Natalie's blog

If I asked you if humans would ever have the technology to control machines with our minds, what would you say? Maybe someday? It's impossible? Maybe it will be possible sooner than we think? The correct answer is that we've had that technology for nearly a decade now. You can even go online right now and buy a headset that will read signals from your brain and use them to control a video game. Brain-computer interface technology could change our world in more ways than we can imagine, so why doesn't anybody seem to know about it?

I was browsing The Container Store the other day, after picking up some glass food containers, and I started inspecting all of the attractive products that caught my eye and made me think, “I want that!” Most of them were plastic, and most of them were made in China. While there were quite a few products throughout the store that were manufactured sustainably, it was hard not to think of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch while standing in the Amac box aisle, even if those cute little boxes are BPA-free, made in the U.S.A., and featured in the Museum of Modern Art.

Many of us have fond memories of playing educational games like Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? in elementary school, but it looks like future generations of students might be trading out the old Macintosh for a Nintendo DS or Wii. Shigeru Miyamoto, the famous Nintendo game designer responsible for such iconic games as Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, says he is currently focusing on finding ways to utilize the Nintendo systems and games as educational tools.

Warner Brothers has announced plans for a remake of the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz. As evidenced by the popularity of films like the new Alice in Wonderland and the hugely successful rebirth of the superhero film, it's clear that remakes, franchise reboots, and live-action adaptations are very big business. As an audience, we're fascinated to see characters and stories with which we're already familiar adapted into a new narrative. Some Oz fans, however, might understandably be nervous about any modernized version of the classic original.

When I saw the headline, “Divorced Before Puberty,” I assumed it would link to some kind of tabloid piece on a too-young married couple who were already divorced, commenting on something like the high divorce rate or teen pregnancy rate in America. Instead, I found an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, telling the story of a brave young girl in Yemen who was forced to marry a 30-year-old man when she was only 10. The girl was forced to drop out of school and suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her husband. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. The girl took a taxi to see a judge, divorced her husband, made her way to America and penned a best-selling memoir. At age 12, she is supporting her family and is a beacon of hope and inspiration for other child-brides in Yemen.