Issue 61: Cascade

Waiting until the last minute: How COVID-19 reinforced procrastination

Culture, Psychology / /

Two days prior to the deadline of this article, not a single word had been written. Procrastination has been a problem for generations of students, which few remedies have successfully solved. This obstacle will not fade any time soon and may have been exacerbated recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Procrastination is the intentional delaying […]

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Temperature tells: How facial hot spots can reveal how well you are aging

Health / /

A person’s face is worth a thousand words. Tiny muscles beneath the skin dictate whether we grin or grimace, scrunch up our faces, or stick out our tongues. Both anxiety and excitement fill the capillaries of our cheeks with blood, which may even turn pink, and warm with embarrassment or exhilaration. When we’re truly terrified

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The Polaris spacewalk: Do we need billionaires exploring the final frontier?

Space / /

On the morning of September 10th, SpaceX launched a crew of 4 non-professional astronauts 870 miles above Earth’s surface to test the performance of the company’s spacesuits while in orbit as part of its Polaris Dawn space mission. One of the members of this crew in particular is notable for the lead role he plays

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​Macrophytes: The next best solution to the fertilizer shortage?

Environment / /

Often dismissed as slimy plants lurking beneath lakes and rivers, macrophytes may actually hold the key to the looming agricultural fertilizer crisis. Excess nutrients in water bodies, known as eutrophication, allow macrophytes to thrive. When aquatic plants die and eventually decompose, oxygen is consumed, creating anoxic conditions that can kill fish and other organisms. Eutrophication

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Utilizing voltage to slow coastal erosion

Environment / /

Tidal flooding, extreme weather, climate migration: Rising sea levels have led to countless consequences that threaten people’s livelihoods. But beneath the alarm that headlines like “Oceanfront Home Collapses” incite, there is a slower, more insidious repercussion: coastal erosion. A new assessment by Climate Central predicts that 4.4 million acres of US citizens’ property will be

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Time is running out on the New York climate clock

Environment / /

Along New York City’s East 14th Street looms the foreboding Climate Clock, an art installation with the mission of catalyzing environmental change. Standing four stories tall over Union Square, this spectacle features a massive digital clock ticking down to environmental catastrophe. The screen, which spans 80 feet wide and counts downward by seconds in orange-tinted

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Crisis on the nanoscale: Can metal nanoparticles stop the spread of superbugs?

Biology / /

After the revolutionary discovery of antibiotics in 1910, bacterial infections — once the leading cause of human mortality — became readily preventable, contributing to a 23-year rise in average lifespan. Although traditional antibiotics like amoxicillin and doxycycline continue to save millions, decades of overprescription are catalyzing the rise of deadly new pathogens. Prolonged exposure to

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