STEM-POWERED Pakistan

 INTRODUCTION Technological advancements are no doubt soaring higher and higher as the years progress, but at what cost? As new technology is being incorporated into the lives of all, are we getting greater security or unintentionally getting controlled? This article explores how social credit frameworks and surveillance in dystopian narratives reveal the subtle dangers of technology: the slow erosion of our rights and autonomy. To unpack this, I’ll examine Orwell’s 1984, an episode of Black Mirror, and the growing digital identity infrastructure here in Pakistan by the name of NADRA, a government initiative to centrally store records of the citizens, issue IDs and aid the government’s works such as elections and taxation. These works collectively warn that when technology designed for trust or convenience is twisted for control, it strips away freedom and transforms society into something unrecognisably authoritarian. For instance, scholars argue that Orwell’s depiction of tele-sc...

What is Sickle Cell Anemia:  Sickle cell anemia is one disorder out of a group of inherited disorders known as sickle cell disease. It affects the shape of red blood cells which transport oxygen to the entire body. Normal red blood cells have a biconcave disc shape and they are flexible so they can easily fit even into smaller blood vessels like capillaries. RBCs affected with sickle cell anemia have a shape like a crescent moon or a sickle. RBCs become rigid and sticky. Cause:  Sickle cell anemia is caused by a change in the gene (HBB) which codes for the synthesis of hemoglobin, the iron rich protein which is specifically responsible for carrying oxygen in red blood cells. In a normal hemoglobin, the sixth amino acid in the beta globin chain is glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is a hydrophilic amino acid which means it interacts with the watery environment of the cell and maintains the normal shape. In SCD however, this is replaced by the amino acid valine which is hydrophobic m...

 INTRODUCTION Recent research has begun to uncover the hidden environmental costs of artificial intelligence with growing attention on its significant water footprint. Studies conducted by environmental scientists and computer engineers have used a combination of data audits, model training logs and cooling system analyses to estimate water usage across AI operations. Findings reveal that training large scale AI models such as Chat GPT can consume millions of litres of fresh water primarily for cooling the massive servers required to process complex calculations. Training GPT in Microsoft US data centers is estimated to evaporate about 700,000  litres of water directly for cooling. A 2025 study (University of California, Riverside) estimates 10–50 Chat GPT responses consume about 500 mL of fresh water, so roughly 0.5 L per 10–50 queries, or around 10–50 mL per response. The water demand is often localised placing additional stress on regions already facing water scarcity. For examp...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are becoming a big part of our daily lives. They are used in things like facial recognition systems and loan applications, which means they can be a significant part of a persons identity or financial independence. But researchers have shown that these systems are not always fair.  For example, a study by researchers at MIT found that facial recognition technology works very well for lighter-skinned men but makes many more mistakes for darker-skinned women. In some cases, the error rate was over 30% for darker-skinned women, while it was less than 1% for lighter-skinned men.  Similar issues happen with financial systems. Loan algorithms sometimes end up rejecting people just because of where they live or because they are part of a minority group, even if they are just as qualified for a loan as others.  These examples show what we already know: AI can be biased, the bias usually comes from the data it is trained on, a...