transform human life completely. “Success in creating A.I. would be the biggest event in human history,” says world famous physicist Stephen Hawking. Artificial intelligence could change the landscape of war, technology, jobs, space travel, etc. Despite limited use for the public, A.I. is closer to being utilized by the masses than you would think.
Mathematicians, and developers the world over have researched, and theorized such an incredible concept since as early as 1950. A.I., in a practical sense, can be traced to two landmark papers on computers playing chess, written by Claude E. Shannon (a mathematician considered to be a principal creator of information theory). Although the ability to play chess could seem trivial compared to more contemporary programs (for instance a Seattle-based A.I. that changed its name while in space, more on that later) Shannon’s theorized chess machine was a perfect fit for the technology of the time, according to a paper he published for Philosophical Magazine. “The chess machine is an ideal one to start with, since the problem is sharply defined both in allowed operations (the moves) and in the ultimate goal (checkmate)” he referred to chess in this paper as being in a sort of “goldilocks” zone. “...It is neither so simple as to be trivial nor too difficult for satisfactory solution.”
Since this initial bot, technology has advanced significantly. According to technology provocateur, Tim Urban for waitbutwhy.com, “When we imagine the progress of the next 30 years, we look back to the progress of the previous 30 as an indicator of how much will likely happen,” and from Urban’s point of view, this isn’t the correct line of thought. If I told you that you might live to be extremely old, or maybe never die, you would look at history and see that no one has ever not died, and that’s true, but before airplanes no human had ever achieved flight. We think in this way because as author Ray Kurzweil says “humans are linear in nature, and technology is exponential.” The phenomenon is what Kurzweil calls The Law of Accelerating Returns. Advances in this kind of technology are exponential, simply because they are already more advanced than in the past.
The logic is all very circular. In the same vein, some creative types have given us a glimpse into their vision of the future of A.I., which has in turn advanced (at the very least) the culture surrounding it.
Think of some of the greatest films of all time. Does Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film 2001: A Space Odyssey pop into your head? How about the great films of the last five years. Have you seen Ex Machina? Some extremely popular movies are about A.I. Metropolis, I Robot, Terminator, Blade Runner, etc. A.I. has infected mainstream film and television. 2001 especially raises the the troubling question, will artificial intelligence be completely out of our control once it reaches a point of, essentially, omnipotence?
Imagine a superhuman with the brain of a supercomputer completing duties for some sort of research facility or laboratory. Now, let’s add self-awareness and emotion, which give this machine its own prerogative, self-interests, etc, a sentience, if you will. Artificial intelligence has plenty of potential, which is why it has been talked about so often; there is so much promise here. “A benevolent superintelligence might analyze the human genetic code at great speed and unlock the secret to eternal youth,” says Paul Ford in an article for Technology Review. Benevolence truly is the key here, because let’s say that this machine that is so far deep into every facet of human advancement, and the sentient man-made entity becomes bored or unsatisfied. How long will it be for civilization completely crumbles? If you program a machine to protect the population, using the most advanced military technology, what’s to stop it from ending us all if it decides to?
Artificial intelligence is being called the next big breakthrough, and its success would transform human life completely. “Success in creating A.I. would be the biggest event in human history,” says world famous physicist Stephen Hawking. Artificial intelligence could change the landscape of war, technology, jobs, space travel, etc. Despite limited use for the public, A.I. is closer to being utilized by the masses than you would think.
Mathematicians, and developers the world over have researched, and theorized such an incredible concept since as early as 1950. A.I., in a practical sense, can be traced to two landmark papers on computers playing chess, written by Claude E. Shannon (a mathematician considered to be a principal creator of information theory). Although the ability to play chess could seem trivial compared to more contemporary programs (for instance a Seattle-based A.I. that changed its name while in space, more on that later) Shannon’s theorized chess machine was a perfect fit for the technology of the time, according to a paper he published for Philosophical Magazine. “The chess machine is an ideal one to start with, since the problem is sharply defined both in allowed operations (the moves) and in the ultimate goal (checkmate)” he referred to chess in this paper as being in a sort of “goldilocks” zone. “...It is neither so simple as to be trivial nor too difficult for satisfactory solution.”
Since this initial bot, technology has advanced significantly. According to technology provocateur, Tim Urban for waitbutwhy.com, “When we imagine the progress of the next 30 years, we look back to the progress of the previous 30 as an indicator of how much will likely happen,” and from Urban’s point of view, this isn’t the correct line of thought. If I told you that you might live to be extremely old, or maybe never die, you would look at history and see that no one has ever not died, and that’s true, but before airplanes no human had ever achieved flight. We think in this way because as author Ray Kurzweil says “humans are linear in nature, and technology is exponential.” The phenomenon is what Kurzweil calls The Law of Accelerating Returns. Advances in this kind of technology are exponential, simply because they are already more advanced than in the past.
The logic is all very circular. In the same vein, some creative types have given us a glimpse into their vision of the future of A.I., which has in turn advanced (at the very least) the culture surrounding it.
Think of some of the greatest films of all time. Does Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film 2001: A Space Odyssey pop into your head? How about the great films of the last five years. Have you seen Ex Machina? Some extremely popular movies are about A.I. Metropolis, I Robot, Terminator, Blade Runner, etc. A.I. has infected mainstream film and television. 2001 especially raises the the troubling question, will artificial intelligence be completely out of our control once it reaches a point of, essentially, omnipotence?
Imagine a superhuman with the brain of a supercomputer completing duties for some sort of research facility or laboratory. Now, let’s add self-awareness and emotion, which give this machine its own prerogative, self-interests, etc, a sentience, if you will. Artificial intelligence has plenty of potential, which is why it has been talked about so often; there is so much promise here. “A benevolent superintelligence might analyze the human genetic code at great speed and unlock the secret to eternal youth,” says Paul Ford in an article for Technology Review. Benevolence truly is the key here, because let’s say that this machine that is so far deep into every facet of human advancement, and the sentient man-made entity becomes bored or unsatisfied. How long will it be for civilization completely crumbles? If you program a machine to protect the population, using the most advanced military technology, what’s to stop it from ending us all if it decides to?
Humans on Mars in the Next 5 to 10 Years
Artwork and article by Bennett Shulze
It is 2016, and we have been dreaming of colonizing Mars since the 40’s. Now SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, may be making that dream into a reality. Musk and a group of ambitious scientists are hoping to launch their first mars mission in the next five years.
The space shuttles that have been built for the Mars mission thus far will surpass any previous spacecraft in history in both efficiency and stature. There are three ships that will carry humans and objects to Mars: the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon. Their mission is to advance space travel and ultimately allow humans to colonize other worlds.
The Falcon is a massive, two stage rocket. Its job is to carry its payload into space and then return safely to earth in one piece, being fully reusable. All current attempts to launch and return have been widely publicized. In December of 2015, the rocket was launched and landed successfully and in April of 2016, the Falcon completed its first drone platform landing. The rocket operates on nine Merlin engines, which would allow it to complete a mission even with two rocket failures. The new engine technology used is unlike an airplane engine, which loses power with altitude. The Merlin engines actually gain power with altitude. This is crucial for completing prolonged missions. At sea level, the nine engines produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust. For comparison, one million pounds of thrust is equal to 847 Bugatti’s all at top speed, pushing a single object. In the vacuum of space, the thrust increases to 1.8 million pounds.
The Falcon Heavy is a variation of the regular Falcon designed to carry massive payloads in addition to transporting the Dragon. It generates an incredible 15.13 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and 15.54 pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space. In addition, it can carry 119,930 pounds, or the equivalent of a 737 jetliners complete with fuel, luggage, and human passengers into space.
The Dragon is a small spacecraft designed to deliver humans and cargo to orbiting destinations. In 2012, it was the first commercial spacecraft to be used to send supplies to the International Space Station. Soon it will carry us to the Mars colony for as low as $500,000 a person.
The colony that Elon Musk plans on establishing on planet Mars would eventually be made up of around 80,000 people and include universities, industrial companies, and entertainment that could be broadcast home to Earth. Our whole earthly infrastructure would almost be replicated. Our industry, our sports, our governments, our businesses, and our sciences. Once our presence is strong, the plan is to begin terraforming the extreme conditions over the course of about 1000 years.
Terraforming is currently something we lack the technology and understanding to do. Almost all of our attempts on Earth have failed. The problems associated with terraforming Mars are mildly terrifying. The atmosphere could leak Co2 and Oxygen into space, making the work almost pointless. The microbes could react with the outside structures and destroy the pressure and atmosphere. Any negative microbes from Earth could contaminate the soil and make it uninhabitable. The ecosystem of Mars is very delicate and everything we know is theoretical. We aren’t ready as a species to begin terraforming yet, but we’ll just take one thing at a time. Mars first, terraforming later.
The space shuttles that have been built for the Mars mission thus far will surpass any previous spacecraft in history in both efficiency and stature. There are three ships that will carry humans and objects to Mars: the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, and the Dragon. Their mission is to advance space travel and ultimately allow humans to colonize other worlds.
The Falcon is a massive, two stage rocket. Its job is to carry its payload into space and then return safely to earth in one piece, being fully reusable. All current attempts to launch and return have been widely publicized. In December of 2015, the rocket was launched and landed successfully and in April of 2016, the Falcon completed its first drone platform landing. The rocket operates on nine Merlin engines, which would allow it to complete a mission even with two rocket failures. The new engine technology used is unlike an airplane engine, which loses power with altitude. The Merlin engines actually gain power with altitude. This is crucial for completing prolonged missions. At sea level, the nine engines produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust. For comparison, one million pounds of thrust is equal to 847 Bugatti’s all at top speed, pushing a single object. In the vacuum of space, the thrust increases to 1.8 million pounds.
The Falcon Heavy is a variation of the regular Falcon designed to carry massive payloads in addition to transporting the Dragon. It generates an incredible 15.13 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and 15.54 pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space. In addition, it can carry 119,930 pounds, or the equivalent of a 737 jetliners complete with fuel, luggage, and human passengers into space.
The Dragon is a small spacecraft designed to deliver humans and cargo to orbiting destinations. In 2012, it was the first commercial spacecraft to be used to send supplies to the International Space Station. Soon it will carry us to the Mars colony for as low as $500,000 a person.
