In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently raised concern over Space Exploration Holdings, LLC’s (SpaceX) Starlink satellites, which hold the promise of providing low-latency, high-speed broadband internet across the globe. The American space agency highlighted their concerns over SpaceX’s mega-constellation...
Launched on 19 January 2022, Altos Labs™ (Altos) has been hailed as a breakthrough biotechnology company seeking to transform the future of medicine through cellular rejuvenation programming. In the company’s press release, the biotech start-up described its mission as seeking to “restore cell health and resilience to reverse disease, injury, and the disabilities that can occur throughout...
On 3 January 2022, following several days of jury deliberation, the founder of Theranos was found guilty on four counts of fraud. The final decision concluded a high-profile trial involving a now-dissolved blood testing start-up. Theranos Inc., founded by then nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Holmes in 2003, was a health care tech start-up for consumers, once valued at ten billion USD and poised to...
In November 1921, insulin was discovered as a revolutionary treatment for diabetes, transforming diabetes from a death sentence to a manageable chronic condition. Dr. Frederick Banting from London, Ontario, and his medical assistant Charles Best co-discovered insulin on 14 November 1921. The discovery marked a significant breakthrough in medicine and therapy for patients with diabetes...
As governments face mounting pressures to accelerate the transition to cleaner energy sources, global energy markets have encountered a post-pandemic supply shortage. As a result, while major economies have started to recover following the pandemic, energy demand has accelerated, resulting in a simultaneous spike in energy prices worldwide. As critical natural gas and oil markets have faced an...
Merck and its partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics recently announced that its new pill to treat COVID-19 reduces the risk of hospitalization and death in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 by approximately 50 per cent. After the experimental oral antiviral treatment showed “compelling results” during late-stage clinical trials, the pharmaceutical company announced its plan to apply for...
Access to justice has been defined in a variety of ways and often encompasses a breadth of issues. The definition provided by Community Legal Education of Ontario (CLEO) is as follows: “access to justice exists when people can pursue their goals and address their law-related problems in ways that are consistent with fair legal standards and processes; and can obtain, understand, and act on...
Innovation has been the defining feature in equipping the international community to fight back against COVID-19. As the race for a vaccine shaped much of last year and as vaccinations continue to ramp up across the world this year, it has become increasingly vital to contextualize the strategy of the different players in the intellectual property and pharmaceutical patent scene. In particular...
On February 26th, Health Canada officially approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (called ChAdOx1) following clinical trials that displayed a 62.1% efficacy rate in reducing symptomatic cases of COVID-19. Health Canada’s approval followed a series of national regulators authorizing the vaccine for administration across the EU, the UK, India and Mexico. Through a global vaccine-sharing...
It has been ten years since the revolutionary high of the 2011 Arab Spring protests rippled across the Middle East and North African nations, underscoring the heavily fragmented nature of relations between rulers and the ruled. Despite the wave of protests that erupted in nations across the region, there were limited victories, and, to this day, the political and economic crises that fueled the...
What the international community can learn from one another As the clock struck midnight, it seemed that the international community was holding its breath for a new year. There were hopes that with a new year would come relief from rising case counts, ICUs pushing full capacity, and increasingly tighter lockdown restrictions. Nevertheless, much of the international community currently remains in...
The international community received a welcome dose of optimism earlier this week when Moderna Inc., a Massachusetts-based biotech company, released encouraging evidence of its progress in developing a vaccine effective against COVID-19. According to early data released by the company, the Moderna vaccine has proven to be 94.5% effective against COVID-19 upon evaluation by members of the Data...
In the years to come, the rapidly changing climate is positioned to intensify existing threats and introduce novel threats to human health. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous concerns have surfaced regarding the capacity of governmental institutions to protect public health. The pandemic should serve as an example of the nature of infectious diseases that have the potential to reach a...
End Sars (End Special Anti-Robbery Squad) is a social movement erupting across Nigeria, calling on the government to ban the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) division of the Nigerian Police Force, a division that has become synonymous with police brutality and oppression. The movement gained traction on Twitter in response to weeks of demands for reform over claims of harassment, murder...
On Sunday, Sept. 27, violence once more erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the long-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a reserved territory located in the south Caucasus Mountains. As the ethnic and territorial hostility continues to heighten, the region has been thrust into uncertainty and on the edge once more in response to long-held claims over the land. The conflict dates back to...
“I would like to be remembered as someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability.” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve as a justice on the U.S Supreme Court, an unyielding trailblazer for gender equality, and a lifelong advocate for women’s legal rights, passed away at the age of 87 due to complications from...