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Historical Plague Survival: The Oberammergau Story and the Dongguang County Mystery

Plagues have the power to topple the mightiest empires and disband the strongest armies. Seemingly impartial and ruthless, neither wealth nor power offer protection. Even a nation’s ruler can easily fall victim. Despite our advanced material and scientific civilization, we have not been immune to the indeterminate origins of current viral crises. However, plagues are ...

Mikel Davis

Pieter Bruegel's painting 'The Triumph of Death,' depicting the Black Plague in Europe.

Surviving the Plague: Divine Punishment or Coincidence?

The ancient Roman Empire perished from plagues. During the reign of Emperor Diocletian, the nobility lived in corruption and decadence, and they treated prisoners of war and slaves inhumanely. For example, there was a practice of killing slaves and using them as food for giant eels. It was believed that doing so would make the ...

Mikel Davis

Bust of Roman Emperor Diocletian.

How Will Micro-Schools Affect Academics After the Pandemic? 

COVID-19 placed restrictions on the education system in the United States, causing some parents looking for an alternative to turn to micro-schools. What is this alternative solution for educational nourishment all about? What are micro-schools? Micro-schools, which educate K-12 children, are, as the name implies, very small schools that normally serve 10 to 15 students, ...

Ratul Saha

Elementary school teacher with students.

Spiritual Thinking May Be the Key to Ending the Pandemic

Though society continues to use various methods to curb the pandemic, such as physical quarantine, lockdowns, vaccinations, and medications, the Omicron variants have swept the globe quickly. However, such practices have failed to curb the transmission of the virus and the confirmed number of cases of the sixth wave was far beyond the previous five ...

Tatiana Denning

Rays of light from the sun shining through clouds.

How Stray Cats Saved a Restaurant During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic hit everyone unexpectedly. For some people, together with the feeling of uncertainty and fear, it also brought a lot of financial difficulties. One of them was Naoki Teraoka, a railway model enthusiast and owner of the Diorama restaurant in Osaka, Japan. It was on the verge of closing down until it was ...

Armin Auctor

Cat sleeping on model railway.

How Has the Pandemic Changed Us 2 Years On?

I have been reading a book recently, which keeps me up with a resolution for the New Year — reading more often. A part of the tale centers around a plague. Historic plagues have been taught and spoken about, yet never did I believe we’d experience a pandemic in my lifetime. Then, along came the ...

Katrina Hicks

Young woman looking sad through a window.

Childhood Anxiety During the Pandemic

In September 2021, UK’s National Health Service (NHS) reported that 1 in 6 children had a mental health disorder. Although the figures were similar in 2020, it also said that cases of childhood anxiety had risen significantly over the past few years. Adults and children alike have felt adverse effects in their own lives since ...

Katrina Hicks

Child wearing a mask looking out of a window.

How to Cope With Mental Stress Posed by the Pandemic

The pandemic induced by the coronavirus has altered life for billions of people, with factors such as ethnicity, religion, and income level or location notwithstanding. The worrisome thing is the virus just does not go away and widespread vaccination has not been able to eradicate it, causing high levels of mental stress. While the medical ...

Raven Montmorency

A visualizatin of the coronavirus at the molecular level.

COVID Pandemic Is Causing Addiction and Cognitive Stunting in Children

The COVID pandemic has brought unprecedented changes in human life. People are now being compelled to spend more time at home than ever before, regardless of their jobs and locations. While the COVID pandemic has led to several complications in life, children are faring worse than adults. Children do not have many options for playing ...

Jack Roberts

Boy using a mobile phone.