TedEd: The dangers of mixing drugs

A TedEd by Céline Valéry

What's wrong with taking cholesterol medication with juice, ankle pain drugs with alcohol, and blood thinners with aspirin? Taking these things together causes side effects that could, in severe cases, cause injury or death. There are two ways that this can happen. Two substances can interact directly, or one can influence the way the body processes the other. With aspirin and blood thinners, both of them prevent blood clots from forming. Blood thinners prevent clotting factors from forming, and aspirin breaks the clots apart. Alone, these medications do their job. But together, they can have a big enough effect to cause internal bleeding. The other two reactions have to do with enzymes from the liver that break down substances. In the case of grapefruit juice and cholesterol, both of them require the same enzyme to break down, which means that the cholesterol medication is in the blood stream for longer. This could cause kidney failure. Alcohol also alters enzyme activity. Many pain relievers have a substance that creates a toxic by product when broken down. Usually, the amount is not deadly. But when the enzymes are affected by alcohol, they produce more of the toxic substance, potentially causing liver damage. Still, scientists are researching new drugs as they come out, hopefully preventing fatal drug interactions before they happen.

Scythe

Scythe

By Neal Shusterman

Read in 8th grade

Book 1 in series

Read book 2! Thunderhead (coming soon)

Read book 3! The Toll

    First book in Arc of a Scythe series. It takes place in a world past death, without disease or aging. Pain nanites can regrow limbs, and if you are killed in an accident, you are revived. There is no politics, because the world is taken care of by an AI called the Thunderhead. It keeps the world running, and every move is calculated so it is never wrong. Its mission: Protect humanity. At all costs. So how is the population kept in check if no one dies? Scythedom. This group is beholden to no laws, and the Thunderhead must stay out of its way as a part of its fundamental programming. These people go around and glean people, and can also grant immunity for a year. They can take whatever they want, and everyone fears/respects them. 

    One day, Scythe Faraday shows up at Citra Terranova's house and eats a meal. Afterward, he asks for a knife. Her family is terrified, but he gleans the person next door and grants Citra's mother immunity. Rowan Damisch is sitting at his friend Tyger's bedside after he splatted from hundreds of feet up. At school, Faraday shows up to glean the high school quarterback. Rowan stays with him for emotional support. Faraday notes his compassion. Later, he is ridiculed, accused of being with the quarterback for immunity.

TedEd: The art forger who tricked the Nazis

A TedEd by Noah Charney

In the strangest trial in Dutch history, a man's life depended on proving his work was a forgery. Han van Meegeren was an artist whose original works failed to make money. Angry toward his critics, he decided to make fools of them. He researched the old masters, their methods, their paints, their biographies. He decided to copy Johannes Vermeer, who was famous for his meticulous domestic scenes. Van Meegeren bought 17th century canvases, the pigments available in Vermeer's time, and created his own brushes. When he was done, he used synthetic resin and baked the paintings to make them look old. In his time, there were few forensic tests available to test the veracity of his paintings, and whether or not a painting was real was a matter of judgement by critics. Through research, van Meegeren found that many historians believed that Vermeer was influenced by Caravaggio in his early years. Luckily for him, the leading authority on Vermeer, Abraham Bredius, believed this theory and pronounced the paintings authentic. He sold forgeries for many years, making millions. When the Nazis invaded Holland, a German general wanted to add a Vermeer to his collection of stolen European art. So, van Meegeren sold him a forgery. But when the war was over, he was arrested for selling important pieces of Dutch history to the enemy. So in court, van Meegeren had to prove that the work was a forgery. He showed them the entire process, and escaped the death sentence - replaced with a 1 year sentence for forgery. After that, he became a sort of hero for swindling the Nazis, and his works gained a reputation of their own. So much, in fact, that he was later forged by his own son.

TedEd: The Infinite Hotel Paradox

A TedEd by Jeff Dekofsky

The Infinite Hotel Paradox was created in the 1920's by David Hilbert to show how difficult the concept of infinity is. Imagine a hotel with infinite rooms, all booked for the night. A person walks in and asks for a room. But you don't have to turn him down. You can ask every guest to move over one room, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on until guest number n goes to room number n+1. Then the new guest takes room number 1. Now let's say that a bus with an infinitely countable number of passengers shows up. How do you fit all of them? If the guest in room 1 goes to room 2, 2 to 4, 3 to 6, and so on, each guest will move to room number 2n from n. This will fill all the even rooms, leaving an infinite number of odd rooms open. But now an infinite number of buses with an infinite number of passengers on each arrives. How do you fit all of those people? We can use Euclid's statement that there are an infinite number of prime numbers. So every current guest goes to the first prime number, 2, raised to the power of their current room number, so room 2^n. Then, the passengers on the first bus go to the next prime, 3, raised to the power of their seat number, or 3^n. The next bus, powers of 5, 7, 11, and so on to the last bus. Since each room is a prime to the power of a natural number, each one is unique, and there will be no overlapping rooms. This is only possible, however, with the lowest level of infinity, or the countable infinity of the natural numbers. This is 1, 2, 3 ... infinity. This is also called aleph-zero. With higher orders of infinity, though, our strategies fall apart. For example, the real number infinity hotel would have radical, irrational, and negative rooms. This all shows us just how hard the concept of infinity is.