The colony that Elon Musk plans on establishing on planet Mars would eventually be made up of around 80,000 people and include universities, industrial companies, and entertainment that could be broadcast home to Earth. Our whole earthly infrastructure would almost be replicated. Our industry, our sports, our governments, our businesses, and our sciences. Once our presence is strong, the plan is to begin terraforming the extreme conditions over the course of about 1000 years.
Terraforming is currently something we lack the technology and understanding to do. Almost all of our attempts on Earth have failed. The problems associated with terraforming Mars are mildly terrifying. The atmosphere could leak Co2 and Oxygen into space, making the work almost pointless. The microbes could react with the outside structures and destroy the pressure and atmosphere. Any negative microbes from Earth could contaminate the soil and make it uninhabitable. The ecosystem of Mars is very delicate and everything we know is theoretical. We aren’t ready as a species to begin terraforming yet, but we’ll just take one thing at a time. Mars first, terraforming later.
Marijuana Mayhem, The Legislation of Marijuana Could be Changing Across the Country
Artwork and article by Treven Jaymz
Public opinion about marijuana has shifted over the last half decade. For example, the majority of Americans who say medicinal cannabis should be legalized is a little over half, 53 percent, of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center. In 1969, twelve percent of the American population supported the legalization of medical marijuana, but between 2010 and 2013 support has risen eleven percent. Ten years ago, only 30% of Americans supported the medical use of marijuana.
These changed views are even reflected in Utah’s conservative populations. According to a Dan Jones survey published last year 66% of Utahns support the legalization of medical marijuana use as long as it is prescribed by a licensed doctor.
The first five states to legalize medicinal cannabis were California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Maine. California in 1996, passed proposition 215, allowing people to medically use marijuana if prescribed by their doctor. Since then, 27 other states have enacted in similar laws along with Canada. In Utah, the first bill to legalize medicinal marijuana failed to pass by one vote. Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill, urged lawmakers to come up with a medical marijuana program. Gill represented Enedina Stanger, a Utah mother, who was booked into jail for smoking cannabis to fight nerve pain from advanced Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. She was later faced with charges of third degree endangerment of a child, but worked out a deal with prosecutors and offered a plea guilty; She was sentenced to six months probation and parenting classes. Sim Gill says “The last thing I want to do is prosecute these families and these individuals because they have a medical condition.”
Despite the growing support for the legaliztion of marjiuana, there may be a problem for the states that have enacted laws that legalize the drug, which is still considered a schedule one class drug. This means that the states that have legalized the drug are, to some degree, defying federal laws. The future of legal marijuana could be just a memory due to newly elected President Trump’s nomination of Jeff Sessions, a staunchly anti-marijuana lawmaker, for Attorney general; Barack Obama turned a blind eye to the marijuana industry, allowing voters in eight states to relax their marijuana laws without federal intervention, but that may change under a new President, Trump. 29 states now permit medical use of marijuana. Eight of these states permit recreational use of marijuana with recreational laws on the books. However, it’s still federally outlawed.
Because of the differences in state and federal law, there are strange quirks in the industry as well. Because marijuana is federally outlawed, access to banking services are severely restricted leaving the industry to do all transactions in cash.
Opponents to the relaxed attitudes of marijuana note the many health problems associated with the drug. Though no one has died from overdoses, the Surgeon General’s warning on marijuana include short term memory impairment and slowness of learning, impaired lung function, impaired immune response, or possible adverse effects on the heart. Some studies even show increases in mood disorders among excessive users.
Sally Vander Veer, president of one of the state’s largest dispensaries and cultivation operations, along with Colorado police, say the biggest danger of cannabis is candy edibles. Younger children are unable to tell the difference between an actual candy and an edible.
Supproters for the legalization of the drug note that there are possible benefits. Medicinal cannabis, on the other hand, mitigates problems related to disorders and illnesses like AIDs, arthritis, cancer, epilepsy, migraines, muscle spasms, and general physical pain. Medical marijuana may also help depression, bipolar disorders, anxiety, and other mood disorders. There is even the possibility that this could reduce the rate of suicide. Despite what critics believed would happen, the state of Colorado has had a rapid drop in crime rate and opioid use since marijuana was legalized.
Colorado has seen 135 million dollars in tax and fee’s from medicinal and recreational marijuana and therefore has began putting money into youth education and law enforcement for regulation of the drug.
These changed views are even reflected in Utah’s conservative populations. According to a Dan Jones survey published last year 66% of Utahns support the legalization of medical marijuana use as long as it is prescribed by a licensed doctor.
The first five states to legalize medicinal cannabis were California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Maine. California in 1996, passed proposition 215, allowing people to medically use marijuana if prescribed by their doctor. Since then, 27 other states have enacted in similar laws along with Canada. In Utah, the first bill to legalize medicinal marijuana failed to pass by one vote. Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill, urged lawmakers to come up with a medical marijuana program. Gill represented Enedina Stanger, a Utah mother, who was booked into jail for smoking cannabis to fight nerve pain from advanced Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. She was later faced with charges of third degree endangerment of a child, but worked out a deal with prosecutors and offered a plea guilty; She was sentenced to six months probation and parenting classes. Sim Gill says “The last thing I want to do is prosecute these families and these individuals because they have a medical condition.”
Despite the growing support for the legaliztion of marjiuana, there may be a problem for the states that have enacted laws that legalize the drug, which is still considered a schedule one class drug. This means that the states that have legalized the drug are, to some degree, defying federal laws. The future of legal marijuana could be just a memory due to newly elected President Trump’s nomination of Jeff Sessions, a staunchly anti-marijuana lawmaker, for Attorney general; Barack Obama turned a blind eye to the marijuana industry, allowing voters in eight states to relax their marijuana laws without federal intervention, but that may change under a new President, Trump. 29 states now permit medical use of marijuana. Eight of these states permit recreational use of marijuana with recreational laws on the books. However, it’s still federally outlawed.
Because of the differences in state and federal law, there are strange quirks in the industry as well. Because marijuana is federally outlawed, access to banking services are severely restricted leaving the industry to do all transactions in cash.
Opponents to the relaxed attitudes of marijuana note the many health problems associated with the drug. Though no one has died from overdoses, the Surgeon General’s warning on marijuana include short term memory impairment and slowness of learning, impaired lung function, impaired immune response, or possible adverse effects on the heart. Some studies even show increases in mood disorders among excessive users.
Sally Vander Veer, president of one of the state’s largest dispensaries and cultivation operations, along with Colorado police, say the biggest danger of cannabis is candy edibles. Younger children are unable to tell the difference between an actual candy and an edible.
Supproters for the legalization of the drug note that there are possible benefits. Medicinal cannabis, on the other hand, mitigates problems related to disorders and illnesses like AIDs, arthritis, cancer, epilepsy, migraines, muscle spasms, and general physical pain. Medical marijuana may also help depression, bipolar disorders, anxiety, and other mood disorders. There is even the possibility that this could reduce the rate of suicide. Despite what critics believed would happen, the state of Colorado has had a rapid drop in crime rate and opioid use since marijuana was legalized.
Colorado has seen 135 million dollars in tax and fee’s from medicinal and recreational marijuana and therefore has began putting money into youth education and law enforcement for regulation of the drug.
Career Politicians
Are they beneficial to society?
By Julian Newland
Theodore Roosevelt said, “I do not believe that any man should ever attempt to make politics his only career. It is a dreadful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depends on his staying in office. Such a feeling prevents him from being of real service to people while in office.” The quote raises a controversial question. Are career politicians good or bad for the United States? Career politician is a very loose term used to define a politician who serves a large portion of his or her career in a political office (House of Representatives, Senate, or the Presidency for example). “There are 36 senators who have been in elected office for more than 30 years,” according to PerdueSenate.com.
Some people completely oppose the idea of politicians having extended runs in one single office. A whopping 74% of Americans under 30 and over 65 believe in term limits for Congress. Perhaps some of the opposition is due to congressional pay. A member of Congress makes $174,000 annually, according to House Press. That is over three times more than the base average for annual wages in 2015, $48,098, when looking at the Social Security Administration’s National Wage Index.
Those numbers do not include sponsorship and funding from the finance world, lawyers, lobbyists, etc. There are many politicians who manage to garner significant amounts of money for their parties and future elections. Mother Jones reports that New York senator Chuck Schumer, for example, raised $62.2 million for his campaign in his 9th-term run in the House of Representatives.
The 2016 general election saw the nominees raising $1.6 billion, and spending $1.2 billion of it on their respective campaigns. There was a distinct lopsidedness in comparing Trump, and Clinton’s campaign money, though. Clinton spent about twice as much on her campaign as Trump and received over four times as much from super PACs, according to Bloomberg. Trump turned this funding discrepancy into a political tool, arguing that his opponent was a shady politician who was pandering to corporate funders. Donald Trump argued that he would “drain the swamp” of people like her in politics. Despite his controversial words, stances, and personal stories (not to mention his supposed $9 billion fortune), Trump won the election. He painted himself as an opposition to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who, Trump argued, represented a grossly over influenced political entity glutted on the wealth offered by corporate interests.
Think about the stark contrast between a George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and then Donald Trump. Politics have been almost completely reactionary in the scope of four and eight year terms. In turn, our well-oiled machine of a country is stripped down to an unsatisfied majority, changing everything because one single characteristic didn’t live up to expectations, and so The Donald™ is favored by the “downtrodden” because he is less like Obama than Hillary.
For some voters Clinton’s worst fault is her having more experience than Trump. “I think he [Trump] is an understandable outcome in a period in which we have had an enormous amount of transformation in America” says acclaimed writer Malcolm Gladwell in a recent Fortune magazine interview. “...We’ve turned everything upside down in 100 different ways in the last 20 years.”
Here in Utah, the controversy of the career politician is becoming more and more important because of one key figure. The SCF, or Senate Conservative Fund, conducted a poll asking how people feel about Senator Orrin Hatch serving for any longer. Hatch has served in office for 39 years. 74% of the people who responded to SCF’s poll thought that Hatch should retire.
Maureen Morris, of the Arts Department, is somewhat critical of career politicians, and believes that the idea is inherently bad. “On a scale of 50/50, I would say, that they’re leaning towards bad. Experience is important. However, the longer they’re in office, the more entrenched they become.” She also is in favor of term limits “...Certain offices should hold term limits. Four years is a reasonable amount of time. I think we have a problem when it gets to 16, 20 years.” While her argument may have merit, some believe experience should never be a warning sign. Would you let someone who has never driven a car take you around town in your car at your expense?
