Immigration: A Lesser Known Perspective

For many the story of immigration involves a long trip to America to fulfill dreams and change the way they live life. Few people in America remember that some people move away from this country for similar reasons. Wesley Belleman, a sophomore at WPI, was one of these people as he grew up separated from his home country.

We Need More Than Engineers to Engineer a Solution

Posted on Telegram. Republished for use.

Hospitals and medical care in Western Africa are nothing but chaotic. Ill patients vomiting and having extreme diarrhea caused by Ebola. Medical workers are covered head-to-toe in white protective gear. The African heat only adds to the uncomfortable environment. Because of the atmosphere and high mortality rates in the facilities, Patricia Stapleton, Director of Society, Technology, and Policy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said, “People see the hospital as a place of death they do not see it as a place for help.”

Where are the Friendly Strangers?

Photo of Maggie Velloso used with permission.

“English was so hard,” Maggie noted when talking about her biggest adjustment.

Maggie, 19, from Bridgeport, Connecticut, changed her life at the age of 10 when she moved from Brazil to the United States.

You have been Forewarned: What to Expect When Seeing the Girl on Fire

Republished under fair use.

One Christmas when I was about eight years old, my aunt and uncle bought me the strangest bag from India. I thought to myself why did they give me this gift? With disappointment on a wasted gift, I hid the bag inside my closet and forgot about it for years. A few years later, I purged through my closet and stumbled upon the bag from India. When I picked it up, I fell in love; I thought to myself how could I have not liked such a beautiful, detailed, hand-made bag?

Revolutions and Reality

Tahrir Square protesters celebrating Mubarak’s resignation in Feb 2011. Photo by Jonathan Rashad. Republished under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

Revolutions in the news sound like fairy tales, where “the people” ignore their differences and unite to destroy an evil dictator, who soon falls to cheers of liberty and harmony.

But it really doesn’t happen that way. “The people” are really several groups with different ideologies, who only succeed as the existing government’s repressive powers wane. They might agree on some points–but they don’t ignore their differences forever. After all, someone has to replace the old guard. With that in mind, the past few years’ turmoil in Egypt looks a lot less surprising.

Full-Tilt Jam Session – Review of Abandon Ship by Knife Party

Album art copyright Knife Party/Warner Music UK. Republished under fair use.

Knife Party, as far as side projects go, has gotten really big. The electronic music act features Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, two members of the Australian band Pendulum. They had started Pendulum back in 2002 as rock and metal musicians dabbling in computer music, and had since achieved major success with their signature mix of rock and electronic music.

But in 2011 Swire posted a 20-second clip titled, “Not Pendulum,” featuring a glitchy, rumbling dance track that had more in common with Skrillex than his old work. That clip became Knife Party. Since then, the duo has shifted their attention from Pendulum to Knife Party, releasing three EPs, or four-track mini-albums, augmenting the violent, distorted synths of electro house and dubstep with a goofy sense of humor and–I can only imagine–a love for cheesy sci-fi/horror flicks.

You can hear this in action in songs like “EDM Death Machine,” which kicks off with, “In the future, nobody will drop the bass/No one will do the Harlem Shake,” then continues by remixing “Sandstorm,” that trance song that has never stopped playing since 1999. And then there’s “Centipede,” which starts with a 40-second clip about giant killer centipedes hunting tarantulas. Yup. But if you watched “Breaking Bad,” you’ve probably heard the Knife Party song “Bonfire,” that wall-shaking love child of reggae and dubstep that graced the fifth season.

And now the duo is back with a full album, “Abandon Ship.” And it’s amazing.

Building STEAM

A makerspace. Facilities like these embody the creative ethos of the STEAM movement. Picture by Mitch Altman, republished under CC-BY-SA 2.0 license.

Fourth graders in clear goggles peering into microscopes. High schoolers typing up programs on sticker-covered laptops. The symbol π (pi) emblazoned on everything. That is the world of STEM education, a recent push to teach students skills for the future: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. But now many are asking, “Is that it?”

Enter the STEAM movement, which adds “Art” into STEM, placing creativity not as a secondary citizen in schools but as a vital piece for fostering American innovation.

Lost and Found: Using Modern Science to Uncover Richard III

[Image of the earliest portrait of Richard III from the London Society of Antiquaries found on Wikimedia Commons under public domain]

It only took them 527 years to find King Richard III.

The final resting place of this British monarch, killed in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, was lost until only recently. Following the excavation of the supposed skeleton in 2012, a group of scientists led by Dr. Turi King of the University of Leicester confirmed the identity of the remains in an article published this December in the journal “Nature Communications.” They factored in the overwhelming historical, archeological, and biological evidence to conclude that the skeleton is in fact that of King Richard III.

The Sims 4: A Better Take on Old Gameplay

As a life simulator “The Sims” has no clear goal for the player, but still grabs the attention of anyone who plays it. In February of 2000 a developer, Maxis, released “The Sims” for Windows computers. The game introduced a new style of gameplay to the market and by early 2002 had become the best-selling PC game in history.

The British Are Coming…But in a Police Box?

[Image by jak2203 on DeviantArt under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License]

Walk into any sci-fi convention like Comic-Con and you’re bound to find a few people dressed as metal-encased Daleks and hear the buzzing of a sonic screwdriver. You may even run into attendees wearing bowties or curiously striped scarves shouting ‘Allons-y!’ If these elements don’t ring a bell, you’re most likely part of the ever-decreasing population of Americans who are unfamiliar with the British television show and cultural phenomenon, “Doctor Who.”