By: Grace Helmke

It’s something out of a sci-fi novel. The thought of being able to travel at 670,616,629 miles per hour seems impossible. But is it really? Traversing the cosmos at the speed of light may not be as fictional as we once thought. 

Understanding Einstein’s general theory of relativity

Einstein’s theory of general relativity is essential to this idea of traveling at the speed of light. He stated that gravity was a geometric distortion of spacetime which could not be predicted by Newton’s laws. Einstein defined spacetime as the dimension which time and space shared. It was the formation of a four dimensional continuum which was made up of space and time. It would look something like a piece of fabric. Each planet, star, or mass would make dips in it. Or, they would bend spacetime. 

Relativity in space travel

Scientists have since been looking into light speed travel using various methods. In several projects, spanning all the way from 1950-1980, researchers discussed using nuclear fusion to propel a spacecraft, however they decided it might be best not to launch a nuclear warhead into space. 

However, researchers have begun to follow in the footsteps of science fiction in an attempt to achieve light speed travel. Warp drive was a concept introduced on Star Trek, a television show from the 1960s about a space crew completing missions in the 23rd century. Warp drive essentially distorted the fabric of spacetime, allowing the crew to travel superluminally, or faster than the speed of light.

Einstein’s theories suggest that this is not a totally unheard of thought. In fact, it’s entirely possible. In 1994, a scientist named Miguel Alcubierre discovered what today is known as the Alcubierre Drive. Essentially, his theory was that it’s possible to bend space time in a way that contracts in front of you, and expands behind you, moving you in a forward motion. 

This field of study is still largely unexplored. However, there have been some discoveries in recent years that have significantly contributed to its advancement. Scientists working at LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) discovered naturally occurring gravitational waves. It confirmed Einstein’s predictions of relativity and proved that the basis for the warp drive exists in nature. 

There are some problems that come along with this form of travel. It requires negative energy. This is an issue because we have no physical evidence that negative energy is real. At this point in time, it only exists in the laws of physics, and in quantum theory, which states that it’s possible to borrow energy from a vacuum at another location. It’s like borrowing money from a bank.

Another issue is the sheer amount of energy needed. Scientists believe that the total energy required to travel via warp drive would be equivalent to the mass of Jupiter. That is simply not in our capacity at this point in time. The production of that amount of energy will only come from the furthering of science and technology; well into the future. It’s not impossible, it’s just not in line with our current abilities. 

Conclusion 

So, is it possible that humanity may one day travel at the speed of light? Most likely, yes. It is probable that we may one day travel at astonishing speeds. Although we do not currently have the capacity to create the amount of energy needed, scientists are working to change that. We will one day achieve a seemingly fictional feat. One that may change our society forever. 

For more information, please visit: 

• https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/testing-general-relativity#:~:text=On%20May%2029%2C%201919%2C%20Einstein’s,from%20nearly%20100%20years%20ago
• https://www.space.com/36273-theory-special-relativity.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VWLjhJBCp0
• https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-starting-to-take-warp-drives-seriously-especially-this-one-concept
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002102750.htm#:~:text=Positive%20masses%20attract%20each%20other,bank%2C%22%20says%20Daniel%20Grumiller

By: Grace Helmke

In May of 2020, SpaceX launched two Americans aboard Falcon 9, the first manned rocket to journey to the International Space Station (ISS) in over nine years. The flight took place aboard a commercial vehicle, representing the beginning of a movement towards accessible space travel. 

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), is working with several private companies to expand their production and create space crafts capable of carrying the average human into orbit.

SpaceX was the first to produce reusable rockets. They did this by establishing a model, which has now been running regular missions to the ISS since 2012.

The several companies manufacturing these shuttles maintain ownership of the vehicles they produce. NASA then provides their launch facilities, and sends the astronauts into space. By creating business with these companies and starting their Commercial Crew Program, NASA predicts that the economics of spaceflight will change, increasing competition between nations and driving down the cost of intergalactic travel. 

Other nations around the world are also becoming increasingly invested in the idea of a commercialized space flight future. Russia currently has in orbit a reusable vessel which has made several trips from earth to space on resupply missions to the ISS. China is in the earlier stages of the production of a space station capable of housing multitudes of astronauts for an extended period of time. Several test vehicles have been launched, but all have incinerated after multiple years in space. 

