Category: Featured

Featured Summer 2025 Weekly News Profile

Sneaky Subliminals: Messaging the Subconscious Through Media

Kariena Panpaliya May 25, 2025

Subliminal messaging can be found in all forms of media. It has the power to influence the subconscious mind, which holds patterns that define an individual’s mentality, thus significantly determining a person’s behavior. Through subliminals, the media has the incredible power to influence a person’s mindset and actions. This power should be wielded explicitly and with caution to protect a person’s right to freedom of thought.

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Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

It Starts With Welding: The Beginning of Lunar Industrialization

Mary Karapetyan May 2, 2025

Following decades of successful space missions, humanity’s focus is increasingly shifting from short-term exploration to establishing a permanent extraterrestrial base through lunar industrialization. Lunar industrialization is a highly advanced technological endeavor; enabling the technology needed to weld on the Moon marks the first step in actualizing its potential. The lunar environment presents unique conditions that make it more challenging to replicate processes that are easily implemented on Earth, such as welding. Although the Moon lacks an atmosphere or biosphere and won’t experience the same environmental effects as Earth from increased industrial activity, it doesn’t mean that lunar industrialization is environmentally harmless. This debate is complex, with both sides raising valid concerns, balancing the potential for scientific progress against the ethical need for preservation.

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Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

NIH Funding Freeze Stalls Applications to Public Medical Research Funds

Rachel Pak April 17, 2025

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has stopped considering grant applications in the wake of the Trump administration’s funding freeze. This has stalled around 16,000 grant applications competing for $1.5 billion in NIH funding to develop cutting-edge treatments. This freeze threatens lives across the country, as scientists lose jobs, local economies are damaged, and the health of patients fighting life-threatening diseases is put in jeopardy.

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Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

The End of Break Room Banter: AI Teammates Reshape Workplace Culture

Mary Karapetyan March 16, 2025

AI teammates are a new variation of artificial intelligence designed to supplement employees in the workplace, boosting productivity while reducing burnout. Their integration into society underscores the urgent need for clear frameworks and regulations to ensure their ethical and responsible use.

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Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

De-extinction: Does the End Justify the Means?

Janessi Diaz March 8, 2025

Colossal is a company committed to de-extinction. Its main mission is to bring back the woolly mammoth. This mission may help conserve critically endangered Asian elephants and mitigate the impacts of global warming. However, it also raises ethical concerns regarding the livelihood of wildlife that currently reside in the mammoth’s habitat.

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Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

A Dreamer, A Destroyer of Worlds

Stefano Corno February 23, 2025

The recent room-temperature superconductor LK-99 controversy highlighted significant challenges within scientific communication and raised critical questions about the role of engineering in societal advancement. LK-99’s rapid rise and fall from scientific prominence reflects a need for essential virtues of engineering practice. This article analyzes the engineer’s societal role and establishes a framework to emphasize the importance of three virtues – joy, compassion, and rigor. These virtues are crucial for fostering responsible innovation and advancing human well-being through technology. 

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Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

USC Viterbi School Prepares Virtuous Leaders in Engineering

Diandra Tjokrosaputro February 23, 2025

Engineering requires a certain dedication to protect the communities being served. This dedication is fostered by ethical engineers. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering aspires to cultivate such engineers. To ensure they live up to ethical obligations, Viterbi should look to establish its students with the values of integrity, altruism, and courage. Engineers with integrity exhibit perseverance in the face of failure and hold themselves accountable for the honest delivery of research findings. Through altruism, engineers are able to dedicate themselves to the people and environments their choices will impact. Lastly, courageous engineers push aside selfish desires, address uncomfortable truths, and have an unwavering commitment to represent those who cannot have a say in decisions. Together, these traits equip engineers with the characteristics needed to create a better future. 

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Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

Open, Upright, and True, Despite Temptation

Diego Adrian Rodriguez February 23, 2025

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, defining the ideal engineer is complex. The role of an engineer is not merely to innovate, for their responsibilities go beyond their field of study. Certain attributes form the foundation of a proficient engineer. These virtues, integrity, authenticity, and open-mindedness, can guide an engineer in developing their moral compass, which is an essential asset in practice. As servants to society, engineers should resist the temptation to exploit new technologies and remain true to themselves, exemplifying respectful attributes in the workplace. The future of engineering remains obscure due to the rapid pace of technological development. In such moments, it is crucial to remember why the role of an engineer is invaluable in the first place: to make the world a better place.

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Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

The Building Blocks of an Ethical Engineer: Curiosity, Discernment, and Collaborative Spirit

Amanda Akrawi February 23, 2025

Engineers must embody a unique blend of traits that empower them to address the complex challenges in their field. The cultivation of curiosity, discernment, and a collaborative spirit equips engineers with specific skills necessary to contribute innovative solutions to the world. Curiosity pushes them to lend their expertise and time to discovery. Discernment allows engineers to select design characteristics and objectively evaluate flaws to ensure that their creations align with their ethical responsibilities. A collaborative spirit helps engineers expand their perspectives, supplement gaps in their knowledge, optimize design results, and ensure the best possible outcome for a project. These traits, along with the necessary ethical background, must be integrated into engineering curriculums to shape a sustainable future for generations to come. 

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Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

CDC Censorship: Engineers to the Rescue of Public Health Data

Janessi Diaz February 7, 2025

A slurry of executive orders has led to a massive purging of public health information from the CDC and other federal websites. Thankfully, data-hoarding Redditors have come to the rescue by posting any information they had managed to salvage from these websites. As engineers, if we have the skill set we should follow suit and help with any effort to make this important data accessible to those who need it.

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