The Debate of Self-Driving Cars

This month in Tempe, Arizona, a self-driving Uber collided into and killed a pedestrian and caused an uproar of reactions debating the fate of self-driving cars. In many people’s eyes, self-driving cars are extremely resourceful and effective, others believe this new technology to be hazardous to the public and should not be permitted. Several car companies have already implemented an automotive feature to their vehicles(a list here).

The idea of autonomous cars has been around quite some time, beginning in the 1939, when General Motors had an exibit, Norman Bel Geddes created the first self-driving car that was controlled by electromagnetic fields(more information about Geddes). However, just recently companies have been permitted to use these features even completely without a driver present.

The Uber Volvo that hit the Pedestrian apparently had a flaw of not detecting Jaywalkers and a spokeswoman for Uber reported that Uber’s automated program has “adopted critical program improvements to further prioritize safety.” Unfortunately, the public has heard this before due to the 37 Uber vehicle crashed from 2016 to 2018. So, do you believe it is or will be possible to create the most accurate self-driving cars in order to ensure people’s safety? Is it ethically right to have these autonomous cars in populated cities and endangering civilians? Should this industry continue further and are self driving cars more helpful or hurtful?

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The First All-Women Spacewalk!

On October 18th, 2019, a group of all-female astaunauts worked together to replace a broken International Space Station power grid. This spacewalk represents the encouragement of womens rights, highlighting the STEM field. With all of NASA and many women empowering organizations cheering them on, the spacewalk was successfully completed and made history. A spacewalk is when astronauts must exit their station in order to repair or replace a broken part ( check out a picture here! ). This was NASA’s 221th spacewalk, but the first with all women. The astronauts who completed the spacewalk, Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, exemplify a milestone for all women’s rights as history has developed. Preceding a time like this, women would have never been able to train to become astronauts and advanced scientists. The United States’ first female space walker, Kathy Sullivan, happily stated, “We've got qualified women running the control, running space centers, commanding the station, comm

My Family’s History

I began my conversation with my grandma over the phone as she explained her origin and many other interesting things that I was not aware of prior to speaking to her. She is from a small village outside of Tokyo, Japan where she grew up. Her original name was Kazuko Hosoya but she married a polish man(my grandfather) so she did not keep her last name and it was changed to “Stern”. She decided to move to America after WWII, and after she finished most of her schooling in Japan. She started her new life in New York City in the 60s. When she met my grandfather in New York, she connected with him because they both shared the experience of being minorities(Polish-Jewish and Japanese), and immigrants; even though they were from opposite ends of the world. My grandma had told me countless stories of her struggle when she came to America and even now. She was never taken seriously and no one would even speak to her at her first accounting job. She described feeling constantly judged

Is it Too Late for the Environment?

On August 14th of this year, German scientists discovered microscopic plastic particles existing in the snow and air of the Arctic - one of the most remote places on the planet. Their discoveries concluded that microplastics have the ability to travel through the atmosphere from extremely developed countries like the US and China, that mass produce many plastic products. Microplastics are also detected in the ocean as well from an influx in pollution over the past 60 years( see graph ). These scientists additonally took samples from the european alps and found microplastics in the snow that was once pure. Microplastics were also found in France, Iran, and China in this study. "While we did expect to find microplastics, the enormous concentrations surprised us," said Melanie Bergmann, a researcher at the Alfred-Wegener-Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. These researchers have demonstrated how urgent this issue really is to the planet. Plastic is a man made materia

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