Thus Spake Zuska
Archives for October, 2007
Thank You For Your Generosity
Posted by Zuska on October 29, 2007 Wow! I asked, and you responded. Thanks! My challenge is funded at 100%. That’s $1500 (actually, a little more) impacting 345 schoolkids! You can still donate if you want to, even though my initial goal has been reached. There are still some open proposals on my challenge list, including two of the ones I described…
It Helps To Speak The Language When You’re Thinking About Gender
Posted by Zuska on October 29, 2007 When I was a postdoctoral student my supervisor sent me for three or four days to what we participants called “cancer camp”. It was a mini-course on the histopathbiology of cancer. We learned to interpret pathology slides, how to look at them, read them, identify cancer in all its various forms and stages. We were…
Just In Case You Can…
Posted by Zuska on October 29, 2007 …the deadline for the end of the Donors Choose fund drive is rapidly approaching. I’m bummed that it looks like TSZ will not reach 100% of its funding goal. That means some potential matching funds will go unclaimed. I realize many of you may have other favorite charities you support, so I thank you for…
How to Find Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research
Posted by Zuska on October 29, 2007 Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily introduced today a new set of icons that will help readers identify blogging on peer-reviewed research. You can find the full announcement below the fold, including info on where to find the icons, how to use them, and how to find blog posts tagged with the icons.
Stuff I Read and Thought You’d Like
Posted by Zuska on October 27, 2007 Some great posts on other blogs you may have missed reading: Language Log has a great critique of the new PBS show WordGirl, which I found via Fairer Science. If that’s not enough to make you grind your teeth, then read Pat’s roundup on the Bionic Woman, Ubisoft’s Imagine video games, and Barbie Girls. Bleah.…
Applying Interdisciplinary Meanings of Race
Posted by Zuska on October 27, 2007 Since Jim Watson’s recent self-destruction, there’s been a lot of talk about pseudo-scientific racism versus actual “scientific” studies of race. Earlier this summer, Lennard J. Davis had an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled A Grand Unified Theory of Interdisciplinarity in which he had this to say about race and ethnicity in the…
What A Non-Scientist Thinks About James Watson
Posted by Zuska on October 26, 2007 By now everyone knows that Jim Watson has resigned his position at CSHL. But the damage he’s done will live on long afterwards. Consider this comment from a reader (emphasis added): As a non-scientist, I’d like to point out an unpredictable side-effect of Watson’s remarks that might make scientists cringe. Yesterday a student in my…
What You Need To Know About Community Colleges
Posted by Zuska on October 25, 2007 So you’re despairing of your future as an academic research scientist, and looking for “alternative” careers. When I was a grad student and postdoc I often heard my fellow students/postdocs say things like “well, I’ll just get a teaching job” or “I’ll just go teach at a community college”. The implication was that any community…
When I Was Young, We Had To Compute Uphill, In The Snow….
Posted by Zuska on October 24, 2007 Didn’t you get something like this from your parents when you were younger? “You kids don’t know how easy you have it. When I was young, I had to walk to school! In the snow! Uphill! Both ways!” Well, a bunch of us Sciencebloggers recently got to reminiscing about the good ol’ days, when we…
PZ, You’ve Seriously Disappointed Me
Posted by Zuska on October 24, 2007 PZ Myers is a really nice person and I love Pharyngula – I just spent a nice half hour reading it, and among other good stuff I encountered there was a link in this post to Robert Hooke’s notebooks online. Very cool indeed, and totally geekalicious. But I’m also aware of this recent distasteful post…