The fact that private companies in the United States, and around the world, are beginning their work in becoming commercial space companies means that spaceflight is no longer exclusive to government-funded projects. It is now becoming increasingly accessible. 

It is also foreseeable that as a result of these reduced prices and increased accessibility, that a hospitality industry might emerge in space and on other planets. Meaning, hotels and inflatable habitats will likely be created.

Bigelow Aerospace, a company in Nevada that specializes in space technology, has actually begun to produce these alternative housing solutions. The idea of this module, named B330, is that it is completely collapsible. It will arrive at the destination shriveled and compacked, and will inflate to accommodate visitors upon arrival. This balloon like home, surprisingly enough, would last a person’s lifetime.

With the continued advancement in technology, and newfound partnership between the government and private companies, a society where space travel is routine may not be so far away. 

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/space-exploration/future-spaceflight/
• https://www.wptv.com/news/space/future-of-commercial-space-travel-takes-flight-as-spacex-rocket-lifts-off
• https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/a-bright-future-for-commercial-human-spaceflight/
• https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20863143/bigelow-aerospace-b330-inflatable-space-habitat-nasa-nextstep-astronauts

By: Grace Helmke

Killers of the deep.

The sinister shadow that lurks beneath, ready to attack.

The shark has been plunged into the public eye inspiring widespread fear amongst individuals all over the world. Their razor sharp teeth, ready to rip practically anything to shreds, and their silent, menacing movements make for the perfect Hollywood villain. Are these sea-dwelling creatures the fearsome menace that the media portrays? 

Hollywood has made a significant impact on the general public view of sharks, depicting them as beings of malicious intent. The 1975 film ‘Jaws’ is most likely the source of the widespread fear, and Hollywood’s overuse of the demonized shark character.

Because of its incredible successes all over the nation, creating multiple millions at the box office, and bursting its way into pop culture as a well known classic film series, copycat movies were bound to emerge. It created an endless cycle of Hollywood movies based on the perpetuating stereotype of the vengeful killer shark, leaving America in a fascinated fear. 

This was an incredible shift of thought from what the notion was before the movie was released. It was once believed that sharks were harmless creatures. They stayed out of the way of humans, and humans did the same.

When swimming became a regular recreational activity, sharks were acknowledged very little. Even in the scientific world, they were seen as simply another oceanic inhabitant instead of a test subject with interesting, unusual or even dangerous enough behavior to study. They were simply just there.  But ‘Jaws’ flipped the nation overnight. It created a fearsome character that the public latched onto, and never let go of. 

Today, because they have captured public attention, sharks are studied extensively. Their behavioral patterns are documented and analyzed religiously by scientists all over the world.

What has come from this research is an enormous amount of myth debunking. The most impactful myth created in Hollywood was that sharks are man eaters. Of course, because that meant that sharks threatened human lives, they became the villain.

But the reality is that sharks do NOT like the taste of human flesh, nor do they actively hunt humans for prey.

In the extremely rare occurrence of a shark attack, it is just a case of mistaken identity in an area of low visibility. They would likely just be giving a bite out of curiosity more than have the desire to make a meal out of a human. That is why there are more documented shark bittings than shark fatalities.

There just isn’t enough blood-vessel-containing-fat on humans for us to be a hearty snack. Even an individual with a high concentration of fat on their body does not have enough fat, that contains blood vessels, for sharks to want them. Our blood and fat isn’t something they enjoy. 

That leads into the next completely false myth that sharks are just mindless killers. While sharks are predatory creatures, they don’t kill anything they see, nor do they constantly think about food. They are incredibly intelligent and evolved creatures, who can navigate themselves across the ocean using only their sense of smell.

Much like humans, sharks are curious and sociable creatures. An experiment was implemented in which two objects were placed in the water: one resembling the shape of a seal, the other a square. The great whites approached the square out of curiosity over the seal shaped object. Instead of biting and attacking the object, they would bump into it, attempting to “feel” what it was. This inquisitive characteristic was exhibited in several experiments, the sharks in question having no intent to harm the object, only discovering what it could be. 

The news has also impacted our perception of sharks. It seems that anytime there’s a shark attack or shark encounter, it’s plastered all over the news. It makes it seems as though shark attacks are common events happening all the time.

