SnoQap

Apr 23

Apr 23 Beyond Traditional Reforestation: Exploring Drone-Based Planting, Sensor-Based Monitoring, and SET Technologies

Capturing carbon from our atmosphere grows to be of extreme importance as “Earth’s temperature has risen by an average of 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit (0.06 degrees Celsius) per decade since 1850, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in total” (Lindsey and Dahlman 2024). Carbon and other elements help create a greenhouse effect, which keeps our Earth at a suitable temperature to support life. Currently, more carbon dioxide is in our atmosphere than is considered optimal for maintaining a stable climate. So what can we do about that?

Apr 15

Apr 15 The Age of Drone Warfare

Ryan Dulaney

Current Events, Technology

Warfare inevitably destroys human life. Human life is the fuel war runs on and the medium through which it is carried out. For all of history, humans have organized to destroy one another in this brutal contest. From clubs and spears to cannons and rifles, war has been an omnipresent fixture of human history. However, recent developments have seen a shift in how conflict is carried out - namely, the introduction and development of drone technology.

Apr 11

Apr 11 Quantum Computing and Climate Modeling

Aidan O'Leary

Science & Nature, Technology

You may have heard of a unique computer known as a quantum computer. These computers are similar to traditional computers as they both need to be programmed to perform tasks, process information, and perform logical operations such as AND, OR, and NOT. While the two types of computers have some similarities, quantum computers differ in how they compute data, how they are programmed, the hardware and settings that are required to run them, and more. Quantum computers are of great benefit to us globally due to the fact that they can solve complex problems and create accurate predictions that would take a classical computer an exceptionally long time to compute.

Apr 9

Apr 9 From Stardust to Supernova

Zoha Imran

Science & Nature

Imagine a billion-year cosmic dance in which stars are born out of the blackness of interstellar clouds, burn brightly for billions of years, and then meet their dramatic end. The story of stars' evolution is fascinating, revealing the mysteries of creation and destruction on a cosmic scale, from the birthplace of stellar nurseries to the blazing spectacle of supernovae.

Apr 3

Apr 3 A Beginner’s Guide to Theropods, Part 3: Giant Killers and Lesser Tyrants

Stefan Lungu

Science & Nature

By the beginning of the Late Jurassic, the global supercontinent had begun to break up. Seaways had split off the Northern and Southern landmasses, Asia was an island, and Europe was a Tethys-spanning archipelago. And all of it, from the Chinese Shaximiao to the Tanzanian Tendaguru, was ruled by allosauroids.

Apr 2

Apr 2 Live Music is a Dying Industry

Miguel Rojas

Current Events

The death of Frank Pallett etched the fate of The Chance Theater in stone. A mainstay in Poughkeepsie’s live music scene, The Chance was a theater with over a century of heritage that offered a venue to Count Basie, BB King, and The Ramones when their music careers were still in their infancy. Pallett took ownership of the theater in February 1995 and spent the rest of his life developing it into a place worthy of acts like Bowie and The Rolling Stones, as well as making it a launchpad for local bands to cut their teeth as live performers. When he died in 2021, Poughkeepsie mourned the loss of a local hero, but the city pondered the fate of this historic venue. The venue permanently closed its doors in October 2023. Chai Developers, the new owners, plan to renovate the theater while maintaining its heritage; however, the theater’s indefinite closure indicates the end of an era and reflects a greater global grassroots music venue crisis.

Apr 2

Apr 2 A Look Into the Economic Impact of Hosting the World Cup

Michael Ferrito

Economics

The FIFA World Cup is the infamous international soccer championship event that is far and away the most-watched sports broadcast when it comes around on its 4-year cycle. The winning international soccer team receives one of the most sought-after trophies in the sports world, creating roaring waves of nationality and competitive pride for all participating countries and their fans. Additionally, upwards of $400 million in total prize money is up for grabs for the competing teams. 2022 FIFA World Cup champion Argentina received $42 million in prize money on top of the trophy, and this figure has been increasing every tournament.

Mar 28

Mar 28 The Automotive Revolution of 2024 : Exploring the Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Jobs and Industries

Elsa Blease

Ten years ago, driverless cars seemed like a far-away idea that only our grandkids, or even great-grandkids, would experience in the year 3000. However, here we are in 2024, watching the emergence of self-driving cars as a new sector in the transportation market.

Mar 26

Mar 26 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.

Mar 26

Mar 26 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.