Why Our Lives Are Not And Should Never Be Like Reality TV

BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS When young adult author Kathleen Hale read a negative review of her first novel on the popular site Goodreads, she didn’t shrug it off. Instead, she wanted to connect with the person behind the screen, and found…

Scientists Discover Both Good & Bad News For The Brains of Pot Smokers

BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS A new study has good and bad news for regular pot smokers: it appears that marijuana affects the brain, making one region smaller yet also increasing its connectivity. Researchers at the University of Texas recently published a…

MacGyver your own orgasm with these DIY sex toys.

BY: AL DONATO Sex is an industry. Even if you’re not literally buying it, you’re paying for ways to make it happen, make it better, or in the case of sex toys, substitute it. The sleek, brightly-coloured toys sold by…

These Photographs Will Challenge Your Perception of The Israel-Palestine Binary

BY: KEN CENDO Ken Cendo shows the Israel-Palestine conflict with humility by depicting the daily lives of both sides of the conflict. Despite the media binary, these photos remind us of the familiar humanness that is constant on both sides…

Three mothers share their stories of raising transgender children in the face of adversity

BY: JESSICA BURDE Fifty percent of them will have attempted suicide at least once by their 20th birthday, according to the Youth Suicide Prevention Program. Politicians, religious leaders, and business owners can endlessly debate the validity of trans* rights, but…

Neil Harbisson Is A Colour-Blind Artist Who Can Hear The Sound Of Colour

BY: PILGRIM Neil Harbisson is a British-born artist who was born with one major creative disadvantage: he’s colour blind. Luckily, Harbisson was able to rectify this unfortunate artistic drawback with the help of technology. Harbisson is the first person to…

These Poverty-Stricken Cocoa Bean Farmers Try Chocolate For The First Time

BY: PILGRIM The Ivory Coast produces 1.6 million tons of cocoa beans per annum, making it the largest cocoa bean exporter in the world. Of course cocoa is the main ingredient in chocolate, a multi-billion dollar industry. However, within the…

The Rise Of Indie Developers Marks A New Frontier Of Gaming

BY: JESSICA BURDE Gaming made The New York Times recently over the internal explosion known as “#gamergate.” For people outside of the gaming community, all this furor is giving a very narrow and two dimensional look at a complicated and…

Catherine Hennessey’s Paintings Show The Transaction of Human Perception And Human Experience

BY: CATHERINE HENNESSEY Human perception is constantly seen through the looking glass of subjectivity, a tint formed by the collision of all colours of previous experience. As humans we are merely a collage of influence— a palate of watercolours through…

These Short Camping Trips Are A Way To Pursue Adventure Without Sacrificing Vacation Time

BY: DEXTER BROWN It’s not uncommon to find Grant Petersen asleep in the wilderness one night and then hard at work in one of the two stores he owns the next day. With a mere bike and whatever he could…

It’s Not A Joke; Cassette Tapes Are Experiencing A Modern Revival

BY: ALEXANDER DOWNHAM When I saw local bands handing cassette tapes to audiences, I was initially dumbfounded. The well-known resurgence of vinyl was understandable; their full, original sound was well-known among music fanatics. But the rise of cassettes seemed to…

Eating Live Fish Might Just Be The Most Sadistic Meal On Earth (Video)

BY: TED BARNABY Ying Yang fish and Ikizukuri are delicacies in China and Japan, respectively. If you’re ever in the neighbourhood and feeling adventurous, these dishes are guaranteed to be the freshest seafood you’ve ever eaten. And I’m not talking…

Graphic Content and The Moral Gap In Western Journalism

BY: ALEXANDER DOWNHAM The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) says news subjects should be treated with “respect and dignity”; however, graphic content has journalists struggling with this task, particularly when covering stories abroad. Journalists, already facing possible scrutiny when…

Countrywide Ferguson Jury Protests Show Collapsing Faith In The Justice System

BY: JOHN DILLON “Hands up don’t shoot” fell from the mouths of thousands of protesters like bricks fell on the faces of the NYPD. Weaving through traffic and drumming on windows they marched through Manhattan’s Union Square. Minutes after a…

This Floating Laboratory Designed Like A Spaceship Will Expose The Secrets Of The Ocean

BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS A French architect wants to boldly go where very few have gone before: to the bottom of the ocean. Jacques Rougerie has combined his love for the ocean and architecture to create the SeaOrbiter, a 190-foot tall…

He And She, Ze And Xe: The Case For Gender-Neutral Pronouns

BY: AL DONATO Gender as we know it is a lie. The male-female binary is a social construct, ignoring intersex, trans, genderqueer, and other non-binary individuals whose identities aren’t the same as the sex assigned at birth. Unfortunately, it’s a…

People of Toraja, Indonesia Unearth Corpses, Give Them Makeovers and Walk Them Through Town

BY: PILGRIM In the region of Toraja in South Sulawesi—a province in Indonesia—lives the tradition of Ma’nene, or The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses. During the ritual, 100-year-old corpses are dug up, cleaned off, re-clothed and sent out to hit the…

The True Hippie Died When Narco-Capitalism Hit Goa

BY: TJ MOREY Present day Goa—dancing away into the haze of a drug-induced delirium, you will find a stereotypical hippie clamouring to keep sense of reality, or to whatever he can perceive of it. Mind you, this doesn’t come for…

This Ocean Energy Turbine Could Take The Whip From The Hands Of The Fossil Fuel Industry

BY: DAN BOIVIN We’ve all heard it before, a new technology comes along and promises to shift the balance of power in the world of energy, disrupting the “business as usual practices” we are all too familiar with. But then,…

The Instagram generation perceives every moment as an anticipated memory

BY: LAURA ROJAS Professor Daniel Kahneman, a renowned psychologist and Nobel Prize winner, did a TED Talk back in 2010 on the difference between experience and memory. His main thesis, and something I hadn’t even thought about prior to watching his…