Author: Pride Team

Gery Karantzas, Deakin University Romantic couples with a large age gap often raise eyebrows. Studies have found partners with more than a ten-year gap in age experience social disapproval. But when it comes to our own relationships, both men and women prefer someone their own age, but are open to someone 10-15 years their junior or senior. While there is variation across cultures in the size of the difference in age-gap couples, all cultures demonstrate the age-gap couple phenomenon. In some non-Western countries, the average age gap is much larger than in Western countries. For example, in some African countries…

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Today, our Woman Crush Wednesday is Lola Masha. Lola who is currently the Executive Director of Babban Gona, an innovative Agricultural Franchise model founded to leverage the private sector to address Nigeria’s spiralling youth unemployment challenge through their vision to “make 1 million smallholder farmer members more money by 2025”, has ample knowledge and expertise in business development, entrepreneurship, operational transformation, strategy and product development. Lola has an impressive working history; she started off her career as a consultant at the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company, engaging with senior management across several industries. She spent 4 years at Google,…

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Raynold Wonder Alorse, Queen’s University, Ontario Modern society has given significant attention to the promises of the digital economy over the past decade. But it has given little attention to its negative environmental footprint. Our smartphones rely on rare earth metals, and cloud computing, data centres, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies consume large amounts of electricity, often sourced from coal-fired power plants. These are crucial blind spots we must address if we hope to capture the full potential of the digital economy. Without urgent system-wide actions, the digital economy and green economy will be incompatible with each other and could lead…

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Kenneth Amaeshi, University of Edinburgh Chief executive officers (CEOs), like ordinary citizens, are driven by their values and convictions. These may not necessarily be just ‘good for business’. Examples abound. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, speaks strongly for the LGBT community. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff speaks strongly against pay inequality. Laurence Douglas Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, is passionate about the incorporation of environmental, social, and governance risks in investment decisions and is against shareholders taking very short-term views. One thing common among these examples is that the debate on how good or bad leaders’ convictions are for business…

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Maximus Monaheng Sefotho, University of Pretoria More than two million South African children who are disabled risk slipping between the cracks of education and employment without real guidance and support. People living with mental or physical disabilities worldwide are targets of either outright abuse or more subtle discrimination and social exclusion. Disabled South Africans struggle to find jobs and are often vulnerable to being unceremoniously sacked or badly treated. Career development could be used to bolster disabled youngsters’ confidence and show them what jobs are available after school. It is also a valuable tool to teach disabled learners about their…

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Bound by hands and feet As a patient in an asylum Mother leads the troop of the matriarchal order Into our humble abode Blades rusted in perilous tradition Descending painfully upon clit, upon labia minora Scraping away without mercy Drowning dogma down between these shaken legs This pain is akin to being burnt while alive The impatient gush of blood covers the mat As the oceans cover the sea My indoctrination into womanhood is complete They burst forth into a song, teaching my lips to sing Admonishment comes in rounds To teach my daughters and their daughters…

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Reading 1 Ezr 1:1-6 In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: ‘All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Therefore, whoever among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up,…

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Holy Humour Exhausting! God is talking to one of his angels. He says, “Do you know what I have just done? I have just created a 24-hour period of alternating light and darkness on Earth. Isn’t that good?” The angel says, “Yes, but what will you do now?” God says, “I think I’ll call it a day.” Sunday Quote Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion – several of them. – Mark Twain                                     Sunday Joke Man-Made Early one morning the husband and wife were arguing over…

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Aaron French, University of California, Davis You’ve likely used the internet to help you remember something, like a quote from a movie, only to discover the answer differed from what you had anticipated. Maybe you shrugged, telling yourself your memory was faulty, and went on with your life. But what if you found thousands of people online had this same experience about this same movie quote – and misremembered it in exactly the same way? Could all these people be wrong? What if their memories were actually correct, and someone – or something – had slightly altered the past? That’s…

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Ben Carter, King’s College London and Nicola Kalk, King’s College London Love them or hate them, smartphones have become ubiquitous in everyday life. And while they have many positive uses, people remain concerned about the potential negative harms of excessively using them – especially in children and teens. In 2018, a whopping 95% of 16-24 year olds owned a smartphone, up from only 29% in 2008. However, alongside this increase in smartphone use, studies have also shown mental health has become worse in this age group. We conducted the first ever systematic review investigating what we called “problematic smartphone usage”…

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