Jan 30A Look at Director Céline Sciamma and Portrait of a Lady on Fire“If you look at me, who do I look at?” — Mild spoilers ahead. Lesbian lovers in 18th century Brittany. Synchronized swimmers in the Parisian suburbs. A French-African female gang. These represent a few of the films created by Céline Sciamma, a French director and screenwriter who explores the role of women and sexual identity in coming-of-age stories. Director Background Born in 1978…Film8 min readFilm8 min read
Jun 1, 2022Plastic Pollution: A Brief GuideA wasteful problem driven by a wasteful lifestyle. — Pick up the nearest human-made object next to you. Got it? That phone you’re holding? Part of it’s made of plastic. Or the pen currently dangling around your fingers? Hello, plastic. That dirty shirt you swiped off the carpet? Plastic. (You should really wash that, by the way.) …Plastic Pollution23 min readPlastic Pollution23 min read
Published in Visionary Hub·May 13, 2022How to Genetically Engineer E. Coli with Tap Water, a Microwave, and Jellyfish GenesMaking bacteria glow. — Okay, I lied. You need a few extra things besides tap water, a microwave, and jellyfish genes. These past few weeks, I’ve been trying out this experiment from The ODIN to gain a more practical understanding of genetic design. Here’s a breakdown of the project, from start to finish. *Note…Synthetic Biology11 min readSynthetic Biology11 min read
Dec 31, 2021My Year in Review: 2021Cheers to new beginnings and old endings. — 2021. Twenty twenty-one. Two thousand and twenty-one. It’s been a crazy year filled with new endeavors, failures, and successes. It could have been better (missed out on a lot due to COVID), but it could have been much worse too. It could have been boring. I might not have had…202110 min read202110 min read
Published in Visionary Hub·Dec 22, 2021Life Is an Empty Canvas; Synthetic Biology Is the PaintbrushClaiming control over natural systems and organisms. — It’s 2010. 2010, the year of the first iPad. 2010, the year the final Hunger Games book was released. 2010, the year of the BP oil spill. 2010, the year of Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake. 2010, the year the first truly synthetic organism was produced. Yep: artificial organisms aren’t a thing…Synthetic Biology36 min readSynthetic Biology36 min read
Oct 22, 2021It’s Not Possible to Feed All the Hungry in the World. Right?An overview of food waste: what it is, why it is, and how it’s impacting the environment. — We could (hypothetically) feed the 815 million hungry people in the world four times over. Read that again. Four. Times. Over. Why are there 815 million hungry people in the world in the first place, then? The answer: wasted food. One third of all food produced for human consumption is…Food Waste7 min readFood Waste7 min read
Published in students x students·Oct 5, 2021Sustainability is the Future. But What’s the Future of Sustainability?Humans shouldn’t focus on creating completely new solutions to problems. Why would we? A great deal of the products and systems we want to set up already exist in the natural environment — we just need to find, study, and modify their blueprints to fit our specific needs. Natural processes…Biomimicry6 min readBiomimicry6 min read