National Geographic: Why weren’t we ready for this virus?

National Geographic: Why weren’t we ready for this virus?

By Robin Marantz Henig

We have missed many warning signs of the pandemic. Starting in the 1990s, scientists coined the term "emerging virus". It was first used by virologist Stephen Morse. He described modern conditions like urbanization and animal-human proximity that could release deadly pathogens that had never been seen before. He and others warned that globalization could then aid these diseases in moving around the world. Even though the warning signs were there, many doctors believed the next pandemic would be the flu. Why?

    It was easy to pretend something like coronavirus doesn't exist, and besides, it is very hard to track and predict the evolution of pathogens. Also, many didn't believe a global pandemic would be coming because, in our sheltered world, we saw viruses like SARS and Ebola mainly contained to their regions. It was easy to just say other countries were susceptible. We've dodged a bullet so many times that we became aloof, and this one brought humanity to its knees.

CNN 10 7/27/2020 ~ 7/31/2020

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for latest video

Monday, July 27, 2020

On Saturday, Hurricane Hanna made landfall in Padre Island, Texas. It was a Category 1, the weakest class of hurricanes, but dropped more than a foot of rain, cut power to many homes, and caused the governor to issue a disaster declaration. Making things worse, many areas affected are also seeing high rates of COVID-19, making rescue efforts difficult. Hurricane Hanna was also the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. Former Representative John Lewis was not only an important political figure but a fighter for civil rights as well. He led the Selma March for Voting Rights in 1965 with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which shed light on some states that were resisting Black voting rights and led to laws preventing that. Lewis died recently at age 80 after a long battle with cancer. A comet called NEOWISE is passing Earth through late August. It can be seen just before sunrise and just after sunset, and won't be returning for another 6,400 years. Don't miss out! The CDC is recommending schools reopen with proper precautions, but that could cause transportation problems for some people. Due to social distancing, buses will only be able to operate at partial capacity, with priority for special eduction, low income, and homeless families. But many more families who have single parents or full time working parents also have problems.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Sports have restarted. In the MLB, games began on the 23rd and 24th with a shortened season of 60 games. However, there have been postponements, for example, the Miami Marlins’ opener when 14 players tested positive for coronavirus. The NBA will resume on the 31st with 22 of the 30 teams playing 8 remaining games to determine the playoff roster. The NFL will begin as scheduled in September. However, no fans are allowed inside stadiums - only cardboard ones - and the sounds are missing as well. In South Korea, though, a small percentage of fans are allowed into baseball games. To get in, one must receive a temperature check, check-in with a barcode for contact tracing, and use hand sanitizer. Fans are spread out across the bleachers, and the atmosphere just isn’t the same. Many big cities are seeing slowed growth, and it may be because a generation is aging. Millennials make up the majority of the population, and they were moving to the big cities in the early parts of the century to be with the sights, sounds, and social interactions. But with the pandemic, many of these qualities are missing, and since the Millennials are also aging, they are starting to move back to the suburbs. Still, Gen Z may save the cities when they begin their own wave in the future.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Congress is debating more stimulus bills to help the US economy. They will assist businesses that are closed due to coronavirus and people who have lost their jobs. Both the Democratic and Republican packages would send direct checks to Americans, support jobless people, and spend billions on education. But they're not the same. The Democrats support spending $3 trillion while the Republicans call for $1 trillion. There are also disagreements over who would get the money. New research has found that the COVID-19 has already mutated. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many mutations to viruses, which occur when DNA/RNA is copied, end up being neutral or even harmful to them. The one in the coronavirus is on the spike protein, which helps it enter human cells. Even though it makes the virus spread faster, it doesn't appear to make it more lethal. The only major problem is, how are we going to make a vaccine? The pandemic has also affected graduating seniors. Many of them are paying to go to college when learning will actually be remote. Hear what they have to say here.

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Since January, scientists around the world have been racing to find a vaccine for COVID-19 to try to stop its spread. In fact, Russia plans to approve its first one in just two weeks. However, the speediness is creating valid concerns over the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. Normally, vaccines take years to develop, and the coronavirus vaccine is being developed over a matter of months. And even when it does come out, there are concerns that people will refuse to receive the vaccine. One poll found that just 1/3 of the population would take it, while others show 2/3 would. But if not enough people get the vaccine, we can’t have herd immunity, making the vaccine much less effective. Contact tracing is another tool that could potentially help against the pandemic. Used properly, it could alert people if they were in the vicinity of a person who tested positive for the virus. There are, however, concerns that people’s privacy could be breached. I believe these concerns are invalid. Take South Korea, a country in which contact tracing has helped contain the pandemic. No personal information is disclosed, no names, nothing. Just the fact that a person with COVID was in a certain area at what time. Back to the story. Many companies are creating devices that could help in the workplace. Cameras, which can track whether employees are wearing masks and social distancing, and wearables that maintain social distance.

