There’s upheaval in the global political sphere. Brexit and President Donald Trump’s inauguration sent shockwaves the world over. In his article published in the latest Think magazine, Dr George Vital Zammit analyses the emergence of political dissent and its repercussions.

Zammit goes back to 2013 when Pope Francis visited Brazil, a trip tainted by protesters who felt that the cost behind it was too much. This was no isolated incident, however, with the Women’s March following  President Trump’s inauguration being the most recent.

“People react when they perceive that their dignity is being breached,” says Zammit. In ways, dissent should also be seen under a positive light as it leads to constructive results, since it primarily brings people together and strengthens participation in society.

Zammit refers to Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe, who believes hope for a harmonious society is futile. “Thinking cannot be harmonised,” she says. Additionally, despite having more tools to communicate with, we are less ready to listen to one another in today’s day and age. Finally, people have seen themselves becoming a service to the economy, instead of the opposite.

Society needs a concentration of dignity and to remember that politics must remain a medium for social justice. We must be prepared for the systematic changes which dissent leads to.

For more, read the in-depth feature in Think magazine: www.um.edu.mt/think/the-politics-of-dissent/.

Did you know?

• The corner of our eyes next to our noses contain an evolutionary remainder from when we had inner eyelids.

• When Anders Celsius first invented his temperature scale in 1742, it was the reverse of what we know today; 0 was the boiling point of water, while 100 was its freezing point. Upon Celsius’ death in 1744, botanist Carl Linnaeus changed the scale to its present standard.

• An average-sized fluffy cumulus cloud weighs approximately 1.1 million pounds, roughly the same as 100 elephants!

• In November 2016, it was shown that among children new HIV infections have declined by 50% since 2010, and that AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 45% since 2005.

• Space has been described as smelling like a combination of barbecued meat, hot metal and fuel.

For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think

Sound bites

• Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, we now know that one of Saturn’s 62 moons might provide the right conditions for life to emerge. In the oceans underneath Enceladus’ ice, there could be a chemical reaction occurring that provides an energy source for microbial life.

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/nasa-discovers-why-saturns-moon-enceladus-may-be-the-best-place-to-look-for-alien-life

• Scientists have discovered that increasing wind speeds caused by climate change may be disrupting the ability of polar bears to hunt their prey. By studying 123 polar bears in Canada’s Hudson bay for 11 years, they found that faster winds make it more difficult for the bears to localise odours.

www.independent.co.uk/environment/polar-bears-climate-change-hunting-seals-harder-global-warming-arctic-circle-melting-ice-smell-wind-a7680136.html

• In the US, a team of engineers have developed a pair of ‘smart’ glasses which mimic the behaviour of the lens of a human eye. The glasses’ liquid-based lenses flex to focus on wherever an individual is looking.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170411182509.htm

• Researchers have created a 3D-printed patch to address scarring problems after heart attacks. They have used stem cells in laser-based 3D bioprinting to create a patch that can grow and beat with the existing heart tissue.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170414123931.htm

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