Education
clock | August 5, 2008Novel Kind Of Learning Gene Discovered:
Scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin have come one step closer to unraveling the molecular basis of learning. A team led by neurobiologist Björn Brembs has discovered the first gene for operant conditioning in the fruit fly Drosophila.
Family Type Has Less-than-expected Impact On Parental Involvement, Study Finds:
Children in step-families and in other non-traditional families get just as much quality time with their parents as those in traditional families, with only a few exceptions, according to research to be presented at the annual meeting…
drorzel | August 2, 2008I subscribe to a bunch of EurekAlert RSS feeds, including the "Education" feed, which could often be re-named "The Journal of Unsurprising Results." Take, for example, today's ground-breaking study, Male college students more likely than less-educated peers to commit property crimes, which comes complete with the subhead "Sociological research reveals paradox of higher education, crime":
Sociologists at Bowling Green State University found that college-bound youth report lower levels of criminal activity and substance use during adolescence compared to non-college-bound youth. However, levels…
jstemwedel | July 30, 2008You've probably already heard the news last week that a study published in Science indicates that the gender gap between girls and boys in mathematical performance may be melting faster than the polar ice caps. The study, "Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance" by Janet S. Hyde et al., appears in the July 25, 2008 issue of Science (behind a paywall). [1]
Hyde et al. revisit results of a meta-analysis published in 1990 (J. S. Hyde, E. Fennema, S. Lamon, Psychol. Bull. 107, 139 (1990).) that found negligible gender differences in math ability in the general population but…
terrasig | July 30, 2008Unlike the blogosphere and some unhinged stakeholders, I've been quietly watching the PZ Myers crackergate episode unfold. My concerns have been less theological than educational, primarily because I am the beneficiary of an arm of the University of Florida public higher education system.
I've been beating my head against the wall as to why the leadership and student government of the University of Central Florida in Orlando would be taking such drastic action against Webster Cook. Cook is the student who took a consecrated communion wafer uneaten from a Sunday 29 June Catholic service at…
jrosenhouse | July 28, 2008Via Mark Chu-Carroll, I just finished reading this article by mathematician Keith Devlin. He writes:
Let's start with the underlying fact. Multiplication simply is not repeated addition, and telling young pupils it is inevitably leads to problems when they subsequently learn that it is not. Multiplication of natural numbers certainly gives the same result as repeated addition, but that does not make it the same. Riding my bicycle gets me to my office in about the same time as taking my car, but the two processes are very different. Telling students falsehoods on the assumption that they can…
pharyngula | July 26, 2008Good news! While I still get flooded with email every time Bill Donohue puts my address in a press release, I'm getting 90% fewer death threats! I think that maybe the example of Ms Kroll and her trollish husband has made people thinking twice before explicitly spelling out their gruesome plans, so that's an improvement.
I'm still getting way too much repetitive crap, though. Yes, people, I know you're offended. You don't all need to tell me. If I had time to reply to each one of you individually, I'd simply tell you to tough it out — I'm offended by you, but none of us have a right to not be…
gregladen | July 26, 2008Amy Binder and John H. Evans, associate professors of Sociology at the University of California at San Diego, have written a piece on efforts to force religion in the guise of Intelligent Design and Creationism down the throats of children in Texas.
A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class. The proposal is a new round in an…
clock | July 25, 2008Bjoern Brembs is on a roll! Check all of these out:
Incentivizing open scientific discussion:
Apart from the question of whether the perfect scientist is the one who only spends his time writing papers and doing experiments, what incentives can one think of to provide for blogging, commenting, sharing? I think because all of science relies on creativity, information and debate, the overall value of blogging, commenting and sharing can hardly be overestimated, so what incentives can there be for the individual scientist?
Journals - the dinosaurs of scientific communication:
Today's system of…
clock | July 25, 2008'Snow Flea Antifreeze Protein' Could Help Improve Organ Preservation:
Scientists in Illinois and Pennsylvania are reporting development of a way to make the antifreeze protein that enables billions of Canadian snow fleas to survive frigid winter temperatures. Their laboratory-produced first-of-a-kind proteins could have practical uses in extending the storage life of donor organs and tissues for human transplantation, according to new research.
Freedom's Just Another Word For Less Sexually Active Teens:
Sophisticated statistical research is providing more evidence of a link between rigid…
grrlscientist | July 21, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Female black-chinned Hummingbird, Archilochus alexandri, Cave Creek Canyon, AZ.
Image: Dave Rintoul, June 2008 [larger view].
More images from Dave's recent Arizona vacation.