Friday, July 31, 2020

America has seen its greatest GDP drop ever. Between April and June, it decreased by 9.5%, which is higher than the biggest quarterly drop during the financial crisis. The reason is coronavirus. More than 20 million jobs were reportedly lost due to closed businesses. And even though many businesses created jobs and rebounded when the US reopened, the economy still has not recovered its record-setting levels of growth. As reported on Wednesday, Congress is spending trillions to help small businesses and the jobless. Still, many small businesses are evolving or struggling. Perseverance is the name of the 2020 Mars rover. It launched this week and is scheduled to arrive on the Red Planet in February 2020. It has all sorts of new tools like cameras and sample collection kits, and it will be searching for evidence of past life. It will also carry a helicopter that may become the first to fly on another planet.

TedEd: Can you solve the troll’s paradox riddle?

A TedEd by Dan Finkel

You and your brother discover a doorway into another realm full of paradoxical creatures. But an evil troll has captured them all and is threatening to kill them. You demand it let them go, so it offers you a challenge. If you say something true, I will let them go. You are about to say it is a troll, but it grabs your brother and says that it will let him go if you say something false. Your statement must be a single sentence, and since it hates paradoxes, it cannot be a paradox. This seems impossible, but you can use coercive logic to free everyone. Coercive logic was first invented by the logician Raymond Smullyan. The trick is to “come up with a statement whose truth truth or falseness depends on what you want the troll to do.” But you still have to be careful. If you said things like, you will free the paradoxes and my brother, he could say that’s false, I’m only going to free your brother. But if you say, you will free my brother, something interesting happens. If the statement is false, then the troll would have to free your brother, but then the statement would be true, creating a paradox. The troll hates paradoxes and would never consciously create one, so the statement must be true. Then the troll will free your brother, and also the creatures because the statement is true. The creatures promise you a treasure for freeing them - if you can reach it (it’s at the top of an infinite staircase).

Bonus riddle: There are two boxes. One has treasure, the other has poison gas. One opens if you say a true statement, and the other opens to a false statement. What do you say to get the treasure and escape alive? 

TedEd: The dark history of IQ tests

A TedEd by Stefan C. Dombrowski

The IQ test was first created in 1905 by psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon. They were using it to test struggling students in France and figure out which of them needed extra attention. In the late 19th century, scientists came up with the idea that cognitive skills reflected the general intelligence, or g factor. A series of tests were given to get a single score, which was based on the average scores of an age group. Questions were adjusted based on age as well. A person’s score divided by their age time 100 yielded IQ, or intelligence quotient. Simon and Binet used the tests to measure general intelligence. But as the definition of general intelligence was not strictly defined, many people used the tests in bad ways. During WWI, for example, IQ tests were used to separate new recruits and see who was eligible for officer training. Later, they were also used when people believed in eugenics (the belief that there were desirable traits in humans that should be cultivated). Because of the belief that intelligence and traits were also linked to race and passed down by heritage, researchers used the results from army tests to claim that certain races were less intelligent than others, leading to things like the Holocaust and forced sterilizations. The problem was that they failed to account for the fact that many who took the test had limited exposure to English, being recent immigrants. However, the civil rights movements led to opposition of discrimination based on IQ from both scientific and moral standpoints. For example, evidence of environmental impact was found. The tests were recalibrated over the centuries to account for new generations, but they scored far too high on old tests to simply account for it based on inherited traits. This is known as the Flynn Effect, and scientists concluded that it occurred from things like better education and nutrition. But IQ tests aren’t fully obsolete. They can still provide good estimates of reasoning and problem solving skills. But that isn’t the same as one’s potential.