Some people completely oppose the idea of politicians having extended runs in one single office. A whopping 74% of Americans under 30 and over 65 believe in term limits for Congress. Perhaps some of the opposition is due to congressional pay. A member of Congress makes $174,000 annually, according to House Press. That is over three times more than the base average for annual wages in 2015, $48,098, when looking at the Social Security Administration’s National Wage Index.
Those numbers do not include sponsorship and funding from the finance world, lawyers, lobbyists, etc. There are many politicians who manage to garner significant amounts of money for their parties and future elections. Mother Jones reports that New York senator Chuck Schumer, for example, raised $62.2 million for his campaign in his 9th-term run in the House of Representatives.
The 2016 general election saw the nominees raising $1.6 billion, and spending $1.2 billion of it on their respective campaigns. There was a distinct lopsidedness in comparing Trump, and Clinton’s campaign money, though. Clinton spent about twice as much on her campaign as Trump and received over four times as much from super PACs, according to Bloomberg. Trump turned this funding discrepancy into a political tool, arguing that his opponent was a shady politician who was pandering to corporate funders. Donald Trump argued that he would “drain the swamp” of people like her in politics. Despite his controversial words, stances, and personal stories (not to mention his supposed $9 billion fortune), Trump won the election. He painted himself as an opposition to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who, Trump argued, represented a grossly over influenced political entity glutted on the wealth offered by corporate interests.
Think about the stark contrast between a George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and then Donald Trump. Politics have been almost completely reactionary in the scope of four and eight year terms. In turn, our well-oiled machine of a country is stripped down to an unsatisfied majority, changing everything because one single characteristic didn’t live up to expectations, and so The Donald™ is favored by the “downtrodden” because he is less like Obama than Hillary.
For some voters Clinton’s worst fault is her having more experience than Trump. “I think he [Trump] is an understandable outcome in a period in which we have had an enormous amount of transformation in America” says acclaimed writer Malcolm Gladwell in a recent Fortune magazine interview. “...We’ve turned everything upside down in 100 different ways in the last 20 years.”
Here in Utah, the controversy of the career politician is becoming more and more important because of one key figure. The SCF, or Senate Conservative Fund, conducted a poll asking how people feel about Senator Orrin Hatch serving for any longer. Hatch has served in office for 39 years. 74% of the people who responded to SCF’s poll thought that Hatch should retire.
Maureen Morris, of the Arts Department, is somewhat critical of career politicians, and believes that the idea is inherently bad. “On a scale of 50/50, I would say, that they’re leaning towards bad. Experience is important. However, the longer they’re in office, the more entrenched they become.” She also is in favor of term limits “...Certain offices should hold term limits. Four years is a reasonable amount of time. I think we have a problem when it gets to 16, 20 years.” While her argument may have merit, some believe experience should never be a warning sign. Would you let someone who has never driven a car take you around town in your car at your expense?
Virtualities
Virtual Reality Gaming Made Accessible
By Corinne VonStorch
If you’re looking for something to do that is unlike anything you’ve imagined, try Virtualities, a virtual reality arcade located downtown in Salt Lake City. Virtual Reality is a computer generated 3-D environment in which you can interact in a seemingly real or physical way by using different electronic equipment such as Samsung virtual reality goggles or the more high tech HTC Vive.
Myself and some of the other Valley High newspaper staff were able to try out the HTC Vive recently, and it did not disappoint. The experience was totally immersive and out of this world. “It’s like entering a new place for the first time. It’s so real that you forget there’s a world outside of the game,” said Valley student Elliot Emery. A few game options to try include, a haunted house walk-through, strolling through dark, abandoned houses shooting down zombies, firing arrows at knights while they attempt to break down your medieval castle, extreme mini golf, futuristic neon pong where you can play against friends, and a sharp shooter game based in space. Each of the games are extremely realistic and intense.
Once you try this out, you will have a hard time not signing up for a membership to this place. Pricing varies, but you can score yourself a discount if you come in with a group. Memberships are $49.50/month, or it costs $13 for 15 minutes to use the $1000 virtual reality headgear, HTC Vive, and it’s not guaranteed, but you may be able to stay on longer than that if you come at a slow time during the day (between 12-4 Monday through Friday).
Anyone who has the opportunity to try this arcade out will be completely blown away. The pricing is awesome, and it is unlike anything else you’ll ever experience, and the employees are extremely helpful and laid back. If you’re looking for something new and exciting for date night, or even looking for something to do out of pure boredom, check out Virtualities in The Gateway Mall.
Myself and some of the other Valley High newspaper staff were able to try out the HTC Vive recently, and it did not disappoint. The experience was totally immersive and out of this world. “It’s like entering a new place for the first time. It’s so real that you forget there’s a world outside of the game,” said Valley student Elliot Emery. A few game options to try include, a haunted house walk-through, strolling through dark, abandoned houses shooting down zombies, firing arrows at knights while they attempt to break down your medieval castle, extreme mini golf, futuristic neon pong where you can play against friends, and a sharp shooter game based in space. Each of the games are extremely realistic and intense.
Once you try this out, you will have a hard time not signing up for a membership to this place. Pricing varies, but you can score yourself a discount if you come in with a group. Memberships are $49.50/month, or it costs $13 for 15 minutes to use the $1000 virtual reality headgear, HTC Vive, and it’s not guaranteed, but you may be able to stay on longer than that if you come at a slow time during the day (between 12-4 Monday through Friday).
Anyone who has the opportunity to try this arcade out will be completely blown away. The pricing is awesome, and it is unlike anything else you’ll ever experience, and the employees are extremely helpful and laid back. If you’re looking for something new and exciting for date night, or even looking for something to do out of pure boredom, check out Virtualities in The Gateway Mall.
Grasping The Future
A brief glimpse into cybernetic augmentation
Artwork and article by Apollo Crabtree
It’s something you see quite often in science-fiction: human augmentation. The process of replacing a part of an individual with a quicker, stronger, smarter, and generally superior machine, metal legs that can trump olympic runner Usain Bolt’s speed, dexterous arms that can catch a moving bullet, brain augmentations that exponentially increase a person’s thinking or pull that person directly into a virtual world. It seems as though this may be a far-off thought for the current day, but the world may be shockingly close to a cybernetic revolution.
One of the forefronts of this initiative is the federally funded DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Back in 2015, DARPA managed to produce a robotic hand that, rather than connect to the severed nerves within a test subject’s arm, was wirelessly and directly controlled from the subject’s brain. With this, the subject was not only able to control the arm, but also feel the sensation of touch through it. Alongside this, DARPA has developed a prototype device called a “Stentrode,” a mesh tube that wraps around a blood vessel inside the brain, which could eventually become a direct neural connection to future cybernetic augmentations.
Another potential power player in this augmentation is the prosthetics industry, hardly coming as a shock as they’ve been manufacturing replacement limbs for years. Two figureheads of the modern day are BeBionic and Touch Bionics, both using myoelectric tech to simulate real hands. Though not capable of feeling, these hands are quite agile and versatile and can even be used to pick up small objects like needles and keys.
There are other groups playing with these augmentation technologies as well. A recent movement, called “Biohackers” (though they prefer the term “Grinders”) have taken augmentation into their own hands. Using parts that are cheap and readily available, these individuals experiment with installing earphones within the ears, magnetic sensors in hands, one man has even gone as far as hooking up his wife’s hand to mimic his movements. On some sites, there are even do-it-yourself documents that you can use- assuming you have the skill, and are fine with the likely chance of failure.
Of course, all of this is irrelevant if you don’t know what this technology can do for you. Just how would this change your day-to-day life? Some of the possible applications are bionic eyes that let us see the more than nine billion colors the human eye can’t process, and could put all of your smartphone’s functions right into a virtual display. Brain implants could record all of your memories and may allow you to immerse yourself inside a virtual world. An augmented heart would never stop. Robotic limbs have far more possibilities than can be listed, from mounting tools within the hand to reducing injury throughout the body.
So what is the bottom line? What will this kind of thing cost you? Besides the obvious cost of an arm and a leg, near-future costs for even a single hand is far beyond your average person’s wallet. But technology becomes cheaper and more efficient. Futurist Richard Worzel estimates that human augmentation will be fully integrated by 2034, and by then it will near assuredly be available to the common man.
And yet, in a world where technology is evolving so quickly, we rarely see the aftereffects of it on our day-to-day lives. It is possible, 10-20 years down the line, that this technology may hurt the common man more than it may help. Perhaps employers will push forward to having augmented employees, even discriminating against and turning away those who refuse to accept these augmentations. Governments may push for tracking devices in all implants, a severe penalty in a world where anonymity is already so scarce. And what will the use of interactions between mankind be when we can simulate emotions and friends? What will define “human” when we are more metal than flesh?
One of the forefronts of this initiative is the federally funded DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Back in 2015, DARPA managed to produce a robotic hand that, rather than connect to the severed nerves within a test subject’s arm, was wirelessly and directly controlled from the subject’s brain. With this, the subject was not only able to control the arm, but also feel the sensation of touch through it. Alongside this, DARPA has developed a prototype device called a “Stentrode,” a mesh tube that wraps around a blood vessel inside the brain, which could eventually become a direct neural connection to future cybernetic augmentations.
Another potential power player in this augmentation is the prosthetics industry, hardly coming as a shock as they’ve been manufacturing replacement limbs for years. Two figureheads of the modern day are BeBionic and Touch Bionics, both using myoelectric tech to simulate real hands. Though not capable of feeling, these hands are quite agile and versatile and can even be used to pick up small objects like needles and keys.
There are other groups playing with these augmentation technologies as well. A recent movement, called “Biohackers” (though they prefer the term “Grinders”) have taken augmentation into their own hands. Using parts that are cheap and readily available, these individuals experiment with installing earphones within the ears, magnetic sensors in hands, one man has even gone as far as hooking up his wife’s hand to mimic his movements. On some sites, there are even do-it-yourself documents that you can use- assuming you have the skill, and are fine with the likely chance of failure.
