After the total solar eclipse on April 8, medical facilities across the United States have reported a surge in patients presenting symptoms of solar retinopathy, a condition caused by direct exposure of the eyes to the intense light from the sun without proper protection. Despite repeated warnings and educational campaigns, many people disregarded safety precautions, which led to an alarming increase in eye-related complaints. According to data from Google Trends, queries related to eye discomfort and...

Students, faculty and community members gathered April 8 at the Dallas College Richland Campus to witness a rare total solar eclipse. The eclipse began over the Dallas area around 12:20 p.m. It reached its totality at 1:40 p.m. The total eclipse lasted approximately 3 minutes 15 seconds at Richland ending around 1:43 p.m. This was the first total eclipse in the North Texas region since 1878, nearly 150 years ago. Hundreds of people gathered outside campus buildings to look at the eclipse. Many were parents...

Amid the COVID-19 challenges, a significant breakthrough emerged: The eradication of a prevalent strain of influenza. The Yamagata-lineage of type B influenza, once a significant contributor to seasonal flu outbreaks, has been absent from surveillance reports since March 2020. COVID-19 restrictions gave it “the killer blow which knocked it out,” said Ian Barr, deputy director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, in an...

Darkness will cover the Dallas sky for about 4.5 minutes as the city aligns with the path of totality of the April 8 total solar eclipse. “If you should look down to the horizon and look all the way around you, all 360 degrees you will see sunlight like, as if it were sunrise,” said Heather Appleby, professor of astronomy and physics at Dallas College, Richland Campus. Dallas College will be hosting viewing events on all seven campuses for the rare astronomical event. At the Richland campus, parking lot...

Artificial intelligence or AI taking over the world has been a fascinating subject many storytellers have employed in order to entertain thousands, if not millions, of people for years, if not decades. I don’t believe AI can take over humanity due to the limitations AI has when it comes to movement, let alone the capability to think or give an opinion. Fascinatingly enough, AIs have advanced to the point...

Computer-Aided Design and Drafting A.A.S. (Advance Mechanical Drafting) is a new Dallas College program that is taking students to the next level of success. One of these successful students is Heather McCurley. She is a single mom who decided to come back to school after her three children, who suffer from autism, grew up.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has become more and more popular as part of life. On the other hand, writing is an essential part of our daily routine, from sharing our lives in emails to taking notes in class. It should not be a surprise then that AI for writing and other creative tasks such as image generating and brainstorming has become a new reality. According to anyword.com, AI writing programs are based on spell checkers on computers since the ’80s. Richland Campus English professor Dr. Kendra Unruh created a developing AI session for faculty in order to inform her fellow professors about the new technology. She explained that even though there are professors who are against the use of artificial intelligence in generating content for their classes, there are others, including herself, who support the use of this technology as a tool to do schoolwork.

For the first time in 50 years, NASA is making a trip to the moon, this time in a rocket named The Artemis I. Unlike the last trip, the Orion capsule contains three crash test dummies instead of astronauts on the 25-day trip. NASA hopes the new data will make for a safer manned mission, calling it a “dress rehearsal.”

According to the Associated Press, on Nov. 16, 15,000 spectators cheered and applauded at the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral as they witnessed the thrusters underneath the rocket light up and blast off launch pad 39B and then slice through the Earth’s atmosphere at 1,120 mph. Not long after that, the capsule named Orion detached from the rocket, embarking on its journey to the moon.

After scrubbing its original launch due to troubleshooting errors pertaining to one of its four engines on Aug. 29, NASA continues to push back the launch date of Artemis I. “Artemis I will be an uncrewed flight test of the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft around the moon,” according to NASA’s website.

Jason Treadway is the director of the STEM Institute at Dallas College and helped orchestrate a launch-watch party that would have taken place during the initial launch. Since the launch continues to get rescheduled, the students and teachers at the STEM institute had other ideas about how they could commemorate this historical launch.