The Toll

The Toll

By Neal Shusterman

Read in 9th grade

Book 3 in series

Book 1! Scythe

Book 2! Thunderhead (Coming soon)

The 3rd and final book in the Arc of a Scythe series. It is 3 years after the sinking of Endura, and the world has changed. Robert Goddard survived the sinking and has now proclaimed himself Overblade of North Merica, claiming it was the Grandslayers’ last action. The Thunderhead has declared everyone unsavory, closing itself off to all but one, Greyson Tolliver. The Tonist cult has used this to their advantage, naming him the Toll, their spiritual leader. Meanwhile, Goddard has turned Scythedom into an absolute dictatorship, even preventing people from salvaging Endura. He doesn’t want this because the scythe rings, the only things that can crown a scythe, are there, and all his secrets are there too. However, the Amazonian Scythedom unearths the rings. And Rowan and Citra. Citra, Scythe Anastasia, has become a legend, while Rowan is universally despised as Scythe Lucifer.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

By Mark Manson

Read in 9th grade

Note: About one hundred f-words used

We all have values on which we base out success. The key to living a good life is choosing the right values. Conventional self-improvement gurus suggest visualizing what you want to be and set your goals based on those standards. However, visualizing this potential only reinforces the fact that you don’t have it, leading a loss of direction. For example, everyone wants a big house, nice car, and lots of money. But in today’s world, when we are constantly bombarded by people who have it, this only makes us sad that we don’t. And even if one does achieve this goal, they have used up the majority of their lifetime pursuing this one thing, and are now lost. Life is full of problems. And you can’t ever solve all of them. The key is choosing the problems that you choose to care about.

Supernova

Supernova

By Melissa Meyer

Read in 9th grade

Book 3 in series

Book 1! Renegades

Book 2! Archenemies

This is the third and final book in the Renegades series. Nova (Nightmare) returns to Renegade headquarters in her uniform the day after she destroyed it as an Anarchist, escaping with Ace Anarchy’s helmet only to find that the Renegades captured him. Adrian is furious because he thinks that Nightmare hurt Max, who is in critical condition, when it was really Frostbite, who accidentally stabbed him instead of Nightmare. He also finds it suspicious that she wasn’t affected by Max’s power.

    After the nights’ events, the Council has decided to include Ace Anarchy’s neutralization and execution as part of the public reveal for Agent N. To make matters worse, Gennisa Clark and her team, who were neutralized by Nightmare, are mad at the Council, renouncing their development and use of Agent N.

TedEd: How do our brains process speech?

A TedEd by Gareth Gaskell

We learn a lot of words over the course of our lives. By age 20, we know as much as 52,000. By age 60, we average between 35 and 56 thousand. Most words take less than a second to say out loud, and when we hear them, our brains have to make a split second decision on which word, out of the many thousands, it is. We are correct about 98% of the time. So how do we do it? One important part is that our brains can do many activities at the same time. Many scientists believe that each word in our brain is connected to a different neural network that identifies the likelihood of heard speech matching that word. These neurons are in the brain’s cortex. When we hear the beginning of a word, many of these units become active because many words can have similar beginnings. As the word goes on, the words that are missing crucial parts begin to go inactive, eventually narrowing down to one word. This often occurs before the end of the word, and the point at which one word is selected is called the recognition point. Most people can recognize up to 8 syllables per second. We also need to know the meaning of the word, and our brain accesses many different words/meanings during the word before settling on the correct one. Recognition happens more quickly when we are given context, especially with words that have multiple meanings or homophones. For multilingual people, they must also match the language they are hearing in order to eliminate incorrect words or meanings. But what happens when we learn new words? What prevents new neural patterns from erasing old ones? Scientists believe that to avoid this problem, new words go first to the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain, instead of the cortex so that words can’t overlap. Then when we sleep, the new words gradually transfer over with the old words, becoming part of our neural network.

TedEd: The history of the Cuban Missile Crisis

A TedEd by Matthew A. Jordan

After World War II, people lived in a constant state of fear during 45 years. During the Cold War, everyone knew that they could be wiped out with nuclear missiles at the push of a button. During this time, the US and USSR had a global face-off, each with enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other. And the closest it got was during the 13 days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1961, the US attempted to overthrow the new Communist government of Cuba in an attack known as the Bay of Pigs (the Cold War was about Capitalism vs. Communism). It failed, and Cuba decided to get protection from Russia. The USSR sent nuclear missile to Cuba, both to protect the island and to down size the US missiles in Turkey and Italy. US intelligence agencies learned about the plan far too late, and an emergency meeting was held on October 16, 1962. Military leaders suggested an airstrike, but Kennedy didn’t want to be hasty. He announced that the US would be blocking all shipments to Cuba, except for necessities. This was because a full naval blockade was considered an act of war, while Kennedy could simply call it quarantine if necessities were allowed in. The Soviets didn’t like that, and 6 days of global terror ensued, with the US demanding the removal of missiles and the Soviets insisting they were only defensive. On October 27, a spy plane was shot down over Cuba. Then, a nuclear armed USSR submarine was intercepted by a US navy vessel. The sub was too deep to communicate with the surface, and since its commanders thought war had begun, they had to decide whether to fire a nuclear torpedo. It had to be a unanimous decision by its three officers. But one of them, Vasili Arkhipov, wouldn’t let the others launch. This decision may have saved the world. Still, the US was on DEF CON 2, a level of defensiveness one level from total nuclear war. Robert Kennedy and Anatoly Dobrynin held secret talks in Washington, and reached a deal - The USSR would remove its missiles if the US removed theirs and agreed not to attack Cuba. And the crisis was over. The decision was criticized at the time, saying that each side had bargained with the enemy, but today we admire the two leaders’ ability to diplomatically solve the crisis.

TedEd: How do solar panels work?

A TedEd by Richard Komp

The Sun produces a lot of energy. The Earth gets as much as 173,000 terawatts of it every day. That’s 10,000 times more than the entire planet uses. So could we become entirely dependent on solar energy? A solar panel is made up of smaller solar cells. Each cell is typically made of silicon, a semiconductor. Silicon is put between two conductors. There are two types of silicon used - N and P. N type has extra electrons, while P is missing some. When photons from the Sun hit the solar cell, something called P/N Junction occurs. A photon with enough energy will knock an electron out of its spot, leaving a hole behind. Because of the electric field at the P/N Junction, the electrons will go toward the N silicon and the remaining spaces to the P. Then, the electrons run through a circuit, eventually returning to the P silicon to fill the holes. Because it cycles through, the solar cells don’t wear out, lasting for many years. Each cell only produces 1/2 volt, but many of them can be put together to make a solar panel. So why can’t the entire world run on solar power? There are many physical and logistical challenges to making that work. First, not all parts of the world receive enough solar energy. Also, clouds and nighttime make sunlight less readily available, so effective storage and movement of energy would be needed to make this work. Secondly, solar cells aren’t very efficient yet. If a photon is reflected, or an electron returns to a hole before going through the circuit, energy is lost. The most efficient solar cell so far only makes use of 46% of total available energy, and widely available ones are 15~20% effective. Still, with enough space and infrastructure, it would be possible. As much as hundreds of thousands of square miles of space would be needed, which isn’t actually very much. In fact, solar panels are already competing with electricity from the grid, and floating solar farms at sea could take things even further. There are also billions of developing communities, many of which have ample sunlight with little to no electricity who could benefit. But in places with many cloudy days or little daylight, solar power could be a little way off.

The New Yorker: Getting Out Of Town Without a Patdown

The New Yorker: Getting Out Of Town Without a Patdown

By Sheila Marikar

    Getting out of town, especially these days, can be a hassle. Road trips need rest stops, and flights need to go through T.S.A. But there is a better way. JSX has a dozen planes with 30 passenger capacity that go between private hangars/airports. There is no line, so it certain beats taking off from, say, LAX.

    JSX is not a commercial airline, so there is no need for T.S.A security checks. There is a background check when one purchases a ticket, and a thermal sensor at the gate that alerts to anything over 100.4 degrees.

Time: The Four Year Plan For America

Time: The Four Year Plan For America

By Jeffrey Kluger

    President Trump has destroyed many environmental policies over just 4 years. He pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris Agreement, loosened emissions policies, and opened up protected land for drilling and mining. He has signed more than 100 deregulating policies, more than half of which have already gone into effect. If Biden gets elected, what could he do to reverse these policies?

    The biggest move would probably be recommitting to the Paris Agreement. It would make a global statement that the US is going to be at the forefront of climate control again. However, this wouldn’t necessarily be easy. He will have to negotiate a way back in, with a deal that would sound sweet to the 196 other nations involved. The easiest way would be to up the US’s commitment with higher percentages of cut emissions.

    Then, domestically, Biden would need to make sure he actually follows through. Luckily for him, Congress was divided during Trump’s term, meaning that most of his policies were fluid Executive Orders that Biden could easily undo with his own laws on Day 1. After that, he would most likely look to old laws for guidance in the way forward, and make them stricter. Passing those laws, though, would require both a Democratic hold in the House and a flip in the Senate. He could also attach environmental regulations to COVID economic recovery bills that would be more likely to pass.

    Biden will have a lot to cleanup from Trump’s four years. The environment may be the biggest mess.

See also: Time: The Defining Year

National Geographic: Our team climbed Everest to try to solve its greatest mystery

National Geographic: Our team climbed Everest to try to solve its greatest mystery

By Mark Synnott

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people to summit Everest and tell the story. But were they really the first to set foot there? A century ago, Andrew Irvine and George Mallory were descending the mountain when they suddenly went missing. Researchers now have evidence that Irvine have tumbled down to a ridge at about 27,700 feet, on the Chinese side. Irvine was recorded to have been carrying a Kodak camera, and since he was climbing 29 years before Hillary and Norgay, it could rewrite history.

Time: The Defining Year

Time: The Defining Year

By Justin Worland

2020 is a pivotal year for climate change. Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, the global temperature has risen 1.1%. Experts warn that if it crosses the 2% threshold, the gradual climate change we have been seeing will speed up, having disastrous consequences. But the pandemic has slowed emissions and the economy, and that gives us a chance. We could urge companies that are being bailed out to invest in greener methods, or we could create coal fueled power plants to stimulate the economy - thus sealing our fate. 

    President Trump isn’t helping. In April, when oil prices tanked, he called executives together and promised to save them, which he did.

Air and Space: Secret Mission for an Old MiG

Air and Space: Secret Mission for an Old MiG

By Craig Mellow

    The Russian MiG-31 fighter is an obsolete plane that hasn’t flown in years. It was mainly used to track down US spy planes during the Cold War. More recently, it has been repurposed to be able to carry the Kinzhal hypersonic missile to help Russia get back into the arms race. But its most intriguing factor comes from a leaked image of it carrying a missile even bigger than the half ton Kinzhal. Observers have speculated that it could be used to knock low-earth-orbit satellites out of the sky.

    So why is Russia using the -31? It is big. It weighs 42,000 kilograms and an attain speeds of up to Mach 2.4. It does this by traveling high up in the atmosphere to reduce air resistance. Back in the day, it carried up to 4 missiles and earned the name “Foxhound” from its NATO opponents.

 

The New Yorker: How Pandemics Wreak Havoc - And Open Minds

The New Yorker: How Pandemics Wreak Havoc - And Open Minds

By Lawrence Wright

    The plague at the end of the Middle Ages brought along destruction - but also the Renaissance. So will the COVID-19 pandemic do the same? Lawerence Wright spoke with a retired Italian professor about the similarities between the pandemics. Gianna Pomata described the Middle Ages during the Black Death. Italy was broken up into a series of city states ruled by feudalism. However, medicine wasn’t very good. People believed that heavenly bodies, such as God, had sent the plague as a punishment. It swept through much of Russia and Asia before hitting Italy, and it left severe devastation in its wake. Many conspiracy theories popped up, such as the belief that toilets prevented the plague, and doctors didn’t help much either. Some tried their best to have fun, while others sheltered in place, like in Decameron’s story.

TedEd: The Egyptian myth of the death of Osiris

A TedEd by Alex Gendler

Set, the warrior god, was jealous of his brother, Osiris, who ruled over all of Egypt and brought prosperity to the land. So, he devised an evil plan to destroy him. He invited all the gods to a party, and brought out a stone coffin. Whoever could fit in it perfectly would get a gift. As he had planned, only Osiris fit. Once he was inside, Set slammed the lid shut and put the coffin in the Nile. He floated away, and the coffin ended up in Byblos, where a tree grew around it. Osiris’ s presence created an aura around the tree, and the king of Byblos has it chopped down and taken to his palace. Meanwhile, Isis, Osiris’s wife and sister, sought the help of her sister, Set’s wife (Nephtys), to help. Following clues, they eventually made it to Byblos, where Isis turned into an old woman and became the prince’s caretaker. She made him immortal by putting him in flames, and when the horrified queen found out, she demanded the wood in return. But when she opened the coffin, Osiris was dead. So she hid the body until she could figure out how to resurrect him. But while she was doing that, Set found the body, cut it up, and spread the pieces throughout Egypt. But Isis wasn’t ready to give up yet. She tracked down every bit of Osiris - except his penis - and put him back together. But without all his body parts, Osiris couldn’t remain in the land of the living or rule Egypt again. So he went off the rule the land of the dead, but before he did, he and Isis had a son - one who would grow up strong and avenge his father.

Archenemies

Archenemies

By Melissa Meyer

Read in 9th grade

The second installment in the series opens with Nova, Adrian, and the rest of their team chasing drug stealers. They follow them, but one of the henchmen grabs a young girl and threatens to kill her. Because the Code says to avoid civilian casualties at all cost, Nova and Adrian let him go. Luckily, Ruby (Red Assassin) and Oscar (Smokescreen). Get him from behind. Danna (Monarch), Nova, and Adrian go after Hawthorn, the prodigy who assisted the burglars. Adrian slips away and puts on his Sentinel armor. When Hawthorn begins to get away on a barge, Adrian follows her. Unfortunately, he loses and is tossed into the water. He returns to his team with a bad explanation for why he is soaked as the Renegades search the river for the Sentinel’s body.

Renegades

Renegades

By Marissa Meyer

Read in 8th grade

Book 1 in series

Book 2! Archenemies

Book 3! Supernova

The Renegades are prodigies - people with superpowers, and they are attempting to rebuilt Galton City after the supervillain Ace Anarchy tried to destroy it. But his allies, the Anarchists, aren’t ready to give up. They have a hidden member. Nova Artino, alias Nightmare, who can put people to sleep with her touch. Her job is to kill the invincible Captain Chromium, one of the original Renegades, in his eye, his only weak spot. But she fails, and chaos ensues. She is trapped by Monarch, Red Assassin, and Smokescreen, when a mysterious vigilante named the Sentinel shows up. The Puppeteer, her ally, saves her with a puppet string, when Captain Chromium hits the engine of their balloon.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

By Malcolm Gladwell

Read in 9th grade

How do word-of-mouth epidemics work? They start, spread rapidly, start slowing, then go away, right? But how are they started? Gladwell explores the three rules for epidemics. The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The Law of the Few. All social epidemics are started by three small groups of people. Think about your social circle. If you think about where a relationship started can most be traced back to one person? That person is a Connector. They score very high on tests that determine how many people they know. Paul Revere was this kind of person, and it is this trait that helped him succeed where William Dawes failed.

One of Us Is Next

One of Us Is Next

By Karen M. McManus

Read in 9th grade

Teen book

Book 2 in series

Book 1! One of Us Is Lying

The drama is all over in Bayview...or is it? The aftermath of About That has changed Bayview High School. And Maeve, Phoebe, and Knox are getting roped into it. Many About That copies have popped up, most of them bad. But the latest is playing a game of Truth or Dare. And the first candidate? Phoebe. When she refuses to play, the Unknown exposes her. She slept with her sister’s boyfriend. This cracks Phoebe’s relationships with her sister and friends down to just Knox and Maeve. Now, people know: Always pick Dare. School mascots on street signs, kissing random people, the fear and interest levels are matching About That.

One of Us Is Lying

One of Us Is Lying

Karen M. McManus

Read in 9th grade

Teen book

5 high school seniors, each with a secret to keep, all in one room for detention because of a phone that wasn’t theirs. Then, one of them, Simon, dies while the teacher is outside the room to investigate a car accident. No one can figure out which one of the other four did it. To make matters worse, the boy who died was the creator of About That, an app that exposed the deepest secrets of everyone in the school. And his next post was about the four in the room. The story makes media headlines as each person is exposed, Bronwyn for cheating through chemistry, Addy for cheating on her boyfriend, Nate on selling drugs, and Cooper for being gay. It makes their lives horrible, but instead of turning on each other and making accusations, they band together and dig in to the story behind the boy who was murdered. He had depression, he made nasty posts on revenge forums, and had the whole school in his grip with his secrets. They finally find something. Someone continued About That after the murder, and at least one was written by Addy’s boyfriend, Jake. Then, Nate is arrested because the medication Simon needed to survive the day he died is found in his locker. But all is not over. Addy finds from Simon’s girlfriend that Jake was told about her cheating, and teamed up with Simon to get revenge. No one murdered Simon. It was suicide. And he wanted it to be different, something people would remember, and wanted revenge in the process. With this evidence, Nate is freed, and all is well.

...Or is it? Read One of Us Is Next here.

Note: There is a whole lot more romance and sexual content than I have written here.

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

By Edwin A. Abbott

Read in 9th grade

Square lives in Flatland, a two dimensional world with height and width. Their world has all four cardinal directions, but no up or down, and its subjects could not possibly comprehend such a thing. In this world, all women are lines, with varying lengths based on age. The lowest class of men are isosceles triangles, with vertex angle measures depending on their status. These shapes can eventually get into the class of equilateral triangles by increasing angle measures every generation. After that, every generation results in an increased number of sides by one, until a shape is Polygonal, and eventually has so many sides as to be called a circle. One day, Square has a dream where he visits Lineland, a one dimensional world that is, quite literally, a line.

A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time

By Madeleine L’engle

Read in 9th grade

Meg Murry is not a normal 14-year-old girl. Ever since her father disappeared on the pretense of work, she has been a troublesome, unwilling girl at school. None of the children like her, and adults believe she is foolish for believing her father is alive. She has three brothers. The twins are normal, but Charles Wallace, just a baby, is different. He is super smart, and can somehow sense things others can’t. One day, he takes Meg up the hill to the haunted house, where three eccentric old ladies live. They speak of a tesseract, and they know where Meg’s father is. They “tesser” through the universe to a planet just outside of a certain “Black thing” that their father is fighting. There, the three women’s identities are revealed.

TedEd: What is phantom traffic and why is it ruining your life?

A TedEd by Benjamin Seibold

You’re driving along when suddenly, all the cars in front of you slow down. There’s no accident, stop light, no speed limit or road changes. So what’s happening? This is a phenomenon known as the phantom traffic jam. For this to occur, there must be a lot of cars on the road. This doesn’t mean that there are too many cars for the road - at least when everyone is driving at the same speed and maintaining spacing between cars. But all it takes is a small change. If one driver brakes a little, each following car will brake a little harder, creating a chain of stop and go. This can continue down a highway for many miles. When there are fewer cars on the road, minor changes in one car do not affect the others, because the others have room to adjust. However, when cars get less than about 35m apart, dynamic instability occurs. This effect causes natural phenomena as well, like raindrops. When a group passes a critical density, each additional object decreases the number of objects passing through a certain point at a certain time. This usually occurs because drivers brake too late and accelerate too quickly in traffic jams. This in turn causes waves of braking, and the cycle continues. Self driving cars can help solve this problem by taking data from other cars to maintain the proper speed, equal to that of the average flow. In the case where there is already a traffic jam, they could brake more softly than a human driver, decreasing the effect of the wave. And studies have found that it only takes 1 in every 20 cars to be self driving, so future innovations could save energy and make our commutes more efficient.

TedEd: Can you solve the rebel supplies riddle?

A Ted Ed by Alex Gendler

You are delivering supply boxes to a rebel base in enemy territory. To get past customs, all boxes must follow this rule: If a box has an even number on the bottom, it must have a red top. Someone calls and tells you that 2 of the boxes are marked wrong, but they don’t know which ones. You can see video of them, and two boxes show red and black tops, respectively, and the other two show the bottom numbers 4 and 7. Which boxes do you have to check to make sure the boxes pass customs? You only have to check two. The one with the 4 and the one with the black top. Since the 4 needs to have a red top, you check it; the black box needs to be checked because it can’t have an even number. If it is even, it must be a red top. But don’t we need to check the red box? No, that’s a simple error called the Fallacy of the Converse. This means that just because one condition means another, it does not go the other way. Here, an even number leads to a red box - that doesn’t mean a red box must have an even number. So, you check the black and #7 boxes and save the day.

Bonus: There are four new boxes, except these have labels of food types. Three of them have been mixed up. How many boxes do you have to check to make sure the labels are correct?

Paper Towns

Paper Towns

By John Green

Read in 9th grade

This is a teen book

Quentin Jacobsen has lived in awe of Margo for his entire life. He lives in Jefferson Park, Florida, and he used to be friends with Margo when he was young. One day, they saw a man who had killed himself. Quentin was super scared, but Margo was interested. “And in everything that came afterward, [he] could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.” It is now in high school, and Margo is far from Quentin, despite living next door, because she is top dog in the school, orchestrating everything cool that happens. But one night, she climbs back into his bedroom to take him on an adventure.

TedEd: The Turing Test: Can a computer pass for a human?

A TedEd by Alex Gendler

One of the questions that has plagued computers. What is consciousness? Can a computer really think? These are all very complex questions. British computer scientist Alan Turing decided to try a different question. Can a computer talk like a human? He created a new way of measuring AI’s, and it is known as the Turing Test. In it, an evaluator has text conversations with unknown human participants. He then evaluates the responses. If a computer can take the place of one of the participants without the evaluator noticing, it passes. He predicted that by 2000, AI’s with at least 100 megabytes of memory would easily pass his test. However, only very few have. And many of those that have have done more trickery than true intelligence. The first computer that passed the test acted like a psychologist, letting the human talk and sending their own questions back at them. Another acted like a paranoid schizophrenic, dominating the conversation to his own script. This was a loophole in the test, which has now been largely resolved through formal competitions and judges knowing beforehand that some of the conversations would be with machines. Still, many chat bots use this method, like a robot that talked well about Bill Clinton and one that took the persona of a Ukrainian boy, thus causing judges to assume odd grammar was a language barrier. Some smarter programs have analyzed huge databases of conversations, or learned from previous ones, to sound incredibly human. However, they lack a consistent personality and can’t deal with unknown topics. Human conversations are incredibly complex, and computers, despite their increasing memory and processing power, can’t deal with simple pauses like “Umm..” or sentences that require previous knowledge. So it turns out that to solve Turin’s challenge, we may have to think about consciousness after all.

TedEd: Why isn’t the Netherlands underwater?

A TedEd by Stefan Al

The Netherlands has long been battered by storms and floods. In 1953, a surge in the North Sea flooded the Dutch coastline, killing nearly 2,000 people. But 54 years later, a similar storm was prevented by something known as the Delta Works. The storm was detected by state-of-the-art sensors, which activated Maeslantkering, two 240 meter steel arms closed across the channel, protecting the Netherlands. They moved on 680 ton ball joints to move in rhythm with the waves. These barriers are part of the larger system mentioned above, the Delta Works. The country is located on the delta of three major European Rivers, and nearly 25% of its territory is below sea level, making the area prone to floods. After 1953, the Dutch government created the Delta Commision. It’s mission? Protect the entire southwest region. They started by damming the estuaries, large inlets that allowed the rivers to flow out, and flood waters to pour in. The dams transformed these estuaries into lakes. However, there was one canal that needed to remain open for shipping, and the Maeslantkering was the solution. There were also many traditional solutions, like dikes and seawalls. Many communities were also moved inland to provide more space for flood waters to collect in flood plains. Some to the newest Netherland cities provide good examples of the benefits of this. The newer parts of cities have been artificially elevated above sea level, and many roofs are green, and can store rainwater. Underground structures like parking lots can transform into water storage facilities in a flood, and floating structures are also being created.