Of course, all of this is irrelevant if you don’t know what this technology can do for you. Just how would this change your day-to-day life? Some of the possible applications are bionic eyes that let us see the more than nine billion colors the human eye can’t process, and could put all of your smartphone’s functions right into a virtual display. Brain implants could record all of your memories and may allow you to immerse yourself inside a virtual world. An augmented heart would never stop. Robotic limbs have far more possibilities than can be listed, from mounting tools within the hand to reducing injury throughout the body.
So what is the bottom line? What will this kind of thing cost you? Besides the obvious cost of an arm and a leg, near-future costs for even a single hand is far beyond your average person’s wallet. But technology becomes cheaper and more efficient. Futurist Richard Worzel estimates that human augmentation will be fully integrated by 2034, and by then it will near assuredly be available to the common man.
And yet, in a world where technology is evolving so quickly, we rarely see the aftereffects of it on our day-to-day lives. It is possible, 10-20 years down the line, that this technology may hurt the common man more than it may help. Perhaps employers will push forward to having augmented employees, even discriminating against and turning away those who refuse to accept these augmentations. Governments may push for tracking devices in all implants, a severe penalty in a world where anonymity is already so scarce. And what will the use of interactions between mankind be when we can simulate emotions and friends? What will define “human” when we are more metal than flesh?
The Bees are STILL Dying
Artwork and article by Kayla Rask
What exactly do bees do to have coined the saying, “busy as a bee”? That is right, they make honey! We humans love to consume their sweet sticky pollen-spit in varieties of waxes, creams, candles, sweeteners, and even raw. But that’s not all that those little abominations to aerodynamics are responsible for. According to the USDA CCD Action Plan, bees are relied on to pollinate fifteen million dollars worth of crop value in America. That’s a lot of food and a lot of livestock feed that would be extremely risky to our population to lose. Some of the crops that they are relied on to pollinate are sunflowers, avocadoes, strawberries, almonds, and 103 other kinds of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and flowers.
+In 2006, when Dave Hackenberg, long time owner of a very successful apiary (honey farm), discovered the disappearance of more than 60% of his colonies, it raised many questions. When many other critical apiaries were affected by this mysterious epidemic, losing up to 90% of their colonies, scientists went berzerk looking for answers. They named this epidemic Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Since then, 30% of our hives have died off every year.
To combat this growing problem, the United States Department of Agriculture published the CCD Action Plan in 2007, explaining the series of experiments that had to be conducted on bees and their colonies in the years to follow the release of this document. In May 2015, the Obama Administration strategically requested that 7 million acres of land and water be restored. This is the first time any president has ordered specific action on an insect epidemic, bringing the matter to the attention of the public.
What makes the threat of bee extinction so critical? Well no one wants to drink a cup of tea without a bit of honey. But more importantly, the disappearance of the bee populations could be detrimental to humanity. If the bee populations continue to shrink, there will not enough colonies in America to pollinate all those species of fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and our livestock will run out of food. If our livestock goes extinct, citizens are going to have a hard time finding nourishment.
What we know about the causes of CCD are not concrete. However, there is extensive evidence that suggests that pesticides, new or re-emerging pathogens, pests that attack bees, and environmental, nutritional, and migratory stresses all contribute to this growing epidemic.
Dave Hackenberg, owner of Hackenberg Apiaries, experienced one of the first cases of CCD back in 2006. Hackenberg, a beekeeper since he was 15, had seen every kind of death for bees, starvation and exposure to lethal temperatures in the winter, nasty bacterial infections that require the colonies to be burned to stop the spread of the infection, lost hives to bear thieves, and parasitic infestations of wax moths, small hive beetles, Varroa mites, and tracheal mites, pests that are not native to North America. When he found out that twenty million of his bees had simply vanished, a lot of questions were raised. There is a difference between natural death of bees that apiaries all over the world deal with regularly and the mysterious threat of CCD that left the beekeepers and the rest of the world puzzled and afraid.
Many people are convinced that pesticides are the main contributing factor to CCD. Although this has not been proven, there is evidence that one of the compounds in neonicotinoids class, a common crop and forest pesticide, called imidacloprid, is toxic to bees and causes short term memory loss in sub-lethal doses. Short term memory is critical in foraging flights for the bees to be able to remember where their hive is located. Neonicotinoids were actually banned in France due to high losses of bees. Studies are being conducted to determine if there is a connection can be made linking CCD to neonicotinoid pesticides.
Although the CCD epidemic poses an immediate threat, it will take scientists some time before they can create technologies that will isolate threats. After these technologies are made available, scientists will use them in to create additional technologies that will monitor colony threats and strengthen the overall immunity of bee colonies. Before any of this can be done, extensive studies and experiments must be conducted on isolated bees. Some of these studies include testing antibiotics, pesticides, management practices, and pathogens to narrow the potential causes of CCD. The discovery of the honey bee genome sequence in 2007 has provided a massive advantage to the studies, providing extensive genetic background on the species. This information is necessary when experimenting on bees to improve their immunity.
Sadly, until enough information has been collected to develop the necessary management strategies, it iss up to the rest of the population to take accountability and realize how our actions could be potentially promoting this threat.
The Bureau of Land Management is working with several wildlife and land protection agencies to re-flourish public and private lands with high-pollen producing plants and flowers. Research suggests high concentrations of Ozone during winter storage protects the population of hives, which is groundbreaking. However, there is not enough known about what possible consequences the experiment could bring, seeing as artificial Ozone generation has proven to be harmful to our environment, which could also trace back to affecting the bees in a harmful way.
When it comes down to it, all we can do as a people for now is hope that science hurries up with those tedious studies, and we should try our best to raise awareness and plant as many pollen-producing flora as we are able to in the hope that this act will help populations of honey bees flourish once again. There are volunteer programs that work specifically to restore appropriate pollen and nectar source amounts, by dedicating time and labor to enriching meadows and public lands with pollen-rich plants. If you’re concerned about the bees, or concerned for your own life and home on earth, I highly suggest planting a pretty aster plant or a thistle bush in your front yard and a large picket sign that reads, “BEES THIS WAY →”.
+In 2006, when Dave Hackenberg, long time owner of a very successful apiary (honey farm), discovered the disappearance of more than 60% of his colonies, it raised many questions. When many other critical apiaries were affected by this mysterious epidemic, losing up to 90% of their colonies, scientists went berzerk looking for answers. They named this epidemic Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Since then, 30% of our hives have died off every year.
To combat this growing problem, the United States Department of Agriculture published the CCD Action Plan in 2007, explaining the series of experiments that had to be conducted on bees and their colonies in the years to follow the release of this document. In May 2015, the Obama Administration strategically requested that 7 million acres of land and water be restored. This is the first time any president has ordered specific action on an insect epidemic, bringing the matter to the attention of the public.
What makes the threat of bee extinction so critical? Well no one wants to drink a cup of tea without a bit of honey. But more importantly, the disappearance of the bee populations could be detrimental to humanity. If the bee populations continue to shrink, there will not enough colonies in America to pollinate all those species of fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and our livestock will run out of food. If our livestock goes extinct, citizens are going to have a hard time finding nourishment.
What we know about the causes of CCD are not concrete. However, there is extensive evidence that suggests that pesticides, new or re-emerging pathogens, pests that attack bees, and environmental, nutritional, and migratory stresses all contribute to this growing epidemic.
Dave Hackenberg, owner of Hackenberg Apiaries, experienced one of the first cases of CCD back in 2006. Hackenberg, a beekeeper since he was 15, had seen every kind of death for bees, starvation and exposure to lethal temperatures in the winter, nasty bacterial infections that require the colonies to be burned to stop the spread of the infection, lost hives to bear thieves, and parasitic infestations of wax moths, small hive beetles, Varroa mites, and tracheal mites, pests that are not native to North America. When he found out that twenty million of his bees had simply vanished, a lot of questions were raised. There is a difference between natural death of bees that apiaries all over the world deal with regularly and the mysterious threat of CCD that left the beekeepers and the rest of the world puzzled and afraid.
Many people are convinced that pesticides are the main contributing factor to CCD. Although this has not been proven, there is evidence that one of the compounds in neonicotinoids class, a common crop and forest pesticide, called imidacloprid, is toxic to bees and causes short term memory loss in sub-lethal doses. Short term memory is critical in foraging flights for the bees to be able to remember where their hive is located. Neonicotinoids were actually banned in France due to high losses of bees. Studies are being conducted to determine if there is a connection can be made linking CCD to neonicotinoid pesticides.
Although the CCD epidemic poses an immediate threat, it will take scientists some time before they can create technologies that will isolate threats. After these technologies are made available, scientists will use them in to create additional technologies that will monitor colony threats and strengthen the overall immunity of bee colonies. Before any of this can be done, extensive studies and experiments must be conducted on isolated bees. Some of these studies include testing antibiotics, pesticides, management practices, and pathogens to narrow the potential causes of CCD. The discovery of the honey bee genome sequence in 2007 has provided a massive advantage to the studies, providing extensive genetic background on the species. This information is necessary when experimenting on bees to improve their immunity.
Sadly, until enough information has been collected to develop the necessary management strategies, it iss up to the rest of the population to take accountability and realize how our actions could be potentially promoting this threat.
The Bureau of Land Management is working with several wildlife and land protection agencies to re-flourish public and private lands with high-pollen producing plants and flowers. Research suggests high concentrations of Ozone during winter storage protects the population of hives, which is groundbreaking. However, there is not enough known about what possible consequences the experiment could bring, seeing as artificial Ozone generation has proven to be harmful to our environment, which could also trace back to affecting the bees in a harmful way.
When it comes down to it, all we can do as a people for now is hope that science hurries up with those tedious studies, and we should try our best to raise awareness and plant as many pollen-producing flora as we are able to in the hope that this act will help populations of honey bees flourish once again. There are volunteer programs that work specifically to restore appropriate pollen and nectar source amounts, by dedicating time and labor to enriching meadows and public lands with pollen-rich plants. If you’re concerned about the bees, or concerned for your own life and home on earth, I highly suggest planting a pretty aster plant or a thistle bush in your front yard and a large picket sign that reads, “BEES THIS WAY →”.
