ella lillian

Through social media and online events, the OU Italian Club was as active as ever in Fall of 2020. Over Zoom, Baccano had game nights, movie nights, cooking classes. By attending these events as OU students, we were able to connect with other students while learning more about the Italian culture in a fun and productive way. On October 8th, the club put on a cooking class where we learned to make gnocchi. I loved how at this event, you could attend on Zoom from both OU’s Norman campus and OU’s campus in Arezzo, Italy. This allowed for a truly immersive experience where you got to know people who were…

In March of last year, the United States began to go on lockdown. A year later, as vaccines roll out in the U.S., we are one of the countries that is beginning to open back up. But how has the response of the United States to Covid-19 varied from other countries? How has Covid affected the world as a whole? Let’s take a brief look at the timeline of Covid-19 in various countries and how different cultures vary in their responses. The first outbreak was in Wuhan, China. While we don’t know the exact date, we do know that the first few cases were at the very end of 2019,…

For the past couple of months, fires have taken over the country of Australia, having killed 27 people, including volunteer firefighters, and millions of animals, including endangered species. The fires started in August, and have only continued to grow. Not only was 2019 the hottest year in Australia’s record, but it also is having one of its largest-ever droughts. All of this, combined with lightning strikes and people purposefully starting bushfires, have made these fires so big. Due partially to strong winds, the fires have consumed even more than the 2019 Amazon fires. Australia is doing everything it can to save both its people and its country. The country-continent itself…

Around this time last year, Chinese scientist and researcher, He Jianku, was performed the first-ever gene-editing experiment on twin baby girls, Lulu and Nana. The dad of these girls had HIV, and these parents wanted to ensure that their daughters would not be born with HIV. They consented to Jianku editing the DNA of their daughters to take out the gene that would ever cause them from having HIV. This was something that no one had done before. Over the past semester in Comp 2, I have been researching both the history of genetic engineering and the controversy and ethical issues that come with this advancing technology. According to Merriam-Webster…