Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Is AI a curse or a blessing for education?
Oped, Matthew Robert Ferguson, Published on 17/08/2024
» My collegiate rowing coach at the University of Western Ontario was an eccentric West German named Dr Volker Nolte, a stocky and imposing figure who was only funny when he didn't mean to be. He was a biomechanics wizard, obsessing over the countervailing forces of the rower and shell, currents and winds, blades and water. In the early 80s, as part of his doctoral research, he designed a sliding rigger that moved along the hull of the boat on slides in tandem with the rower, which, when compared to a fixed rigger, effectively doubled the force and propulsion of every stroke. It made second-tier rowers competitive with the best in the world.
Time to prepare for 'Disease X'
Oped, Tom Achoki, Lawrence Were & Ahmed Ogwell, Published on 04/06/2024
» On Dec 12, 2019, a group of patients in Wuhan, China, started showing symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that did not respond well to standard treatments. Ninety days later, with more than 118,000 cases reported in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
Asean must save its biodiversity
Oped, THERESA MUNDITA S LIM, Published on 08/03/2022
» Approximately 20% of the planet's vertebrate and plant species are found only in the Asean region and nowhere else in the world. Home to four biodiversity hotspots and three of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world, Asean has extraordinarily high levels of richness of species and endemism.
Humanity might have been born to live in cities
Oped, Greg Woolf, Published on 29/04/2021
» The spread of cities over the last 6,000 years is a global phenomenon -- not because cities originated in one place and spread out over the planet, but because people invented cities, out of nothing, so many times.
The connection between Covid-19 and climate
Oped, Jeffrey Frankel, Published on 02/10/2020
» From early on in the Covid-19 pandemic, a common refrain has been, "At least maybe now we will get serious about addressing climate change." One can certainly see the logic behind this thinking. The terrible toll the pandemic has taken should remind us of the importance of three things that are also necessary to tackle global warming: science, public policy, and international cooperation.
Covid and the climate crisis in SE Asia
Oped, Johanna Son, Published on 17/09/2020
» 'A global reset", "a sick planet", "health security" are huge, heavy phrases that have been swirling in the global psyche for most of this Covid-19-marked year. They speak of the "must-do-something" type of issues that weigh on the minds of people everywhere, including in Southeast Asia, as they hope for a post-pandemic period to come.
Failed and foolhardy predictions
Oped, James Wise, Published on 15/05/2020
» Thailand was threatened and then submerged by its biggest flood in decades, perhaps ever, in 2011. Doomsayers predicted that masses of people would die because leptospirosis -- a bacterial infection often found in contaminated water -- would be rife, that Bangkok's water supply would be undrinkable and that power interruptions would cripple essential services.