Emily Davies

Last year, then-Facebook made waves by announcing its rebrand as Meta Platforms Inc. and its intent to usher in “the successor to the mobile internet”: the metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg’s video explaining the concept was released on YouTube in October 2021, and was met with a mixed response from the public.

The metaverse, as explained by Zuckerberg, would be an entirely new way to connect with people, allowing users to feel like they are fully immersed in experiences online using virtual reality.

STEM versus the arts: It’s a seemingly clear-cut dichotomy that many of us feel forced to choose between the wonders of literature and music or cell biology and engineering.

Ijeoma Asonye, a junior mechanical engineering major at the University of Maryland, knows this all too well — and she’s written a novel about it. The Beautiful Math of Coral, published in 2021, explores the relationship of STEM and the arts with the human experience.

Asonye began work on the book in May 2020, and eventuall

The simple phrase of “book banning” is enough to horrify any avid reader. It conjures up images of bonfires, book burnings and all the hallmarks of censorship. Understandably, book banning is seen as immoral to free speech advocates. The American Library Association reported from January 2022 to August 2022, there have been 681 different challenges directed at 1,651 separate book titles.

To support the freedom to read, the ALA holds Banned Books Week every September. This year it falls on the w

For better or worse, TikTok has become a social media force to be reckoned with in the past couple of years. Though the site has had its fair share of controversy, it remains one of the most popular online platforms for Generation Z and last year became . TikTok’s appeal lies in its accessibility, entertainment value and the variety of subcultures that have developed on the app. One such subculture is BookTok.

Reading centered subcultures have long existed on other platforms — BookTube (Book Yo

Pop culture has long viewed artificial intelligence through a somewhat paranoid lens, with movies such as The Terminator, The Matrix and 2001: A Space Odyssey speculating darkly about the possibility of ultra-intelligent computers turning against their creators. Although there’s still a bit more ground to cover before we really run the risk of any sort of machine takeover, 2022 has brought a plethora of fascinating new technologies to the scene, and it’s become clear AI is a field to watch.

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