But the truth is, that there is an incredibly low chance of an individual even seeing a shark in the wild, much less attacked.

Let’s put this into perspective. You have about a 1 in 3,784,067 chance of being attacked by a shark. And that counts non-malicious shark encounters as well. When you think about the millions of people that enter the water a day, that number is extremely low. You have a greater chance of being struck by lightning, or winning an Olympic gold medal. 

That being said, do sharks deserve to be so villainized?

The answer is no. They have been wrongfully dubbed a malicious creature due to aggressive news coverage, and Hollywood’s fabrication of the shark villain. Not only do they have an aversion to the taste of humans, they are incredibly intelligent beings capable of high functioning brain activity. They have simply fallen victim to a Hollywood charade. 

For more information, please visit: 

• https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2012/sharks-bad-creatures-or-bad-image#:~:text=Historically%2C%20the%20media%20have%20been,and%20it’s%20affecting%20their%20survival.&text=According%20to%20the%20study%2C%20more,60%20percent%20of%20the%20coverage.
• https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190808-why-do-sharks-attack-humans
• https://www.sharksinfo.com/intelligence.html
• https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2019/07/31/42321/

By: Jalalaisa Geleto

The Tiger is a troubled species of cat. They have been pushed to the brink of extinction many times, and some tiger subspecies are no longer with us.

Their territories were once all of east China, Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, Eastern Siberia, Central Asia, and the Malaysian Islands. Now, they are restricted to small pockets in each of those lands. They don’t even exist in most of China, Korea, and Central Asia anymore. To see a tiger that doesn’t live in India, or a Southeastern Asian country, is a miracle.

The reason tigers populations aren’t increasing much, even though organizations are actively trying to save them, is because each tiger needs a lot of land for themselves. They are not pack animals. There isn’t a place that’s “densely” populated with tigers, because they live on their own and far from each other.

The average tiger male requires 23 to 39 square miles to himself. The average female only needs 7. The amount of space tigers are allowed to live in has only decreased, leading to more tigers dying.

Since 1900, 93% of tiger lands have been taken from them, severely lowering their population. Since the 1990s, their population has decreased another 43%.

Tigers are a doomed species, and there is nothing you can do about it without giving them more land to live on. Which is not going to happen.

The Indians are mostly poor and are looking for land to make farms and build infrastructure. Many of them don’t care about the cultural aspects of tigers and focus on material things. At the rate India is modernizing and growing, the tigers might not have much space left.

In China, the tigers are doomed and are on their last legs. There are barely any tiger sightings in the country anymore. In Siberia, Russia, they find the Siberian tiger once or twice every year.

The only way to save tigers is to open more lands for wildlife. Until then, they will stay rare or even become extinct (especially in China).

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.fws.gov/international/animals/tigers.html#:~:text=By%20some%20estimates%2C%20a%20century,remaining%20in%20the%20wild%20worldwide.
• https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger
• http://www.lions.org/tiger-habitat.html
• https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/where-do-tigers-live-and-other-tiger-facts
• https://www.tigers-world.com/tiger-habitat/

By: Joxery Mezen Camacho

Do you ever wonder how the mind works and why humans do things that they do? Well, that’s what psychology is for.

According to the American Psychological Association, psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Thousands of studies have been done over the years in order to learn more about the human mind, but to what extent are all of these studies able to be considered worldwide? 

According to ‘The Conversation’, many of the studies, data, and knowledge, that we know of human psychology is focused on college members, those of the middle class, those who live near universities, and citizens of affluent, developed and democratic nations who are highly educated. Many scholars now use the acronym WEIRD in order to more easily describe the focuses; it stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. 

It was discovered that there are rare influential psychological publications that emphasize race, and when race is discussed, it is often written, and just about exclusively edited by, white scholars. 

Steven O. Roberts, an assistant professor of psychology a the School of Humanities and Sciences decided to do an experiment that would look at the race of academic journal editors, which get to manage the journal’s editorial board, recruit other scholars to look over submissions, and oversee the publication of the academic journals. 

There were 60 editors-in-chief who Roberts, and his research team (Carmelle Bareket-Shavit, Forrest A. Dollins, Peter D. Goldie and Elizabeth Mortenson), looked at in between the years 1974 and 2018. Of those 60, 83% of the editors-in-chief were white, 5% were people of color, and 12% were unidentifiable for one reason or another. 

