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by Priya Bhanot Edited by Jonah Boardman This article is the second part to a series on China’s Social Credit System. Part one can be found here.  source: https://www.ft.com/content/2182eebe-8a17-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543 Despite China’s Social Credit System -- a new initiative to socially rank China’s citizens using surveillance -- revolutionizing the relationship between government and privacy, it still mostly remains an academic topic of discussion. Within these academic groups, though, there is a lot of controversy over how to interpret it. Although at first the SCS may seem like a shocking new initiative that came out of nowhere, scholars of Chinese government saw it coming. For Western thinkers that support democratic ideals like freedom of speech and the right to protest, the stifling constraints on what kinds of information citizens have access to seems like an encroachment on their human rights. When talking about this issue, many experts compare the SCS with the government censorship of media and internet already happening in China. By taking a closer look at the reception and role of the internet in China itself, they hope to predict how successful this new plan might be. James Leibold, an Associate Professor in Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia, noted in an article for the Journal of Asian Studies that “it should come as no surprise that Chinese netizens are not only generally apathetic about discussing politics online but also highly supportive of government controls in cyberspace.” This brazen statement received harsh backlash in the academic community, especially from Guobin Yang, hailed an expert in the Chinese internet. While Leibold believes that the role of the internet in China differs from that of the rest of the world because of the lack of political discussion and “heavy” conversation, Yang has a much more optimistic view about how China’s perceived ‘extremism’ comes from deep cultural differences.
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By Melinda Li Edited by Sophia Collis On November 2, the Shanghai-based Green Valley Pharmaceuticals company announced that its drug, Oligomannate, was approved by the Chinese National Medical Products Administration for the treatment of “mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease and improving cognitive function.” [1] This comes as exciting news to the field of drug development for Alzheimer’s as the last therapeutic treatment, Mematine, was approved seventeen years ago. [2] Since then, billions of US dollars have been invested in over four hundred clinical trials with little success. [3]
By: Sarah Wornow Edited by: Alyscia Batista Bacteriophage therapy has existed long before antibiotics, but most people have never heard of it. Primarily developed in the Soviet Union in the early 1900s, phage therapy quickly rose to prominence in treating bacterial infections but was abandoned by Western medicine in the 1940s with the advent of antibiotics like penicillin. Antibiotics proved to be advantageous for multiple reasons. For example, a single antibiotic has the potential to clear infections caused by a diverse array of bacteria. Antibiotics are also easily mass produced and cultivated in labs.
By: Maya Mazumder Edited by: Priya Gajjar More boys are diagnosed with ADHD than girls. This is a well-established fact among researchers, with some estimating as much as a 10:1 ratio in the rates of clinical diagnosis. However, there is far less understanding of why such a striking pattern persists. For many years, doctors and psychologists simply viewed this as an aspect of the condition, characterizing the disorder as something primarily affecting grade-school boys who have difficulty sitting still and staying focused. Recent research suggests that it is not the case that ADHD only affects boys. It has become increasingly clear that both the perception and diagnostic criteria of ADHD have led many girls to go undiagnosed for years, often with massive repercussions.
by Bria Metzger, '20 Edited by Elana Balch, '21.5  By Photography, Scan and postprocessing by Hubertl - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26598694 Graphic novelist Chris Ware, when asked how he represented nature in his art, replied: “[...] there is no greater art on planet Earth than the planet itself [...] no greater beauty to be found in any painting or musical or literary work than can be found in the increasingly fine structures of any leaf, or how that leaf functions as part of its tree or its surroundings or its life cycle or the knowledge that its atoms came from stars that collapsed billions of years ago and billions of light-years away [1].”
by Priya Bhanot Edited by Jonah Boardman  Source: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/12/17/china-invents-the-digital-totalitarian-state Black Mirror -- one of Netflix’s most popular originals that explores the consequences of futuristic technology -- released an episode titled “Nosedive,” in which a young woman navigates a world dependent on social rankings. With an easy-to-follow storyline, great graphics, and interesting tech, it has the perfect elements for a mind-twisting thought experiment. At first, it may seem like an interesting take on social media and the pervasive modern tendency to value appearance over substance. More deeply, though, it grapples with the question of whether actions, relationships, networks, and, finally, people can be reduced to a single number. Perhaps what is most thought provoking, though, is that this one episode of a TV show is more widely recognizable (at least in my social circles) than the real world implementation of this exact same system. In 2012, President Xi of China published his plans for an all-encompassing social ranking system, including the installation of over 200 million cameras nationwide to track and judge his citizens.
by Shailen Sampath Edited by Ashley Nee 10 million people worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s disease (PD), a nervous system disorder that leads to progessive loss of motor function. It is unknown what PD itself is caused by; however, a lack of production of the neurotransmitter dopamine is widely accepted as a part of the disease pathology. This lack of dopamine leads to cell death in areas of the brain involved in movement, such as the substantia nigra. In a testament to the brain’s plasticity, the brain is able to compensate for this lack of dopamine production, often allowing PD to remain undiagnosed and untreated in patients for years. Following diagnosis, several treatment options - none of which are curative - are available. These treatments focus on reducing the disease’s major symptoms, such as impaired movement, and improving the quality of patients’ lives. [1]
by Sarah Wornow Edited by Alyscia Batista You probably don’t have to think back too far to remember the last time you caught a cold. With adults averaging around two to four colds per year, coming down with a cold seems inevitable. [1] But what if there was a vaccine that could prevent you from getting infected in the first place?
By: Melinda Li Edited by: Sophia Collis Who is vaping?
On August 24, 2019, the first vaping-related death in the US was reported in Illinois amidst a string of similar cases involving severe respiratory disease and e-cigarette use. [1] In a media statement addressing the event, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield said: “This tragic death in Illinois reinforces the serious risks associated with e-cigarette products, [which] are not safe for youth, young adults, pregnant women, or adults who do not currently use tobacco products.” [2 Written by Zachary Jordan '21 In the 13th century, merchant Marco Polo became famous for popularizing the Silk Road, consequently helping to vitalize a rich trading route that would connect and forever change Eastern and Western cultures. Less well known is his 7 year stop-over in Afghanistan. He had contracted debilitating tuberculosis, and hoped that the clean, fresh air of the Middle East would help him to heal. Marco got more than he bargained for when he began using opiates to help manage the pain, and his short recovery stay turned into a full blown battle with addiction.
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