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Op-ed: STEM students are subject to arbitrarily harsh, mentally taxing grading schemes by Lovelyn Saini

In her Op-ed, Human Biology and Society student, Lovelyn Saini, discussed the daunting grading system for STEM majors, the limited data on departmental differences in grading and the need for an innovative grading system from which students can benefit and develop a positive experience in their education. “This curving system creates a concerning atmosphere in which STEM students want to…

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Op-ed: Intergenerational trauma affects mental health of Southeast Asian-Americans by Joseph Nguyen

Mental health is of utmost importance in academia, especially given one’s cumulative experiences and history. Coming from a unique background, Human Biology and Society student, Joseph Nguyen, brings to light the importance of mental health as he highlights the effects of intergenerational trauma within the Southeast Asian American community. “I discovered in my freshman year that these aren’t the only…

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Op-ed: For students of color, impostor syndrome can add to the challenge of college by Nicolas Cevallos

ISG would like to congratulate and commend its very own Human Biology and Society student, Nicolas Cevallo, for sharing his experience of microaggression challenges with the UCLA community as a student of color. Cevallos’s perspective serves as call for awareness, advocacy and acknowledgment of many students who share in similar challenges in academia. “As a Latinx student, I find myself,…

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ISG’s Shane Campbell-Staton Uses Superheroes To Help Students Sift Fact From Fiction

Learning to analyze fact and fiction can be insightful and fun in the classroom, and all it takes is an innovative approach and creative tools. For ISG Professor Shane Campbell-Staton, his tools are comic books. In his winter quarter course “Biology of Superheroes”, Campbell-Staton challenges his students to develop their perspective on evolutionary biology, as he explores comic book stories…

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Two Ancient DNA Studies Provide New Insights into Lives of Neanderthals and Paleolithic Humans

Two separate teams of researchers have used advanced DNA sequencing methods to analyze the 52,000-year-old remains of a Neanderthal woman from Vindija Cave in Croatia, and the 34,000-year-old remains of four anatomically modern humans from the Upper Paleolithic archaeological site of Sunghir. The findings are published in two papers in the journal Science. Kay Prüfer et al. A high-coverage Neandertal genome from Vindija…

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