A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 2: Crests, Horns and Sails

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 2: Crests, Horns and Sails

Stefan Lungu
Science & Nature

The Early Jurassic World was a very uniform one. After the extremes of heat and drought that characterized the Triassic, a brief period of global cooling had reduced their therapsid and croc-line competitors to a handful of small mammals and lizardlike creatures and allowed the formerly restricted dinosaurs to spread throughout the world (Dunne et al). With the continents joined together, there were no major barriers to their dispersal, and so for the first time in dinosaur history, faunas the world over looked much the same (Holtz). Some faunal elements would have been familiar, if rare, parts of a Late Triassic ecosystem: long-tailed pterosaurs in the air, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs in the sea, bipedal prosauropods and small coelophysids on land. Others were more novel: elephant-sized sauropods, bipedal and armored ornithischians, and hunting them all, the first truly large (6m+), apex-predator theropods. 

Unfulfilled Promises: The Shortcomings of the ICC in Pursuing Global Justice

Unfulfilled Promises: The Shortcomings of the ICC in Pursuing Global Justice

Chantal Pangula
Political Process, Politics, Public Policy

As the list of countries haunted by genocides and war crimes grows—Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name but a few—the notion of justice becomes increasingly translucent, mirroring the institutions that are supposed to champion it. With the International Court of Justice (ICJ) capturing headlines for South Africa's legal Case against Israel, we need to scrutinize another key player in the arena of international law: the International Criminal Court (ICC). This institution is tasked with bringing individuals to account for their roles in war crimes. Yet, as we delve deeper, we find the reality is often as ambiguous as the concept of justice itself, revealing a fine line between the idealistic pursuit of accountability and the practical challenges it faces. This situation demands a closer look at the ICC's operational efficacy and the broader implications for global justice and accountability. 

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 1: Setting the Scene

A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 1: Setting the Scene

Stefan Lungu
Science & Nature

Theropods (meat-eating dinosaurs) permeate popular culture. Anyone who’s ever had a passing interest in dinosaurs knows T. rex and Velociraptor. They fill books and movies; they’re perpetual objects of childhood fascination for their size, power, and ferocity. They’re windows into a world lost forever, that we can only ever look dimly into. And, in the form of birds, they’re still around today. In this series, we’ll be looking at the Mesozoic through the eyes of theropods, taking a walk up the tree of life and through time to track the ever-changing Mesozoic world and our changing knowledge of it. We’ll see the roles they played in their ecosystems and look at their evolution and diversity, along with a number of historically important discoveries that helped enrich our view of the Age of Reptiles and the predators that stalked through it.

Unraveling the Convoluted Yemen’s Civil Strife (2015-2022)

Unraveling the Convoluted Yemen’s Civil Strife (2015-2022)

Malik Muhammad Hamza
Politics

Yemen, a nation entangled in the throes of a relentless civil war since 2015, finds itself grappling with a myriad of historical, political, and economic complexities. The conflict has become one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, captivating international attention. In this exploration, we delve into the roots of this turmoil, dissecting its historical antecedents, examining geopolitical influences, and shedding light on the humanitarian toll it has exacted. Readers, in general, often have this misconception that this conflict is somewhat of a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran or that the civil war is fought on a sectarian front. This article, however, disapproves of that and attempts to ascertain that the civil war occurred due to historical marginalization in terms of political imbalance and economic inequality.

Allergies are Expensive

Allergies are Expensive

Rob Moia
Health & Wellness

Clashing opinions are what make up the bulk of the press in the United States. Many argue in one direction and the rest in others. One undeniable trait the US holds is the high price of healthcare and health-related products. In any case, treatments can cost you an exorbitant amount and even more without the aid of insurance. Millions across America are burdened with medical costs too high to afford, and it’s almost always for something they can’t help. 

Napoleon the Unlikely Emperor

Napoleon the Unlikely Emperor

Ryan Dulaney
International Affairs

Napoleon Bonaparte’s momentous life was composed of serendipity and an extraordinary degree of ambition and intelligence. By all accounts, he serves as a prime example of the Great Man Theory, an approach to history that claims it can be explained by the impact of individual leaders rather than contingencies of collective humanity. Some great men were shaped by the era they lived in, others shaped those eras themselves. Napoleon was the latter. 

Alleviating Poverty with UBI

Alleviating Poverty with UBI

Hope Lambert
Current Events, Economics

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a revolutionary idea that ensures everyone receives the basics to survive. The goal is to provide citizens a monthly stipend, between $250-$1,000, to reduce the number of people who struggle to pay for necessities such as house payments, food, and water so that they can focus on other goals like education, quality time with family, and personal hobbies. Poverty creates a life of instability with work, unstable living situations, and little to no access to education. Whenever we speak about poverty, people tend to think that this is only an issue experienced by those unwilling to work (or considered lazy by some).

The Dance Between Democracy and Capitalism

The Dance Between Democracy and Capitalism

Amira Zidan

Throughout history, there have been various political and economic systems that have metamorphosed into the systems that drive the politics and economies of the world today, ones of which are democracy and capitalism, whose prevalence can’t be denied, and one school of thought believes that they both go hand in hand… Do you think so, too?

The History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Ryan Dulaney
Current Events

The war in Gaza has absorbed the attention of the international community, and for good reason. The humanitarian disaster there is an abhorrent consequence of the tactical reality in Gaza. The conflict, while a current event, is directly connected to the region's complex history. The history of Israel’s creation in the West is an unknown and often misunderstood story of tragedy,  political strife, war, and intervention. It is a 20th-century phenomenon that stretches beyond the two central nations themselves. This article does not seek to assert an opinion on this issue but offers an accessible history to serve as a contextual backdrop to the origins of the ongoing conflict. The focus will be on the events leading up to the creation of Israel and how it connects to today.  

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