Utah's Air Pollution
By Elliot Emery
Air pollution is a serious problem in our state. There is a video game about it called “Bad Air Day” and the objective is “to make critical decisions about air pollution policies in Utah.” Air pollution in Utah is not just a game. Winter weather is here, and because of the cold air pushing pollutants into the valley, it is important to be informed about the dangers of air pollution.
There are some serious health problems that can be caused by exposure to air pollutants. For instance, short term effects from pollution include headache, sore throat, redness and irritation of eyes. This pollution can trigger long term health problems like asthma, emphysema, chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and damage to the brain, liver, and kidneys as well. Pollution is also very harmful for growing children and teens because lungs continue to develop until people reach the age of 18. This means that children and teens are more susceptible to lung disease because their lungs are still developing.
The reason pollution in the Salt Lake Valley is so bad is because of the deep valley we live in. The cold winter air sinks down into the deep valley that acts like saran wrap over a bowl, trapping in the pollutants. Because pollution in utah so harmful it’s a good idea to escape the pollution try taking a trip up the canyon to get out of the valley, give your lungs a break.
Red air days in Utah are on the rise, according to the American Lung Association. A Red air day is when the PM2.5 reading is between 55.5-150.4 ug/m3. This means that there is any 55.5-150.4 Particulate matter in our air molecules. These particles can range from droplets of water to hazardous chemicals.
Red air days are dangerous. According to a study conducted by Berkeley Earth, the average American takes in as many toxins as they would if they smoked 0.4 cigarettes everyday regardless if you smoke cigarettes or not because you are breathing in the same toxins and chemicals found in cigarettes. Between 1999 and 2000, Utah had 10 mandatory red air days and 15 voluntary red air days. Within the last two years (2015-2016), the state has had 30 mandatory red air days, which means we have tripled the mandatory number of red air days.
The City of Provo set records in February 2016 for having 124 ug/m3 which is almost triple of their average of a PM2.5 reading of 54 ug/m3.
The state has made some efforts to combat the pollution problem. Utah legislature made funds available to The University of Utah in the amount of 1.3 million dollars to find carbon storage sites on December 4th 2016 to help capture and lower pollutants in the Salt Lake Valley. Carbon Capture and Storage is a way of gathering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it underground.
There are some serious health problems that can be caused by exposure to air pollutants. For instance, short term effects from pollution include headache, sore throat, redness and irritation of eyes. This pollution can trigger long term health problems like asthma, emphysema, chronic respiratory disease, lung cancer, heart disease, and damage to the brain, liver, and kidneys as well. Pollution is also very harmful for growing children and teens because lungs continue to develop until people reach the age of 18. This means that children and teens are more susceptible to lung disease because their lungs are still developing.
The reason pollution in the Salt Lake Valley is so bad is because of the deep valley we live in. The cold winter air sinks down into the deep valley that acts like saran wrap over a bowl, trapping in the pollutants. Because pollution in utah so harmful it’s a good idea to escape the pollution try taking a trip up the canyon to get out of the valley, give your lungs a break.
Red air days in Utah are on the rise, according to the American Lung Association. A Red air day is when the PM2.5 reading is between 55.5-150.4 ug/m3. This means that there is any 55.5-150.4 Particulate matter in our air molecules. These particles can range from droplets of water to hazardous chemicals.
Red air days are dangerous. According to a study conducted by Berkeley Earth, the average American takes in as many toxins as they would if they smoked 0.4 cigarettes everyday regardless if you smoke cigarettes or not because you are breathing in the same toxins and chemicals found in cigarettes. Between 1999 and 2000, Utah had 10 mandatory red air days and 15 voluntary red air days. Within the last two years (2015-2016), the state has had 30 mandatory red air days, which means we have tripled the mandatory number of red air days.
The City of Provo set records in February 2016 for having 124 ug/m3 which is almost triple of their average of a PM2.5 reading of 54 ug/m3.
The state has made some efforts to combat the pollution problem. Utah legislature made funds available to The University of Utah in the amount of 1.3 million dollars to find carbon storage sites on December 4th 2016 to help capture and lower pollutants in the Salt Lake Valley. Carbon Capture and Storage is a way of gathering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it underground.
Fake the News!
By Sam Kelly
According to Pew research, 62% of adults in the United States use social media as a primary source of news. However, the news we’re receiving in social media isn’t always credible. What has led to this large increase of misinformation? Over the last ten years our society has developed around advancements in technology. We’ve seen the launch of social media and the advancements of the cell phones we have in our pockets. With all this change come good things and bad things. For instance the democratization of information. It used to be complicated to publish and distribute information to the masses, but with the birth of social media and the ease of publication, there have been a series of problems and rewards. Anyone can write and publish with few restrictions.
The danger is that because this technology is new and complicated and there are so many people and interested parties writing and publishing, it can be hard to sort fact from fiction. The internet can be a great resource for information and give you access to many things that are going on around the world. As years have passed and technology has progressed so have the dangers of misuse.
Predators out there can easily take credible news articles and spin the article into something that misrepresents the author’s original intent by changing the title to exaggerate the topic and providing a fake content to sway people’s opinions. The more people that share the post, the more people have fallen prey to the false information.
Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s advisors, Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn, have been criticized for sharing fake news on social media platforms. Michael T. Flynn was let go from the Trump transition team because of fake news posts he shared. If influential and informed people are sharing news items that are easily discredited, what does that tell us? People are neglecting their responsibility to do a quick fact check to make sure what they are reading is actually true, and what is even scarier is the social media platforms are doing little to filter out all the misinformation being thrown about. Even after the fake news is debunked, it doesn’t get nearly the coverage that the fake news receives. It seems people only see what they want to see not what is necessarily true.
During the recent presidential election, we saw a dramatic increase in the amount of fake news popping up and produced due to the unseemly and undisciplined nature of the presidential election. Wild stories have been circulated from different sources, many of which aren’t even from the United States, and who knows what the motives might in creating the flase news and influencing the election. These sensationalized stories snag many readers, and many of us have probably even seen our immediate family members share these stories. Readers should be concerned when seeing flashy titles and bizarre allegations slandering whomever will get the publishers the most clicks.
A recent fake news incident occurred at a business, Comet Ping Pong, in Washington D.C. where many allegations were made stating that this business was enslaving children to use as sex slaves. The articles claimed this sex-trafficking was led by Hillary Clinton. The man who owns Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis, noticed a considerable increase in his Instagram followers. Shortly after, he started to receive death threats against him and threats against his business. He was told “I’ll personally kill you” and “We’re onto you” on his Instagram. The allegations continued to grow resulting in the frightening actions taken by a man named Edgar Welch, who saw the fake news articles and decided to do something about it. He drove six hours to Comet Ping Pong and fired shots inside the building in an attempt to save the children who had reportedly been enslaved. After he couldn’t find any evidence of the child sex slave ring, he surrendered to police authorities.
Major news institutions such as the New York Times and Washington Post debunked the conspiracy theories regarding Comet Ping Pong. This sparked a raging fire in the fake news community. The creators of the false news stories began to spread the misinformation to vulnerable consumers of the false news stories that the big mainstream news institutions were the ones peddling the fake news. Some said that Edgar Welch was a paid actor hired to turn people’s attention away from Comet Ping Pong’s child sex slave ring. No evidence has been supported these wild claims, but there are people who still believe them.
Other rumors have been circulating that the neighboring businesses are all connected to the child sex slave ring. A French restaurant across the street from Comet Ping Pong owned by Sabrina Ousmaal has experienced people calling and threatening the restaurant, and some individuals have posted on business’s Facebook page with bizarre and unfounded allegations like, “Why did you remove a symbol related to the pedophillia ring off your website.” The perpetuation of the false news continues to negatively affect the businesses and law enforcement and other interested parties are struggling with ways to manage these incidents.
How can social media moderate fake news, and when does fake news get to the point that it needs to be moderated. Where does this form of speech cross the line? According to statistics gathered by BuzzFeed using a facebook monitoring tool, fake news had more viewers and people posting their content than mainstream news on these social media platforms. The most popular fake news article was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement.” which was interacted with around 960,000 times after being shared by a page called Ending the Fed.
The platforms like Facebook are struggling with how to regulate this problem, but we should be better about consuming information.
The danger is that because this technology is new and complicated and there are so many people and interested parties writing and publishing, it can be hard to sort fact from fiction. The internet can be a great resource for information and give you access to many things that are going on around the world. As years have passed and technology has progressed so have the dangers of misuse.
Predators out there can easily take credible news articles and spin the article into something that misrepresents the author’s original intent by changing the title to exaggerate the topic and providing a fake content to sway people’s opinions. The more people that share the post, the more people have fallen prey to the false information.
Two of President-elect Donald Trump’s advisors, Michael T. Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn, have been criticized for sharing fake news on social media platforms. Michael T. Flynn was let go from the Trump transition team because of fake news posts he shared. If influential and informed people are sharing news items that are easily discredited, what does that tell us? People are neglecting their responsibility to do a quick fact check to make sure what they are reading is actually true, and what is even scarier is the social media platforms are doing little to filter out all the misinformation being thrown about. Even after the fake news is debunked, it doesn’t get nearly the coverage that the fake news receives. It seems people only see what they want to see not what is necessarily true.
During the recent presidential election, we saw a dramatic increase in the amount of fake news popping up and produced due to the unseemly and undisciplined nature of the presidential election. Wild stories have been circulated from different sources, many of which aren’t even from the United States, and who knows what the motives might in creating the flase news and influencing the election. These sensationalized stories snag many readers, and many of us have probably even seen our immediate family members share these stories. Readers should be concerned when seeing flashy titles and bizarre allegations slandering whomever will get the publishers the most clicks.
A recent fake news incident occurred at a business, Comet Ping Pong, in Washington D.C. where many allegations were made stating that this business was enslaving children to use as sex slaves. The articles claimed this sex-trafficking was led by Hillary Clinton. The man who owns Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis, noticed a considerable increase in his Instagram followers. Shortly after, he started to receive death threats against him and threats against his business. He was told “I’ll personally kill you” and “We’re onto you” on his Instagram. The allegations continued to grow resulting in the frightening actions taken by a man named Edgar Welch, who saw the fake news articles and decided to do something about it. He drove six hours to Comet Ping Pong and fired shots inside the building in an attempt to save the children who had reportedly been enslaved. After he couldn’t find any evidence of the child sex slave ring, he surrendered to police authorities.
