BY CHEYENNE ELLIS ’21
At Mount Holyoke College, there are a plethora of different bird species, ranging from finches to woodpeckers to the infamous domestic goose, Jorge. Many walk by these creatures without giving them a second thought, but a few stop and take notice. Sarah Cosmedy ’20 and Ted Gilliland, an assistant professor of Economics, are among those few.
BY ANN BAAKO ’18
Duck penises are explosive. The corkscrew-shaped organs, which are normally hidden beneath a cavity at the end of a duck’s digestive tract, shoot out to as long as eight inches; within a third of a second, the male duck ejaculates its sperm into the female to complete what is usually a forced sexual encounter. Ninety-seven percent of male birds do not have penises at all (usually, the penis-less male mushes its genital opening with the female’s and transfers sperm into the female’s vagina in a maneuver known as the “cloacal kiss”). Because of how rare penises are in the bird world, duck penises have captured bird lovers’ attention. When the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is funded by American tax dollars, handed out a $384,949 grant to Patricia Brennan and her supervisor at Yale University to explore “plasticity in duck penis length,” online conservative news agencies exploded.
BY SABRINA EDWARDS ’20 AND CHEYENNE ELLIS ’21
Do you want to get more involved at Mount Holyoke? Are you looking for ways to use your passion for science in a meaningful way? If so, one of the numerous health and science organizations on campus may be right for you. Below is a sampling of some of the clubs and orgs available to join on campus.
BY SABRINA EDWARDS ’20
With a flu season this severe and risky, it is important for the Mount Holyoke community to prevent the flu from spreading and to treat any flu symptoms with caution. Besides getting vaccinated, there are other preventative measures the community can take to keep ourselves and our neighbors happy and healthy.
BY CHEYENNE ELLIS ’21
This year’s flu season has reached a new high, surpassing records of every season since the 2009 swine flu outbreak. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes the flu is on track to match the magnitude of the swine flu, which was estimated to infect over 34 million Americans, hospitalizing 710,000 and ultimately killing 56,000 people, according to The New York Times.
BY TEAGAN WEBB '19
The first time anyone was going to see me naked, I was paralyzed with this decision. I was new to both feminism and porn so I couldn’t decide where my allegiance lay, how much to shave or how to feel about any of it. Am I compromising my beliefs? Will it give me pornstar confidence? But most importantly at the time: is a drug store razor going to do the trick? I shaved it and got as close to an instantaneous yeast infection as a person can get.
