by John Preer Drama – Short Term 12 (2013) This week’s drama title is an award winning independent film by director Destin Daniel Cretton. The film centers on a supervisor for a group home of at-risk teens. Brie Larson portrays the main character, Grace, a dedicated caregiver who struggles with juggling her own personal shortcomings and the troubled teens in ...

Written by Kayla Stroud, Web Editor  Winners of the Week: Depressing Superbowl Commercials Seahawks fans weren’t the only ones pulling a long face this past Sunday night. In a night of buzzkill commercials, one stood out among the pack. Nationwide Insurance Company spent a reported $6.75 million on a Superbowl spot that left quite the impression with audiences. The commercial featured ...

by Ivey Ingalls-Rubin There’s nothing quite as frustrating and infuriating as being held up in traffic, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University may have found a solution. By exchanging all physical traffic lights with virtual lights that appear on your windshield, they suggest that this could reduce the commute time of urban workers by at least 40 percent. The use ...

by Ivey Ingalls-Rubin According to Astronauts fresh off of their space walks report that there’s a certain smell that clings to them and their equipment. NASA astronaut Don Pettit found himself describing the odor as “a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation, akin to welding fumes.” While Pettit smells sweet metal, others have reported the scent to mimic that of “charred ...

Written by Ivey Ingalls-Rubin, Staff Writer New studies have shown that young blood has reverse effects on aging when injected into older mice. From the cinema to medicine, the holy and horrific, as well as our history to the present day, we’ve always been obsessed with blood. Recently, however, scientists have been truly grasping at the power and magic that ...

Written By: Ivey Ingalls-Rubin Cooties, the real deal. According to a new report in the journal, “Microbiome,” a 10-second “intimate kiss” can transfer a monstrous 80,000,000 bacteria from the mouth of one to another. Dutch researchers rounded up 21 couples (all in the age range of 17-45) that just so happened to be visiting Artis Royal Zoo, located in Amsterdam. ...

Written By: Ivey Ingalls Rubin It feels so ridiculously good to scratch those bothersome itches, until shortly after your moment of euphoria ends and thus begins the insanely intense itch that drives you completely out of your mind. Well, have you ever wondered why that is? It’s true that scratching the itch gives way to temporary relief at first. It ...

Written By: Ivey Ingalls Rubin According to an Australian fertility specialist, in-vitro fertilization may soon be a far more reliable option for the population to reproduce than old-fashioned intercourse. Soon to come breakthroughs in IVF (at the moment a last ditch effort for infertile individuals) may drastically upgrade the effectiveness than the traditional approach. This may sound unsettling and futuristic—infants ...

Written By: Ivey Ingalls Rubin There is a virus in existence that infects the human brain and over time actually decreases cognitive ability, according to scientists in the US. The algae virus, which before now has never been observed in healthy people, was found to affect mental function. This includes visual processing and spatial awareness. Researchers at John Hopkins Medical ...

Written By: Ivey Ingalls Rubin Did you know that for every shark bite in the world, 25 people are bitten by a New Yorker? I’m not stating that sharks are harmless. They can be territorial and aggressive creatures and accidents do happen; just not as often as one might think. People have become very comfortable with exploiting the image of ...