Major news institutions such as the New York Times and Washington Post debunked the conspiracy theories regarding Comet Ping Pong. This sparked a raging fire in the fake news community. The creators of the false news stories began to spread the misinformation to vulnerable consumers of the false news stories that the big mainstream news institutions were the ones peddling the fake news. Some said that Edgar Welch was a paid actor hired to turn people’s attention away from Comet Ping Pong’s child sex slave ring. No evidence has been supported these wild claims, but there are people who still believe them.
Other rumors have been circulating that the neighboring businesses are all connected to the child sex slave ring. A French restaurant across the street from Comet Ping Pong owned by Sabrina Ousmaal has experienced people calling and threatening the restaurant, and some individuals have posted on business’s Facebook page with bizarre and unfounded allegations like, “Why did you remove a symbol related to the pedophillia ring off your website.” The perpetuation of the false news continues to negatively affect the businesses and law enforcement and other interested parties are struggling with ways to manage these incidents.
How can social media moderate fake news, and when does fake news get to the point that it needs to be moderated. Where does this form of speech cross the line? According to statistics gathered by BuzzFeed using a facebook monitoring tool, fake news had more viewers and people posting their content than mainstream news on these social media platforms. The most popular fake news article was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement.” which was interacted with around 960,000 times after being shared by a page called Ending the Fed.
The platforms like Facebook are struggling with how to regulate this problem, but we should be better about consuming information.
Deadly Cyanobacteria Infesting Utah Bodies of Water
More than 20 waterways deemed unsafe
By Bennett Shulze
Oscillatoria, just one of the various strains of toxic cyanobacteria, can be as dense as human skin. When cyanobacteria grows exponentially, it can coagulate and thicken to form structures called blooms which are generally blue-green in hue and are visible on the water’s surface. It can resemble green carpet along the banks. These bacteria reproduce by fragmentation. One filament breaks off to form a hormogonia which grows into a new cell and the process continues.
Effects on the human body are adverse. On October 14th, 2014, Jimmy Davis was wakeboarding in Utah Lake and inhaled water. He later collapsed and died. Cyanobacterias release various toxins such as Hepatoxins, Nephrotoxins, and Neurotoxins. Hepatoxins and Nephrotoxins target the liver and cause jaundice and nausea. Neurotoxins are the most severe of the three. Symptoms include muscle spasms and asphyxiation. They are deadly and untreatable. The latter killed Jimmy.
Not only is the human body affected, but the environment drastically deteriorated by the rapid oxygen consumption. This reduces the available oxygen needed by fish as well as other aquatic lifeforms. In addition, many animals are killed from ingesting the contaminated water. Fish wash ashore and attract carnivores and disease. As an added bonus to the stench, communities’ water supplies diminish profoundly.
There are local scientists who believe our ecological negligence has put us on a collision course that will just perpetuate this phenomenon and make it the norm. Utahns have high disregard for our “dirty” and “unsanitary” canals and rivers. Up until 1967 we were still dumping raw sewage into our waterways. Now our sewers are emptied directly after treatment. In order to actually impart change in this valley, we need to understand that we can't keep overlooking the fact that abusive treatment of our waterways DOES IN FACT HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Utah’s pollution is some of the worst in America. According to the American Lung Association, the Salt Lake metro area is ranked sixth worst in the nation.
Effects on the human body are adverse. On October 14th, 2014, Jimmy Davis was wakeboarding in Utah Lake and inhaled water. He later collapsed and died. Cyanobacterias release various toxins such as Hepatoxins, Nephrotoxins, and Neurotoxins. Hepatoxins and Nephrotoxins target the liver and cause jaundice and nausea. Neurotoxins are the most severe of the three. Symptoms include muscle spasms and asphyxiation. They are deadly and untreatable. The latter killed Jimmy.
Not only is the human body affected, but the environment drastically deteriorated by the rapid oxygen consumption. This reduces the available oxygen needed by fish as well as other aquatic lifeforms. In addition, many animals are killed from ingesting the contaminated water. Fish wash ashore and attract carnivores and disease. As an added bonus to the stench, communities’ water supplies diminish profoundly.
There are local scientists who believe our ecological negligence has put us on a collision course that will just perpetuate this phenomenon and make it the norm. Utahns have high disregard for our “dirty” and “unsanitary” canals and rivers. Up until 1967 we were still dumping raw sewage into our waterways. Now our sewers are emptied directly after treatment. In order to actually impart change in this valley, we need to understand that we can't keep overlooking the fact that abusive treatment of our waterways DOES IN FACT HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Utah’s pollution is some of the worst in America. According to the American Lung Association, the Salt Lake metro area is ranked sixth worst in the nation.
Those with More to Love?
The problem with obesity and fast food
By Treven Jaymz
America is struggling with a major obesity issue. Though we are a country where physical activity is very limited and few people exercise enough, eating healthy also seems to be a big problem. Along with our unhealthy eating habits, many people have begun to blame the fast food industry for this obesity epidemic. Could it really be the food that we know is unhealthy for us, or is it our unhealthy eating habits that is causing this epidemic?
Some of America’s biggest fast food companies consist of; Subway, at number one with 24,722 different locations, Mcdonald’s with 14,098 locations, and Starbucks with 10,821 locations just in the US. Other companies such as Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, and Wendy’s have all grown substantially in the last few years. The United States has over a hundred million people that are obese, but yet one of four Americans walk into a fast food restaurant everyday. In fact, adults ages twenty and older take up one third of the of America’s adult population is considered obese.
Our obesity problem is a crisis, affecting more than 35.7% percent of the US’s adult population twenty or over. 31.8% of people between the ages of two and nineteen are obese. Obesity is quickly climbing to the second leading cause of preventable death in the US next to smoking. The states with the highest obesity rates in the country, according to stateofobesity.org, include Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi. Colorado has the lowest obesity rate, averaging around 20%.
Some overall health risks that come with not eating healthy and being obese consist of many things. A handful of the things from being obese include; Type two diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Type two diabetes is an overall health problem in which the body cannot break down carbohydrates due to no insulin in the body. High blood can overload your heart and other arteries, speeding up the process of clogging the arteries. Unhealthy eating, particularly fast food, and lack of physical exercise increase chances of insulin resistance, shortness of breath, depression, and can be hard on the human heart.
America has become the most obese country in the world and the number 9 most obese nation in the world.The difference between the two is the U.S. country is the most obese in the world, and the ninth most obese nation; meaning small groups of people involved in the same culture. The question people should really ask is, should we be blaming other things in the world such as the fast food industry, for our obesity, or is it time for us to make change? Eating healthy is a few easy steps away for example buying better produce and cooking with healthy materials is a good start. Stay away from fast food, work out, and eat healthy. We were given nice kitchens for a reason.
Some of America’s biggest fast food companies consist of; Subway, at number one with 24,722 different locations, Mcdonald’s with 14,098 locations, and Starbucks with 10,821 locations just in the US. Other companies such as Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, and Wendy’s have all grown substantially in the last few years. The United States has over a hundred million people that are obese, but yet one of four Americans walk into a fast food restaurant everyday. In fact, adults ages twenty and older take up one third of the of America’s adult population is considered obese.
Our obesity problem is a crisis, affecting more than 35.7% percent of the US’s adult population twenty or over. 31.8% of people between the ages of two and nineteen are obese. Obesity is quickly climbing to the second leading cause of preventable death in the US next to smoking. The states with the highest obesity rates in the country, according to stateofobesity.org, include Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi. Colorado has the lowest obesity rate, averaging around 20%.
Some overall health risks that come with not eating healthy and being obese consist of many things. A handful of the things from being obese include; Type two diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Type two diabetes is an overall health problem in which the body cannot break down carbohydrates due to no insulin in the body. High blood can overload your heart and other arteries, speeding up the process of clogging the arteries. Unhealthy eating, particularly fast food, and lack of physical exercise increase chances of insulin resistance, shortness of breath, depression, and can be hard on the human heart.
America has become the most obese country in the world and the number 9 most obese nation in the world.The difference between the two is the U.S. country is the most obese in the world, and the ninth most obese nation; meaning small groups of people involved in the same culture. The question people should really ask is, should we be blaming other things in the world such as the fast food industry, for our obesity, or is it time for us to make change? Eating healthy is a few easy steps away for example buying better produce and cooking with healthy materials is a good start. Stay away from fast food, work out, and eat healthy. We were given nice kitchens for a reason.
Earth's Twin
By Jazmynn Meaux
Not long ago, in a solar system far, far away-- NASA Kepler Space Telescope discovered the first earth-sized planet in a habitable zone. Kepler 186f is considered “Earth’s Twin” by astronomers all over the world. I had the opportunity to converse with Dr. Ben Bromley, chair and professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Utah, who said, “This planet is a milestone for astronomy because we have only searched hundreds of thousands of stars and found only a few Earth like ones. There are hundreds of billions of stars in our own galaxy, so millions of Earth like planets in the habitable zone. And there are millions++ of galaxies in our universe…”
Although other planets in habitable zones have been discovered, they’ve all been at least 40% bigger than Earth, and understanding their makeup is a very challenging task. Kepler 186f is much more like Earth, and although it’s size is known, its mass and composition are not. Previous research, however, suggests that it would be a rocky planet. Whether it contains pooling water on its surface or not is unknown. At this point, scientists are still trying to piece together the mystery of the alien planet. “I think there may be water on 186f because water is quite plentiful in planetary systems like our own. Some moons around Jupiter and Saturn’s rings have lots of water, although in ice form,” Dr. Bromley said, “If water resides on 186f, it might be liquid. At least where it’s summer on the planet and only if there’s a green house effect.”
Kepler 186f is about 500 light years away. That measures around 2,939,312,686,591,803 miles! With today’s current technology, it would take us around 40 million years to travel there. It orbits its Sun every 130 days and receives only ⅓ of the energy Earth receives from our Sun, placing it on the outer edge of the habitable zone. It is also a part of the Kepler 186 system near the Constellation Cygnus. This system is believed to be home to five planets, including Kepler 186f, which orbit a star about half the size and mass of our star.
