Despite all the pessimistic predictions, Team Korea achieved great success at the Paris 2024 Olympics, held this summer from July 26 to Aug. 11. The 33rd Summer Olympics, branded as “Paris 2024”, drew significant public attention for its locational attributes prior to the opening ceremony. Satisfying the public’s expectations, various matches were held in representative locations of Paris, which left a powerful impression on those who admired the city. The beach volleyball matches were held with the Eiffel Tower as a background, and the fencing matches were held at the Grand Palais. The event

A historical fire caused by the Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle (EV) explosion remained ablaze for eight hours, damaging over 140 cars and residential property. Fortunately, there were no casualties. What is particularly unusual is that the vehicle caught fire from a stationary EV parked in an underground parking lot. The EV was not even plugged into the charger at the time of the explosion. The recent incident has sparked worries about the batteries used in EVs, and phobia towards EVs is spreading throughout South Korea. On Aug. 1, at approximately 6:08 A.M., a fire erupted in a Mercedes-Benz

As numerous online platforms emerge, they have been recognized as national assets. Online platforms are deeply rooted within our daily lives, and thus have a great influence on the economy, politics, and most importantly, information. It is fair to say that the 21st century revolves around information, and these platforms are no longer a matter restricted to tech companies. This is seen in the case of LINE Yahoo. Last November, Naver’s server containing customer information of LINE, a messenger platform, was hacked. This incident resulted in the leak of 510 thousand account’s personal informat

The hottest January ever recorded. The global temperature has surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit for over 12 months. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed to limit the average global temperature rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times, acknowledging that going over this lower limit would lead to catastrophic events and critical loss of biodiversity. Well then, is it Doomsday? The world still has hope. When countries signed the Paris Agreement, they looked beyond short terms, prioritizing long-term sustainability over temporary fluctuations. The mean global temperature

The vision of personal robots, once confined to the realms of science fiction, is materializing into reality. Before now, our fascination with robots was long-fueled by cinematic portrayals of intelligent and versatile machines: going on a wild adventure with Baymax in “Big Hero 6” or enjoying a peaceful afternoon teatime with adorable WALL-E in the eponymous film. Yet, until recently, the robots we encountered were largely single-purpose entities, lacking the sophistication or autonomy to fulfill our imaginations. However, the landscape of robotics is undergoing a profound transformation. Eng

In the realm of sociology and economics, the term “conspicuous consumption” looms large, describing the inclination of consumers to prioritize products based on their perceived status or prestige rather than practicality. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced among the younger generation, driven in large part by the pervasive influence of social media. The constant barrage of images and messages on platforms like Instagram and TikTok glorifies a lifestyle characterized by extravagant spending and indulgence, perpetuating the notion that happiness is synonymous with material possessions. T

The solar system has numerous satellites orbiting around the planet. Among them, Jupiter’s moon Europa, and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are the moons that draw special attention from scientists. Scientists are particularly interested in the oceans under the thick ice crust where life may exist, and they pay more attention to the larger moon, Europa. The primary goal of Europa’s exploration is to find traces of life in water vapor and ice particles erupting through Europa’s icy crust. “The Europa Clipper,” NASA’s Europa probe scheduled for launch this year, plans to reach Europa by 2030 to gather r

Many people live with problems because of various reasons, such as rising levels of fine dust and stress from the modern world. Among them, appearance is one of the most important areas of self-care, but acne makes it so difficult to manage one’s appearance that it is considered the enemy of everyone. It is often found on other body parts, such as the forehead, cheek, nose, face, and even back. The disease is not easily treated with any cosmetic or ointment. It even has the property of spreading once it occurs, making it heartbreaking for anyone with acne and anyone watching it. However, altho

Chinese online shopping platforms are substantially impacting the domestic market with surprisingly ultra-cheap goods. Koreans are already familiar with AliExpress as a platform to choose to sacrifice delivery time over low-cost price. However, almost seemingly out of nowhere, Temu has emerged into the scene. Temu gained popularity with its fast and convenient product delivery service and budget-friendly price. As Temu grew rapidly, AliExpress invested 74.7 million USD in logistics and marketing to expedite delivery within Korea, just like Temu. Along with their intriguing advertisements, C-co

The aphorism “good old days” encapsulates a sentiment that many people find true to their experiences—it is the nostalgic idea that the past was better than the present. Although there is a sense of security and comfort in knowing how the melody goes, it is a false sense of security stemming from the certainty of one’s experience. Objectively, people in the 21st century lead far better lives than those in the 20th century (and all centuries before that) in almost all metrics. Let’s not get into how a primitive hunter-gatherer might have led a happier life than a present-day urban dweller doing

