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World Population, Migration, and the Gen Z Reluctance to Have Children

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  The growing perception is that the world is not a safe place anymore. Why bring children to a world torn apart by many wars and under the shadow of climate doom? This question is too familiar and relatable to the Gen Z generation.    In the US, the population projections reveal that the birth-over-death ratio will be in the negative zone by around 2040. Millennials and Gen Z are less inclined towards having children than their preceding generations.  The immigrants are expected to compensate for this population decline. Even the Covid 19 failed to bring about an increase in babies being born. It was expected, and signals even showed such a trend, but it was short-lived.  In 2020, BBC reported that 23 countries would see their population reduced to half of what it is currently by 2100.  In the 1950s, the planet had 4.7 children per woman; in 2021, the corresponding figure is 2.4 . The world population will start declining when the fertility rate fall...
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The Younger Generation Disconnect: Is Generation Gap Widening?

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photo source: flickr.com   Is the gap between one living generation and another increasing? I pondered this question as I entered another bright morning with a steaming tea cup on my study table. The occasion was curious. My parents were surprised that one of my niece's favourite pop singers won an Oscar. The cause of this surprise was simple. They never took their granddaughter’s music tastes seriously.  Ours is a South Indian family with a cultivated ear for Carnatic classical music. For us, all this new hype about Korean Pop and God knows what else was parvenu arrogance. Yet, our children constantly listen to this genre of music, full volume, all day.  My parents’ wide-eyed amazement kept me thinking. As each generation progresses into the next, is the generation gap widening?  Technology could be at the core, the abyss, of this gap. From mobile phones onwards, the older generation lost it. They use their mobile phones only to make calls, take photos, check What...
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How Far Away Is a Cancer Vaccine?

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(image source: Pixabay) A cancer vaccine has always remained elusive for medicine and science. Is this situation changing? Is hope rising over the horizon? The Ovarian Cancer Vaccine According to the latest news , Oxford University scientists have developed a vaccine for ovarian cancer . This vaccine, OvarianVax, when available for use, will be able to teach the immune cells in our body to detect and attack ovarian cancer cells in the early stages of this disease. Prof. Ahmed Ahmed is the leading scientist behind this research.  The trial for this vaccine has started. The importance of this development is that when it is ready, this vaccine might wipe out ovarian cancer. Yet, this vaccine is still years away.  Why Is a Cancer Vaccine Still a Mirage? What is Happening on the Research Front? Catherine J Wu, a cancer scientist, was awarded the prestigious Sjöberg Prize for her contribution to cancer research  in February 2024 . She is a professor of medicine at Harvard...
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Paraman, The Street Violinist: Memory of a Man

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  (The folk violin of Pulluvas; image source:  Kannanshanmugam,shanmugamstudio, Kollam , Wikipedia) The Village Visitors  Those were times when things were less complex than they now are. We lived in a bucolic countryside where everyone knew everyone else. The only outsiders who frequented the place were visiting relatives, a bunch of regularly appearing street vendors, the postman, the Gurkha (a man from Nepal who would be paid Rs 10 per month by each family for keeping vigil in the village during nights*), and our very own exclusive beggars. We knew them as they made rounds on almost expected dates and times. Paraman’s Song Paraman, the street violinist, had positioned himself between an artist and a beggar. In our culture, the members of the Pulluva community, who made exquisite music using two delightful musical instruments- a single-string local fiddle and a round mud pot with a tight wire wound across it- were the official local musicians. They would come to sing in...
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Travel Plan: A Trip to Understand The Bermuda Triangle

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  (Image source: grammidistoria.wordpress.com Hi Traveler,  You are a fan of mystery, the inexplicable, and you would love to go probing the geographies, home to such mysteries. For someone like you, the Bermuda Triangle is now not an intangible puzzle. You can visit this region of the sea by entering it from three land masses, which form the three endpoints to the triangle.  The Bermuda Triangle: Basic History and Facts An imaginary triangle drawn connecting Florida, the Bermuda Islands, and Puerto Rico in the North Atlantic Ocean will give you the Bermuda Triangle. The area of this sea stretch is around 1.3 to 3.9 million square kilometres. The exact boundaries of the triangle are not demarcated. Different people at different times set vague definitions of the area under the triangle.    In December 1945, five Navy training aeroplanes navigating the sky above the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, with 14 men on board, disappeared. A rescue mission was la...
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