How did this planet form? Well, we’re not exactly sure how our own planet even formed. With enough information, however, we can begin to solve this puzzle. Kepler 186f may contain a vast amount of information on the formation of our world and many others. Even though there are many major differences between our own solar system and the Kepler 186 system, Bromley went on to say, “The existence of 186f along with its sibling planets, can tell us something about how the Earth itself formed. We can refine our theories of planet formation with the Kepler 186f system.” This is one of the many reasons Kepler 186f is such a huge milestone for many astronomers across the globe. This foreign system can give us more information we need to verify many theories, even theories based on the idea that we humans are alone in this universe. Dr. Bromley went on to say, “I think the discovery of 186f validates experiments like Kepler and will help NASA justify its next steps towards finding alien life.”
The other four planets in the Kepler 186 system orbit their sun every 4, 7, 13, and 22 days making them too hot to be considered habitable. When asked what conditions would lead to a habitable planet, Bromley answered “We guess that if the planet is a lot like Earth-- water and minerals on the surface, an atmosphere, the right distance from a host star to keep water (sometimes) in liquid form, yet never too hot- the conditions are favorable. Kepler 186f I think is likely colder than Earth, so maybe life wouldn’t be like us, but we don’t really know the variety in the kinds of life that can arise.” While lacking substantiation to the many different types of life that can arise, we can only speculate at this point what life could exist on such a planet as this. The next step to looking for distant life is to search for true Earth twins with sizes similar to Earth orbiting a star like our Sun, and measuring their chemical composition.
The discovery of this planet has opened the eyes of many to the possibility of life beyond the known creatures that are a part of planet Earth, which has sparked more interest among people that gaze at the stars with wonder, only to discover others could be gazing back. As Bromley says, “It is cool that kids who dream of space can dream of other homes beside our own.”
Although other planets in habitable zones have been discovered, they’ve all been at least 40% bigger than Earth, and understanding their makeup is a very challenging task. Kepler 186f is much more like Earth, and although it’s size is known, its mass and composition are not. Previous research, however, suggests that it would be a rocky planet. Whether it contains pooling water on its surface or not is unknown. At this point, scientists are still trying to piece together the mystery of the alien planet. “I think there may be water on 186f because water is quite plentiful in planetary systems like our own. Some moons around Jupiter and Saturn’s rings have lots of water, although in ice form,” Dr. Bromley said, “If water resides on 186f, it might be liquid. At least where it’s summer on the planet and only if there’s a green house effect.”
Kepler 186f is about 500 light years away. That measures around 2,939,312,686,591,803 miles! With today’s current technology, it would take us around 40 million years to travel there. It orbits its Sun every 130 days and receives only ⅓ of the energy Earth receives from our Sun, placing it on the outer edge of the habitable zone. It is also a part of the Kepler 186 system near the Constellation Cygnus. This system is believed to be home to five planets, including Kepler 186f, which orbit a star about half the size and mass of our star.
How did this planet form? Well, we’re not exactly sure how our own planet even formed. With enough information, however, we can begin to solve this puzzle. Kepler 186f may contain a vast amount of information on the formation of our world and many others. Even though there are many major differences between our own solar system and the Kepler 186 system, Bromley went on to say, “The existence of 186f along with its sibling planets, can tell us something about how the Earth itself formed. We can refine our theories of planet formation with the Kepler 186f system.” This is one of the many reasons Kepler 186f is such a huge milestone for many astronomers across the globe. This foreign system can give us more information we need to verify many theories, even theories based on the idea that we humans are alone in this universe. Dr. Bromley went on to say, “I think the discovery of 186f validates experiments like Kepler and will help NASA justify its next steps towards finding alien life.”
The other four planets in the Kepler 186 system orbit their sun every 4, 7, 13, and 22 days making them too hot to be considered habitable. When asked what conditions would lead to a habitable planet, Bromley answered “We guess that if the planet is a lot like Earth-- water and minerals on the surface, an atmosphere, the right distance from a host star to keep water (sometimes) in liquid form, yet never too hot- the conditions are favorable. Kepler 186f I think is likely colder than Earth, so maybe life wouldn’t be like us, but we don’t really know the variety in the kinds of life that can arise.” While lacking substantiation to the many different types of life that can arise, we can only speculate at this point what life could exist on such a planet as this. The next step to looking for distant life is to search for true Earth twins with sizes similar to Earth orbiting a star like our Sun, and measuring their chemical composition.
The discovery of this planet has opened the eyes of many to the possibility of life beyond the known creatures that are a part of planet Earth, which has sparked more interest among people that gaze at the stars with wonder, only to discover others could be gazing back. As Bromley says, “It is cool that kids who dream of space can dream of other homes beside our own.”
Mental Health Crisis
By Sam Kelly
Chicago, which has a population of just over 2.7 million people, is a bustling city in the state of Illinois, is at war with itself. People are being killed every day. In fact, just over Labor Day weekend the city reached over 500 homicides for this year alone.
Chicago has seen a recent increase in gang activity. A poll conducted by The New York Times shows that many African-American and Hispanic communities are “poverty stricken” and more likely to have young people gang affiliated. In which seems to have a direct correlation with the increased gang related crimes. In the late 1990s gang violence started decreasing in Chicago, but that improvement halted in 2004 and gang violence has now risen to the highest it has been in two decades. There has been a 62% increase in homicides and a 60% increase in shootings. The Chicago Police Department is struggling to manage the increase in crime.
The department appears able to handle major problems but leaves the citizens responsible for handling their own security. Chicago residents are carrying firearms for their protection so many others feel like they need to carry them as well. That may result in people taking matters into their own hands, which in turn increases crime.
Why is crime so widespread and out of control? According to an article by Phil Kadner from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago has closed quite a few medical centers. Two inpatient facilities, one of which was Tinley Park Mental Health Center. The Tinsley Park Mental Health Center had a large role in helping people with mental illness in a long term setting. Six additional mental health clinics and community mental health agencies were also closed. These are medical centers that could provide help for people with severe mental illnesses, but instead these people are out on the streets fending for themselves. There has also been $113,000,000 budget cut in mental health services recently. Following the closing of these medical clinics and centers and cuts in mental health services, the city of Chicago had a 19% increase in emergency room visits resulting from psychiatric distress.
Is it possible that the criminal activity has a correlation with the mental health crisis? In 2012, Cook County Jail admitted approximately 76,400 people, and 45,000 of those were people with severe mental illnesses. To add to that, Governor Runners has proposed budget cuts that will further strain the lack of mental health care, a 1.5 billion dollar cut to medicaid.
The consequences have been clear. Many people struggling don’t have a place to turn to. The NAMI-Chicago (National Alliance on Mental Illness) report estimates that of the 5 million adults in Illinois, around 2.1 million have mental illnesses and a quarter of them are severe.
Toxic stresses could be the culprit of a lot of crime and mental illnesses. What is toxic stress? It can be the traumatic events that people experience that causes repetitive extreme stress as a child, which leads to damage to the neural connections. The more “Aces” (Adverse Childhood Experiences) or points on the Toxic Stress test makes you more likely to have a mental illness, suffer from drug and alcohol abuse, and struggle with health problems leading to early death. Some believe that the ACEs are related to or caused by poverty, which is why ACEs could be related to the problems in Chicago.
What causes someone to walk into a movie theatre and unload a firearm on a crowd of people? They’re not in good mental health. People who are in good mental health don’t wake up in the morning and decide they’re going to go harm others. Maybe we should stop cutting funding for mental health and put in place a reliable mental health system to better understand, deal with, and prevent these tragedies.
Chicago has seen a recent increase in gang activity. A poll conducted by The New York Times shows that many African-American and Hispanic communities are “poverty stricken” and more likely to have young people gang affiliated. In which seems to have a direct correlation with the increased gang related crimes. In the late 1990s gang violence started decreasing in Chicago, but that improvement halted in 2004 and gang violence has now risen to the highest it has been in two decades. There has been a 62% increase in homicides and a 60% increase in shootings. The Chicago Police Department is struggling to manage the increase in crime.
The department appears able to handle major problems but leaves the citizens responsible for handling their own security. Chicago residents are carrying firearms for their protection so many others feel like they need to carry them as well. That may result in people taking matters into their own hands, which in turn increases crime.
Why is crime so widespread and out of control? According to an article by Phil Kadner from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago has closed quite a few medical centers. Two inpatient facilities, one of which was Tinley Park Mental Health Center. The Tinsley Park Mental Health Center had a large role in helping people with mental illness in a long term setting. Six additional mental health clinics and community mental health agencies were also closed. These are medical centers that could provide help for people with severe mental illnesses, but instead these people are out on the streets fending for themselves. There has also been $113,000,000 budget cut in mental health services recently. Following the closing of these medical clinics and centers and cuts in mental health services, the city of Chicago had a 19% increase in emergency room visits resulting from psychiatric distress.
Is it possible that the criminal activity has a correlation with the mental health crisis? In 2012, Cook County Jail admitted approximately 76,400 people, and 45,000 of those were people with severe mental illnesses. To add to that, Governor Runners has proposed budget cuts that will further strain the lack of mental health care, a 1.5 billion dollar cut to medicaid.
The consequences have been clear. Many people struggling don’t have a place to turn to. The NAMI-Chicago (National Alliance on Mental Illness) report estimates that of the 5 million adults in Illinois, around 2.1 million have mental illnesses and a quarter of them are severe.
Toxic stresses could be the culprit of a lot of crime and mental illnesses. What is toxic stress? It can be the traumatic events that people experience that causes repetitive extreme stress as a child, which leads to damage to the neural connections. The more “Aces” (Adverse Childhood Experiences) or points on the Toxic Stress test makes you more likely to have a mental illness, suffer from drug and alcohol abuse, and struggle with health problems leading to early death. Some believe that the ACEs are related to or caused by poverty, which is why ACEs could be related to the problems in Chicago.
What causes someone to walk into a movie theatre and unload a firearm on a crowd of people? They’re not in good mental health. People who are in good mental health don’t wake up in the morning and decide they’re going to go harm others. Maybe we should stop cutting funding for mental health and put in place a reliable mental health system to better understand, deal with, and prevent these tragedies.
Rising Suicide Rates in Utah
By Corinne Vonstorch
As of July 2016, the leading cause of death for Utahns ages 10-17 is suicide. Since 2007, the suicide rate in Utah has nearly tripled. This is increasing at an alarming rate unmatched anywhere else in the country, which can only lead us to ask why. Why do these troubled youths seem to feel that the only answer to their clouded minds is to take their own lives? Why is the suicide rate increasing so dramatically as the years go by? Do these individuals realize that taking such drastic measures will not improve their lives because those lives will no longer be there?
