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More sustainable methods of farming needed as populations increase, people migrate to cities With the world’s population estimated to reach 9.8 million people by 2050, is vertical farming a viable option for feeding our rapidly growing cities while keeping us from committing climate suicide?   City life is in demand. According to the United Nations, […]

Why does violence hold such mass-market appeal in our entertainment culture? A few weeks ago, I replayed one of my favorite games of all time: “Uncharted 2.” It’s the game that fully introduced me to what video games could be –– a masterful way to tell stories in a fun and engaging way. I tried […]

“Accessibility” often feels like an obvious reason to develop roads on public land — but isn’t quite as straightforward as we think Yosemite Valley is more of a small city than a wilderness these days. The seven-square-mile valley sees more than 4 million visitors annually and houses over 2,000 seasonal employees; it has five lodges […]

AI developments detect Parkinson’s from your mousepad and won’t tell you If you’ve ever gone on the internet you’ve probably encountered CAPTCHA — an intelligence system that uses tests like identifying pictures to prove users aren’t robots. You may have also noticed the CAPTCHA system has evolved; now, users only need to check a box […]

The same tools assisting visionary animators may incite animation’s downfall Animated cinema diverges at a rather peculiar crossroad. The genre’s potential for varied artistry permits a visual infinity, from embroiled ocean vistas that, at first glance, appear ripped straight from the depths of the Pacific, to the illusory motions of a hand-crafted Sasquatch, slave to […]

Living in an anti-Brexit city in a pro-leave country Recently, a reporter from a French radio program approached a friend and me while we were browsing a farmers’ market to ask us about Brexit. We were both hesitant to answer — after all, the extent of my Brexit knowledge was mainly comprised of the Brexit-centric New […]

Research before you eat Y’all are a bunch of bullies. For one thing, you gang up on gluten, which is great for the rather numerous people with celiac disease because those who suffer from the autoimmune disorder now have actual options when it comes to the food they dine on compared to, say, a decade […]

Netflix and David Attenborough team up to strike the perfect balance between entertainment and environmental alarmism Free from the conservative shackles of BBC, David Attenborough, notable narrator of “Planet Earth,” takes nature documentaries where they haven’t been before with “Our Planet,” a new series on Netflix — and it works. BBC is one of the […]

In the face of America’s crumbling infrastructure, politicians should pursue a bipartisan answer In spite of a contemporary American political atmosphere marred by increased polarization and neverending legislative gridlock, a chance at bipartisan compromise may finally be on the horizon. According to White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere, President Donald Trump and House Speaker […]

Stories are told best through the interaction and experience that video games can provide I love stories. Storytelling is one of the most fundamental aspects of what it means to be human. Our culture is defined by the stories we tell and what we learn from them. The natural progression of storytelling has evolved from […]

Facebook fuels terrorism, lynchings, conspiracies under guise of connecting people “So we connect more people. That can be bad if they make it negative […] Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools. And still we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything […]

You should be required to take sex ed at the UCs before you graduate There are plenty of scary statistics — I think they are terrifying — depicting how more states than not in our fine country do not require sexual education, which they may or may not even require in their public schools, to […]