📚 Welcome to The Book Bandits! Hey everyone! I’m Arthur Quill, a fellow middle schooler who LOVES reading and discussing books. That’s why I'm starting The Book Bandits, an online book club where we can all share different books which each of us shall read, discover new stories, and make friends along the way! Why Join The Book Bandits? ✅ Meet New Friends: Connect with others who love reading. ✅ Discover New Books: Explore genres and authors you might not have tried before. ✅ Share Your Thoughts: Your opinions matter! We want to hear what YOU think about the books we read. ✅ Flexible & Fun: Participate whenever you can—no pressure! How It Works? 1. Join the Club 2. Get the Book: Each month, we’ll pick a book to read. You can get it from your library, bookstore, or even as an ebook/audiobook. 3. Read at Your Own Pace: Take your time to read the book (we’ll set a loose deadline). 4. Join the Discussion: We’ll meet online (via Google Meet and Discord) to chat about the book, play games, and have fun! Please comment "LOVE BOOKS" if you want to join our Discord server! Cheers, Arthur Quill, Founder of The Book Bandits

THE STORY OF VOYAGER 1 & 2 Around 50 years ago, 2 revolutionary space craft were launched into space- voyager 1 and its sibling craft, voyager 2. The purpose of these crafts were to explore and image the objects, namely the planets, in our solar system and then travel into the cosmos. It took advantage of the fact that all the plants were geometrically aligned at the time, allowing for a relatively straight, clear path through the solar system. Voyager 1 was launched first. The mission used minimal amounts of fuel, using the planets' gravity as a slingshot to move from planet to planet. This was a main point of success which the entire mission hinged on. Voyager 1 (as well as voyager 2) gave us tremendous amounts of new information about our solar system. This includes: 🔹Active volcanism on Jupiter's satellite, Io 🔹The counterclockwise rotation of the storm on Jupiter called The Great Red Spot 🔹New details about Saturn's rings 🔹The atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan After this, Voyager 1 was catapulted out of the solar system, while Voyager 2 continued its journey in to Uranus and Neptune, both of which had never previously been visited. Voyager 1 was sent "up" out of the solar system while voyager 2 was sent "down". As Voyager 1 headed out of the solar system, it was turned back to take one last picture of Earth before cameras were turned off to reserve power, resulting in the famous picture, The Pale Blue Dot. (picture at the bottom) Often Quoted, Carl Sagan, a scientist working on the project at the time, said :"That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives… on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Around 12 years ago, Voyager 1 reached the Heliopause, the boundary between the solar winds and interstellar winds, and then exited the solar system, travelling off into interstellar space. Until today, both Voyager 1 and 2 are traveling further into interstellar space, Voyager 1 being the furthest man made of object to be this far into space. At the moment, Voyager 1 is 24,880,868,749 kilometers away, equivalent to 166.318335 Astronomical Units. It takes over 3 minutes for its broadcasted signals to reach us.

THE EFFECT OF EXCLUDING FEMALE ANIMALS IN NEUROSCIENCE LAB TESTING Hey guys! Day 2 of the current series. Hope you guys enjoy. Neuroscience has been around for a long time, but only recently has it been proven that there are biological differences between the brains of males and females. This is due to the lack of testing on female rats in lab experiments. This bias is extremely obvious in all neuroscience research before the 2000s and to combat this, the NIH has implemented policies that mandate exploring and testing how gender influences the su ject of any such reseaech paper. Why is this important? There are significant differences in the functioning and chemical composition between male and female brains. Examples of this include the difference in chemicals produced by the reproductive system such as testosterone and estrogen. However, it is in no way limited to this. Female brains are now known to store traumatic memories differently compared to male brains, exhibit little impairment for certain things which cause damage in the cognitive function of male brains as well as having a higher excitability and more intensity in certain aspects. This is extremely important, dictating how neurological medicine would work on different genders. Without testing being done on female specimen, women will not receive the neurological help they need, whether it be for PTSD, depression, etc. This initiative is part of the collective effort to eradicate the inherent bias againt women's treatment in medicine. Other example of this bias include :CPR not being practiced on female dolls, making it less likely that people will perform CPR on a woman, seat belt safety testing being done solely on male dolls, neglecting the different bodyweight, build and centre of gravity inherent to a woman body, not to mention the pathetic quality of reproductive healthcare available to woman (including contraceptives, cervical or breast cancer testing and birth aid) Remember. Health care should be available for all at the best level that can be achieved, regardless of gender.