These results show a lack of diversity in the field of psychology. In both the researchers and those being studied. This makes it seem as though the data brought from psychological studies aren’t as worldwide as many people think. 

However, racism is indeed a worldwide problem. Steven O. Roberts says, “Psychologists are supposed to know about racial bias and how to prevent it from stratifying the world, but if we, the so-called experts, have a problem, then society really has a problem.” 

For more information, please visit:

• https://news.stanford.edu/2020/06/24/psychological-research-racism-problem-stanford-scholar-says/
• https://www.simplypsychology.org/whatispsychology.html 
• https://theconversation.com/you-cant-characterize-human-nature-if-studies-overlook-85-percent-of-people-on-earth-106670

By: Mohamed Ahmed

According to Amnh.org, to qualify to be a mass extinction, at least half of all species die out in a relatively short period of time. In this article we will be looking at the top 5 largest mass extinctions, the: Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic-Jurassic, and Cretaceous extinctions. 

The Ordovician-Silurian extinction was the second worst mass extinction, according to Study.com. This extinction wasn’t even that far behind the worst mass extinction, which we will later look at. Jawless fish were the most advanced life forms during this time, and the majority of all beings lived in the ocean. The global temperature cooled and sea levels fell. Most species were adapted to shallow, warm water, and that was the reason why 85 percent of all organisms on earth became extinct. It was one of many extinctions that happened in a short period of time. 

The Devonian extinction happened 375-360 million years ago. According to Britannica.com, the cause of the Devonian extinction was never actually solved definitively. There are many theories about this, varying from global warming, to meteors, or even a lack of oxygen. No matter the cause, the marine animals where the ones that made up the majority of the casualties. 

The Permian extinction happened 252 million years ago. This was the worst mass extinction in the history of the world and is known as “The Great Dying”. Over ninety-six percent of all marine life, and 70 percent of land species. No direct cause was found, but according to an article on MIT.edu, it is speculated that a volcano in Russia was the main cause of the extinction. 

According to ‘History of Life’, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction has a lot of debate about the specific percent of the death. The speculated causes are: large impacts, prolonged volcanic activity, climate change, volcanic gases rising, and rain becoming toxic other theories.

Only 66 million years ago, the most well known extinction happened. Why was it the most well known? Dinosaurs! They went extinct with some plant and marine life.  Around seventy-five percent of the population of earth was wiped out. The main cause is speculated to be an asteroid and a virus. The mixing of two is what made mammals the new dominators of the earth. 

For more information, please visit: 

• https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils/extinction/mass-extinction/
• https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils/extinction/mass-extinction
• https://study.com/academy/lesson/ordovician-silurian-mass-extinction-causes-evidence-species.html
• https://news.mit.edu/2015/siberian-traps-end-permian-extinction-0916

By: Olivia Miller

According to Medicinenet.com, ADD is a mental disorder/condition that is common among children and adolescents. ADD/ADHD causes the person, who is diagnosed, to have difficulty paying attention. It can also affect how much the person is able to sit still (which could get difficult over a long period of time).

ADD is also known for taking a toll on young girls and boys learning ability in school. Getting homework/tests done can be twice as difficult for a kid with ADD. Also, these kids may not be able to sit still and quietly for a long period of time like most students do in school, which causes them to be seen as a kid who acts out, or is disruptive, which compromises their whole experience in school.

ADD also has many other effects that people don’t usually associate with ADD. These effects surprisingly can be very different between boys and girls who have been diagnosed.

Starting off, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, boys are three times as likely to be diagnosed with ADD than girls. Boys and girls can share some symptoms but other times symptoms can be different depending on gender. According to Healthline.com, boys seem to show external symptoms, which is usually the hyperactive side to ADD. This could mean running around, speaking out of turn, not being able to sit still, and any other external effects of ADD. Girls are the opposite, their symptoms are usually internal, this could mean having low self esteem, inattentiveness, and impulsivity.

In both boys and girls, ADD/ADHD can lead to other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and various eating disorders. If not treated, ADD can be very difficult for children in school, and even adults when it comes to daily commitments. There are different medications that can be prescribed if someone is diagnosed with ADD. There are also different therapies as well that people try.

Although common, ADD is a disorder that can be hard to live with if you’re a kid. It doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl.