CNN 10 11/30/2020 ~ 12/4/2020

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Monday, November 30, 2020

The holiday weekend was expected to be the busiest day for air travel since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. Although the Wednesday before Thanksgiving saw less than half the air travel from the same time in 2019, it was the highest it's been all year. A poll of Americans found that most people would not be changing holiday plans because of the pandemic, and numbers are expected to be even higher for Sunday. Due to the pandemic, around 50 million people in America will go hungry this year. That's nearly on par with the 2008 recession. Part of the 2.2 trillion dollar relief package passed in March will go toward feeding those in need. In terms of the economy, analysts expected higher Black Friday sales than last year. This is partially because they expect people will be willing to spend more in order to offset the psychological difficulty of the pandemic. However, some people are out of jobs, which could negatively impact shopping. Some sellers also have disruptions in the supply chain, which could lead to fewer sales due to less availability. Sarah Fuller made history on Vanderbilt's football team. She played because some specialist kickers were out over coronavirus concerns, and became the third woman to play NCAA Division I and the first to play in the Power 5 when she kicked off the second half. An animal bridge has been built over a Utah highway and is already being used by some animals. It was expected to take years, but apparently the animals like it.

The Trials of Apollo: The Tower of Nero

By Rick Riordan

*Read previous Rick Riordan Greek myth books for context

Book 5 in series

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

    Apollo has spent half a year as Lester after his fall from Olympus. After narrowly defeating Caligula and Commodus at Camp Jupiter, he and Meg are returning to New York on an Amtrack. Apollo sees a two-headed snake on the train and is immediately suspicious. When Meg is unconcerned, he tries to figure out if the snake really is evil on the pretense of going to the bathroom. The snake grabs him and utters the next stanza of Apollo's final prophecy, scaring him. Unfortunately, the regular humans can't see any of this because of the Mist and shush Apollo. After the snake delivers its prophecy, it momentarily panics about missing its station before it is killed by an arrow. Apollo turns and sees that some of Nero's henchmen have caught Meg. It turns out Meg knows one of them, a Gaul named Luguselwa. She cryptically tells them to pretend to go to the bathroom near Union Station. She and Meg pretend-fight while Apollo decouples their train car from the rest of the train, completing their escape.

CNN 10 11/9/2020 ~ 11/13/2020

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Monday, November 9, 2020

Over the weekend, most news sources declared former Vice President Biden winner of the presidential election and changed his title to the president-elect. In Pennsylvania, where Biden originally trailed Trump, mail-in ballots after Election Day helped turn the tide in Joe Biden's favor. As Biden's supporters around the country celebrated, supporters of President Trump protested. World leaders both congratulated President-elect Biden and thanked President Trump. This isn't the first time Biden has run for president; he ran unsuccessfully in 1988 and 2008 before serving and former President Obama's vice president. At nearly 78, he is the oldest president-elect in US history, while his Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman and woman of color to become vice president-elect. The makeup of the next Congress is yet to be decided. First Descents, an outdoor program for those with diseases was started by a CNN Hero. Now, it has expanded to accommodate front-line workers to give them some rest and relaxation.

One More Thing: Apple M1 chip for Mac. This changes everything.

Introducing the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, all with the Apple M1 chip

M1

    Yesterday, Apple released its first-ever line up of Macs with its own Apple Silicon, the M1 chip, in a much-awaited release. The event, which you can view above, started at Apple Park, where CEO Tim Cook outlined the progress Apple has made this fall in an unprecedented series of releases at 3 events, from OS updates to Apple Watch, iPad, and iPhone. Now, it's finally time for the Mac, Apple's most popular line of products. From Apple's top-secret chip lab, John Ternus (VP, Hardware Engineering) introduced Apple's new, high efficiency and performance chip, the M1. It uses the same Apple Silicon as Apple's other products, like Watch, iPad, and iPhone. M1 is an SoC (System on Chip). This means that all of the various chips that are normally distributed around a laptop, such as the CPU, GPU, memory, I/O, and security chips are all in one. Johny Srouji (SVP, Hardware Technologies) explains that it also features a UMA (unified memory architecture), which means that are the systems on the chip can access the same memory, making it much more efficient. Apple's chip uses the industry-leading 5nm technology to pack 16 billion transistors onto a single chip.

Caltech Tech in Medicine 2020 #3: Navigating Medicine: The MCAT

Presenter: Allison Chae

The MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test) is an approximately 6.5-hour test that all medical school applicants must take. It is divided into 4 sections with 53 or 59 questions each, and they cover Chemistry and Physics, Biology and Biochemistry, Critical Reading, and Psychology and Sociology. Students can take it up for 7 times total and 3 times a year, but the preparation process and cost is extremely high, so most take it only a few times. The Biology and Biochemistry section is generally one of the most difficult and Critical Reading is extremely obscure. It involves reading and answering questions about non-science topics, and is difficult to prepare for. Each section is graded on a scale from 118 to 132, for a total of 472~528. Last year, students scored an average of 511.5, although people applying for more prestigious colleges scored higher on average, based on the selectivity of the college. There are two major ways to prepare for the test. Some people do it over the course of a school year, while others choose to study over the summer. Although the method is the same for both paths, doing it during vacation results in more of a time crunch because you have 3 months instead of 5. Over the first third of study time, most people review the scientific content in the MCAT and familiarize themselves with the style of questions on the test. Over the next few months, people focus practice questions and review of concepts, then one month before test day, they take practice tests provided by the official test maker, AAMC. Chae recommends flashcards and Khan Academy for practice and review, UWorld QBank and AAMC for practice questions, and emphasizes well-being.

Time: Don’t panic: Why fears of post-election chaos are overblown

By Molly Ball

    Because of Trump's endless barrage of misinformation about what a fraud this year's election is going to be, very few Americans, understandably, believe that this election will be fair. And while COVID-19 and the different voting procedures may cause a few minor mishaps, a full-blown panic would be excessive.

    What are the worst-case scenarios? The most obvious ones start with not having a clear result on election night. Trump's opposition to mail-in voting means that many Republicans will be voting in-person in comparison with Democrats. Since mail-in ballots take longer to count and may come in after polls close in some states, there may be a surge of blue votes after election night, which Trump could point to as a fraud. Voter errors could also lead to legitimate ballots being thrown out, leading to a very close race.

    If this scenario plays out, President Trump will likely try to file lawsuits, convince his base that the election was a fraud, and cause general chaos. The Republican Senate and the now overwhelmingly conservative DoJ could also back him up. However, Trump cannot simply dispute the election, and there is a lengthy process to even take it to Congress, making this very unlikely.

CNN 10 11/2/2020 ~ 11/6/2020

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Monday, November 2, 2020

England is considering new COVID-19 lockdowns for the nation proposed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. This comes after new rises in cases in that country, and the lockdown, which would not extend to other British divisions, would close all non-essential businesses. People would only be allowed to leave their houses for school, doctor visits, groceries, or outdoor exercise. This could be damaging to the British economy, and several other European countries have seen protests over lockdowns. Greece and Turkey experienced an earthquake on October 30th. It has killed many and injured hundreds more. The US elections process has changed over the years, and this year will bring more change. More people are voting early or by mail this year because of the pandemic - a full two-thirds of the total who voted in 2016. This year, we might not get election results right away because of the number of mail-in ballots. Each one has to be opened, checked, and counted by hand, and each state has its own regulations for doing this. Some states allow ballots to be opened early, while others allow ballots to come in even after polls close. Even after a winner is declared, Congress has to certify the vote count for the winner to officially be the next president. Yesterday morning, most states across the US switched back to standard time. Why do we do this? Daylight Savings Time was first implemented during World War I to make the most of the day, but since days are shorter during the winter months, we have to fall back to prevent waking up in the dark. Currently, all states except Arizona and Hawaii observe Daylight Saving.