Author: Mekhala Gunaratne

  • The life of a cadaver

    The life of a cadaver

    When the phone next to her bed rang at 2:30 a.m., some part of Joan Johnston already knew the news would not be good — her husband was never coming home. She was asleep when the call came on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009. She picked up after two or three rings to the unfamiliar voice…

  • A revolution in education

    A revolution in education

    Paperless textbooks and virtual classrooms — the digital era of education is in full swing and it’s stirring a revolution in how students learn. “The reality is we live in a wonderful time,” says cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch. “There are at least three billion people connecting and collaborating in the air all around us, and…

  • A jazzy kind of night

    A jazzy kind of night

    If a pin dropped right now, you’d hear it. Despite seating almost three dozen students with instruments in hand, Room 104 in Western University’s Don Wright Faculty of Music building is unusually quiet. But tonight, the silence hangs heavy with anticipation, and soon the room will erupt into a flutter of melody. The Worst Pop…

  • Forced marriages occur in Canada, new evidence shows

    Forced marriages occur in Canada, new evidence shows

    Forced marriages aren’t just a problem in foreign countries. A recent survey conducted by the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario shows Canada isn’t immune to the problem. “When people talk about this issue, most of the time people talk about the incidents of people taken abroad and they don’t talk about what happens domestically,”…