A study conducted by health officials in 2014 says Utah’s suicide rate at the time was 8.5 suicides for every 100,000 people, this is the most recent study conducted. Health officials, suicide prevention advocates and educators have been working to curb rising suicide rate, but officials don’t know why Utah’s child suicide rate is more than double the national rate and climbing. Some studies show that residents in Utah move more frequently, which could leave these youths with fewer social connections and support. Some health officials have theories that state that lower oxygen levels at higher altitudes can contribute to higher suicide rates, and a western, rugged mentality of self-reliance may keep some from seeking help for depression.
Utah and other rocky mountain states also have a very high rate of gun ownership, about 43.5 percent of citizens in Utah own a household gun. Now, gun ownership rates don’t necessarily correlate with suicide rates, but is shown in plenty of different studies that people who do commit suicide are more likely to do it using a firearm. That includes plenty of youth, nearly half of the youth who have died from suicide in recent years have used a firearm.
All of this information can’t help but raise many questions like, is the celebritization surrounding these suicide victims causing more youth to commit suicide? Is increasing suicide rate related to the culture and strong religious basis in Utah? Or could the rising rates be related to the altitude and oxygen levels? An article made by The Daily Universe titled, “Suicide Prevention Day; Utah ranked 5th among teens” believes that suicide is a “major preventable cause of premature death, and is is influenced by psycho-social, cultural, and environmental risk factors.” Wendy Williams Mongomery, an LGBT advocate, believes that the LDS church’s discrimination against LGBT youth may be influencing the rising suicide rates in Utah. Wendy states that hospitals in Utah treat 2-3 suicide attempts per day, but that it is hard to tell if these are all LGBT-related.
So what is Utah doing to curb these rising suicide rates? While the latest numbers aren’t yet available, “the numbers appear to be leveling off,” said Doug Thomas, director of Utah’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. He believes the successes are due to increased awareness, and continued saying, “More people are talking about suicide.” Doug Thomas says that since the 2013 plan was implemented to develop prevention and intervention activities throughout the state, as well as educate state officials, clergy, health care workers, military personnel and others on how to better deal with the situation if it arises. Thomas said efforts are paying off.
A study conducted by health officials in 2014 says Utah’s suicide rate at the time was 8.5 suicides for every 100,000 people, this is the most recent study conducted. Health officials, suicide prevention advocates and educators have been working to curb rising suicide rate, but officials don’t know why Utah’s child suicide rate is more than double the national rate and climbing. Some studies show that residents in Utah move more frequently, which could leave these youths with fewer social connections and support. Some health officials have theories that state that lower oxygen levels at higher altitudes can contribute to higher suicide rates, and a western, rugged mentality of self-reliance may keep some from seeking help for depression.
Utah and other rocky mountain states also have a very high rate of gun ownership, about 43.5 percent of citizens in Utah own a household gun. Now, gun ownership rates don’t necessarily correlate with suicide rates, but is shown in plenty of different studies that people who do commit suicide are more likely to do it using a firearm. That includes plenty of youth, nearly half of the youth who have died from suicide in recent years have used a firearm.
All of this information can’t help but raise many questions like, is the celebritization surrounding these suicide victims causing more youth to commit suicide? Is increasing suicide rate related to the culture and strong religious basis in Utah? Or could the rising rates be related to the altitude and oxygen levels? An article made by The Daily Universe titled, “Suicide Prevention Day; Utah ranked 5th among teens” believes that suicide is a “major preventable cause of premature death, and is is influenced by psycho-social, cultural, and environmental risk factors.” Wendy Williams Mongomery, an LGBT advocate, believes that the LDS church’s discrimination against LGBT youth may be influencing the rising suicide rates in Utah. Wendy states that hospitals in Utah treat 2-3 suicide attempts per day, but that it is hard to tell if these are all LGBT-related.
So what is Utah doing to curb these rising suicide rates? While the latest numbers aren’t yet available, “the numbers appear to be leveling off,” said Doug Thomas, director of Utah’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. He believes the successes are due to increased awareness, and continued saying, “More people are talking about suicide.” Doug Thomas says that since the 2013 plan was implemented to develop prevention and intervention activities throughout the state, as well as educate state officials, clergy, health care workers, military personnel and others on how to better deal with the situation if it arises. Thomas said efforts are paying off.
DEMONitization
Youtube stops paying creators over new rules
By Jojo Bridge
Youtube has been around for over a decade now, the place where anyone can be famous by doing anything. From the O.G. creators to the viners converting, everyone is welcome to create as long as what they post is not illegal...until recently.
Popular and long time entertainment news channel, Philip DeFranco received an email saying that his videos are no longer eligible to be monetized (monetization is the advertisements that play before videos that pay the creator for their content. Each ad pays different depending on the length and the company’s budget. Usually the pay is a fraction of a cent per view). Being a widespread form of infotainment, Philip sat down in his studio and talked about it, presenting screenshots of the emails showing the changes in the site’s Terms and Conditions as well as the Community Guidelines.
The email shows that Youtube is no longer allowing swearing, innuendos, any drug references, “violence including pictures of serious injury and events related to violence or violent extremism [...] controversial or sensitive subjects and events”. Basically, you can’t talk about violence, drugs, “war, political conflicts, natural disasters, and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown” if it does not comply with the guidelines.
To be clear, you can still make videos like this but you can no longer take advantage of Google ads put in front of videos and Youtube will no longer pay you for your content. Your channel will not get taken away, you will not gain strikes from Youtube, and you will not get in any legal trouble. You just cannot get paid for time and effort put into your content
Looking at this list, one may think Youtube is just trying to protect the younger generation from hearing about bad things happening in the world, but others will argue that in our world, there are terrorist attacks and drugs and swearing and sex, and no matter how much you sugarcoat it to your kids, they will be exposed eventually.
To play devil’s advocate for a minute, recently there was a boy in the news who attempted to recreate a prank he saw on RiceMan’s channel. The video was about RiceMan pretending to hang himself in front of his mom. Anyone could see all the places this attempt to re-create this prank could have gone wrong. While RiceMan did put a warning, telling viewers not to try this at home, and that he knew what he was doing, a young boy decided to try it anyway, and ended up dying.
Tragedies such as these put into perspective just how much the next generation has access to, thanks to the internet. There seems to be a disconnect where people know that crazy stunts and pranks on television are fake, but no one, until recently, seemed to realize that you could fake those things on Youtube. People freaked out about Sam Pepper when he made controversial pranks sexually assaulting women. He later stated that he had faked this prank and that all the women were hired actresses. While many people think this is still wrong, he claims the prank was a social experiment.
No one quite knows as of right now how this change in Youtubes Terms and Conditions will affect the site, but it has already split the entirety of Youtube into two halves. Twitter fights have broken out between the creators who these changes will affect and those creators who will continue along with their channels and their income without having to either censor themselves or find new sources of funding.
So what does this mean for viewers? That depends on the creator whose content you want to watch. Some Youtubers have already thrown up a middle finger to the rules and stated that they will continue using their First Amendment rights. Other creators have started inserting bleeps and avoiding cursing at all costs.
From the outrage this change has already caused Youtube, one may question whether or not the Terms and Conditions will actually change. We’ll see over the following months if and how this affects the Youtube community, both the consumers and creators. For now, enjoy fangirling or hating the iPhone 7.
Popular and long time entertainment news channel, Philip DeFranco received an email saying that his videos are no longer eligible to be monetized (monetization is the advertisements that play before videos that pay the creator for their content. Each ad pays different depending on the length and the company’s budget. Usually the pay is a fraction of a cent per view). Being a widespread form of infotainment, Philip sat down in his studio and talked about it, presenting screenshots of the emails showing the changes in the site’s Terms and Conditions as well as the Community Guidelines.
The email shows that Youtube is no longer allowing swearing, innuendos, any drug references, “violence including pictures of serious injury and events related to violence or violent extremism [...] controversial or sensitive subjects and events”. Basically, you can’t talk about violence, drugs, “war, political conflicts, natural disasters, and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown” if it does not comply with the guidelines.
To be clear, you can still make videos like this but you can no longer take advantage of Google ads put in front of videos and Youtube will no longer pay you for your content. Your channel will not get taken away, you will not gain strikes from Youtube, and you will not get in any legal trouble. You just cannot get paid for time and effort put into your content
Looking at this list, one may think Youtube is just trying to protect the younger generation from hearing about bad things happening in the world, but others will argue that in our world, there are terrorist attacks and drugs and swearing and sex, and no matter how much you sugarcoat it to your kids, they will be exposed eventually.
To play devil’s advocate for a minute, recently there was a boy in the news who attempted to recreate a prank he saw on RiceMan’s channel. The video was about RiceMan pretending to hang himself in front of his mom. Anyone could see all the places this attempt to re-create this prank could have gone wrong. While RiceMan did put a warning, telling viewers not to try this at home, and that he knew what he was doing, a young boy decided to try it anyway, and ended up dying.
Tragedies such as these put into perspective just how much the next generation has access to, thanks to the internet. There seems to be a disconnect where people know that crazy stunts and pranks on television are fake, but no one, until recently, seemed to realize that you could fake those things on Youtube. People freaked out about Sam Pepper when he made controversial pranks sexually assaulting women. He later stated that he had faked this prank and that all the women were hired actresses. While many people think this is still wrong, he claims the prank was a social experiment.
No one quite knows as of right now how this change in Youtubes Terms and Conditions will affect the site, but it has already split the entirety of Youtube into two halves. Twitter fights have broken out between the creators who these changes will affect and those creators who will continue along with their channels and their income without having to either censor themselves or find new sources of funding.
So what does this mean for viewers? That depends on the creator whose content you want to watch. Some Youtubers have already thrown up a middle finger to the rules and stated that they will continue using their First Amendment rights. Other creators have started inserting bleeps and avoiding cursing at all costs.
From the outrage this change has already caused Youtube, one may question whether or not the Terms and Conditions will actually change. We’ll see over the following months if and how this affects the Youtube community, both the consumers and creators. For now, enjoy fangirling or hating the iPhone 7.