On his social media platform X, Elon Musk announced that his startup Neuralink had implanted a wireless brain chip in a human brain on Jan. 29. “Initial results show promising neuron spike detection,” he added in his post. Neuralink is a brain-computer interface (BCI) company that is making devices to give autonomy to patients with medical issues in the brain. The device, BCI, reads and decodes brain signals, aiming to enable a person to move their paralyzed body, use a computer, or do any other tasks by thought alone. There are mainly two types of BCI: invasive and non-invasive. The one that

Five years have passed since Korea’s population graph reached an apex and started to monotonically decrease. Korea’s population issue has been continuously addressed by both domestic and international experts and organizations. However, recently, the more serious problem is the extinction of areas ranging from county scale to megalopolitan. This is because lots of people gather around the capital area to find jobs, infrastucture, and other things which are relatively plentiful in Seoul. Due to these wholescale population shifts, some towns have started to show cavitation in population — this i

Busan’s attempt at hosting the World Expo 2030 was in vain. This news would have been a surprise for many South Koreans, as the government and the media were confident that Busan would narrowly take the win with the final vote. With high hopes, they anticipated that they would narrowly beat Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, in the second round of voting. But the overpowering gap of votes in comparison to Riyadh, 119 versus 29, tells us otherwise. Did we stand a fair chance at all, in the first place? South Korea might have a higher GDP and more technologies, but when it comes to diplomacy, we do

The Ministry of Environment (MoE) said on Nov. 7 that it would withdraw the regulation on using disposable paper cups operated by food service businesses such as restaurants, cafes, and group catering centers. As a result, the guidance period for the prohibition order on plastic straws and plastic bags has been extended virtually indefinitely. The use of paper cups and plastic straws was given a one-year guidance period as one of the additional regulations on disposable products that took effect on Nov. 24 last year. However, the MoE announced a policy to withdraw existing regulations ahead of

The term “Megacity” has evolved to signify a “very large city,” with criteria shifting from a population of three million to eight million and now standing at 10 million. According to the United Nations’ annual “The World Cities” report, the global count of megacities is projected to reach 43 by 2030, defining cities with populations exceeding 10 million. Professor Byun Chang-heum of Sejong University emphasizes that the current discourse on megacities is not about uniting small and medium-sized cities but revolves around fostering metropolitan economic zones centered on major urban hubs. This

Can quantum computers shut down modern cryptogram systems? Can subsequent researchers reproduce the same results the pioneer researchers achieved? As both scientific research and industrial fields are discovering new things as well as achieving richer experiment results more rapidly, the competition is intense. In these circumstances where some researchers work hard under high pressure, there are serious issues emerging where researchers violate fundamental principles of scientific research including reproducibility, and exaggeration. Reproducibility can be defined as “obtaining consistent res

Recently, more and more people are suffering from fake news. Many celebrities are directly explaining the contents of provocative titles and articles, ranging from divorce to infidelity and death rumors, as the entertainment industry is increasingly confusing to the public. The production of such fake news is not limited to the content related to the entertainment industry. Fake news with unclear sources in various fields such as politics, society, culture, and health has raised concerns that it will be a major social problem. Fake news has increased explosively in recent years, and some say t

Yoon Suk Yeol, the President of the Republic of Korea, is currently at war with the so-called domestic cartels. His vision to eradicate groups of people seeking to protect their vested interests has had a comprehensive impact on domestic politics. His recent effort to reform the education system that requires students to rely on private tutors comes from a similar motivation. Now, the government’s attention has shifted toward the R&D sector as they set out to reduce two trillion KRW R&D funding in 2024. Lee Jung-num’s office from the Democratic Party of Korea has released a thorough analysis o

The discharge of radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is arousing controversy worldwide. In 2021, the Japanese cabinet approved the release of nuclear-treated water into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years. Opinions are divided among many organizations and scholars over the move into a position that the overall effect is insignificant and a position that the move will be harmful to the human body. It is important to face the problem based on accurate facts and reasonable grounds. The following claims are examined from the perspective of various organizatio

Due to a series of terrible crimes, including the stabbing at Sillim Station on July 21 and the knife rampage at Seohyeon Station on Aug. 3, the investigative agency decided to disclose the criminals’ personal information. There are four criteria for disclosure: whether the crime has caused cruel and serious damage, whether there is sufficient evidence, whether there is public interest such as crime prevention, and whether the suspect is a teenager or not. Since its implementation in 2010, a total of 74 cases have been subjected to deliberation, and 47 of them have been made public. However, t