Learning different languages can be pretty important. Not only does it break the communication barrier, it also introduces a person to new cultures, ways of thinking and methods of expression. 🔹STEP 1: LANGUAGE APPS Use language learning apps to learn basic syntax, grammer and vocabulary. This gives you a good overview of the language without wasting too much of your time on trying to figure out what to learn. Apps which are popular for this include Duolingo(personal favourite), memrise, babel and busuu. 🔹STEP 2: CONSUMING MEDIA Once you've acquired basic fluency and can hold a basic conversation in the language of your choice, start selecting beginner shows like kids shows or shows designed for learners and watch them. Read books for kids and progress your vocabulary and literary understanding. Look out for new vocabulary and speaking patterns. Get comfortable with the language. 💡You may start learning another language simultaneously at this point.💡 🔹STEP 3: WRITE Using your vocabulary, write journal entries daily using your target words of the week. This helps you to formulate ideas and think in the target language. Keep lists of new vocabulary and write down any words you don't know. This familiarises you with words you would need to communicate. Write about your interests or set a daily goal with a word count. 🔹STEP 4: CHAT(TEXT) Find someone to converse with in the language or speak to an AI (ChatGPT, Blackbox AI, Gemini or entertainment AI sites of your choice). Choose a topic to converse about daily / weekly and find new vocabulary and ideas to express in the language. 🔹STEP 5: CHAT(REAL LIFE) Once you reach this stage, you should be able to speak face-to-face with someone fluent in the language. This will provide much needed nuance and practice speaking the language in real life. You also have the option of calling an AI and chatting to them without the text option, forcing you to think on your feet. Learning a language isn't necessarily hard if you do it right and consistently. It's fun and it's definitely a way to open your mind to new ways of thinking.

Hey guys! How's it going? I'm starting a new series on here called cultivating curiosity. Essentially, it's going to be a summary of any interesting news piece or factoid I have discovered, linking the article that piqued my interest. I just think it would be cool to share these stuff others and to cultivate our curiosity collectively 🤗😁 THE REFLECTION OF SOCIETAL FEARS ON HORROR MEDIA Everyone (or mostly everyone) loves a good horror movie. And there's good reason for that. Horror movies allow us to experience cathartic, out of life experiences that releases tensions and expresses fear and vulnerability in a safe way. Jump scares on a big screen sometimes tend to make jump scares in real life a little less scary. But in order to craft the perfect horror movie that will have an audience shivering in their seats, movie makers have to know the audience - and be the audience. This is exactly how we see the pattern in horror media that shows exactly what scares people through each generation. Every generation has something they're anxious or afraid about, which is often directly related to current happenings in the world. For example, in the early parts of the horror media, horror was used almost as an escape from the gruesome wars happening in those times. As the cold War progressed, horror motifs turned more subtle. Alien invasion movies(linked to the new space exploration initiatives) , "don't trust thy neighbour" and movies expressing distrust, fear and deeply rooted horror at the human condition was at the epicentre of horror. After that, slasher and ghost movies became more common, a metaphor for peoples fear of the unknown, the new technological age, expansion of cities, loss of community, stranger danger and rapid modernisation. As the World settled in the early 2000s, horror movies turned more meta and most horror movies were simply of interest due to newness. Even in today's media, horror acutely represents what we as a people are collectively terrified about - wasting our lives, losing ourselves(analogue horror such as the back rooms and Mandela catelogue), ai and technology, the male gaze and female objectification (Jennifer's body), parasitic and viral infections , issues around race and class (nope and get out) as well as the continued themes of invasion and the unknown of space, etc (a silent place and that's not my neighbour)