Birds in Science News
The fossil record suggests that much of the biodiversity we see arose quickly in response to ecological opportunities: abundant resources combined with few, or no, potential competitors. As the niche became more crowded, the rate of speciation decreased. This process is known as density-dependent diversification. But can…
cortex | July 18, 2008Whenever I happen to watch some talking heads on a cable news channel - usually while stuck in an airport - I'm always impressed by how mistaken the basic premise of the conversation is. The pundits will waste lots of words on how Obama's pivot on FISA might turn off his liberal base, or how McCain's tax cuts will appeal to working women, or they'll consider the political implications of whatever issue happens to be in the news that day. The underlying assumption, of course, is that issues matter, that voters are fundamentally rational agents who vote for candidates based on a coherent set…
grrlscientist | July 17, 2008tags: explicit atheism, godlessness, religion, theism, rational living, freethinking, philosophy
Phylogeny of Christianity.
Image: FrostFireZoo.
All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.
~ Baron d'Holbach, 1772.
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) was recently added to the Atheist Blogroll. You can see the atheist doohickey on my left sidebar, which looks like this;
The Atheist Blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to atheist bloggers from around the world. As a new member, I was invited to write a little blurb (blurp?) about…
ejohnson | July 16, 2008In this post: the large versions of the Education & Careers and Medicine & Health channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week.
Education & Careers. From Flickr, by Duchamp
Medicine & Health. From Flickr, by jurvetson
Reader comments of the week:
In Don't Go to Grad School (in the Humanities), Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles dipenses some sage advice for prospective grad students: "If they're not offering to pay you, don't go." For physics students but even more for humanities students, the potential payoffs are not enough, in Chad's opinion, to…
tfk | July 14, 2008I'll be in Austin, TX later this week to attend NetrootsNation and to stare steely-eyed at the state's Board of Education. I will also be part of this exciting event:
Speakers to Highlight Dangers of Creationism Encroaching into the Public Schools
Austin, Texas (July 10, 2008)- Science education in Texas is under attack as never before, as evidenced by the recent ouster of State Director of Science Education Christine Castillo Comer for the offense of promoting science education. Now, as Comer pursues her lawsuit for wrongful termination, the Center for Inquiry-Austin, Texas Citizens for…
drorzel | July 14, 2008Matt Yglesias points to a Peter Suderman post talking about this post about finding jobs:
The last couple of years have seen my friends begin to start their honest-to-goodness careers, as opposed to jobs that were by design short-term. I'd say that among people I would call friends, a good two dozen have gotten long-term/serious jobs in the last couple years. And here's the thing: literally none of them got there jobs without some sort of "in", a personal connection that got them the job.
It goes on a bit from there, and Peter and Matt add some good thoughts about why this might not be as…
clock | July 12, 2008There is an interesting discussion on [edit: Richard's blog on] Nature Network about the usefulness of science videos, like those published in JoVE, where methods and protocols are performed in front of the cameras and intentionally designed to be educational.
If you are a cell biologist, learning a new-to-you (but standard in the field) technique while studying at a Big Research University in the western world, it is likely that there will be several other cell biologists in your building who can guide you through the process better than a movie can, step-by-step, answering your questions,…
gregladen | July 12, 2008From the NCSE:
Senate Bill 733, signed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on June 25, continues to draw criticism from scientists and political observers across the political spectrum.
In the New Scientist, Amanda Gefter reports (July 9, 2008), "The new legislation is the latest manoeuvre in a long-running war to challenge the validity of Darwinian evolution as an accepted scientific fact in American classrooms." Since the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, where intelligent design creationism was found to be nonscience and unconstitutional to present in science classes, Gefter explains that "…
pharyngula | July 11, 2008You asked for it, I deliver. Here's a good chunk of the opposition email that I've received in the last two days; not quite all of it, though, since I got bored and a lot of it has just been going straight into the trash. I've tried to cut out most of the identifying names and so forth, but if I missed a few…tough.
Trust me, it's very tiresome to read.
I know you are smarter than most people and probably even God himself, if you even believe in God. But you could learn something in humility. And there is nothing wrong with a Catholic standing up for his faith. In fact, a Catholic who…
oracknows | July 11, 2008I'd start out by saying that here's another one for my (in)famous Academic Woo Aggregator, except that this institution is already a part of the Woo Aggregator. The only thing I can say is that Steve Novella (who's from Yale and has had to manage an influx of woo at his home institution) might get to feel a bit of schadenfreude over this, because the institution in question is Harvard University.
And boy is this a doozy. In fact, it's a $6,500 dose of continuing medical education doozy! Check out Structural Acupuncture for Physicians:
Date: 10/2/2008 -- 6/7/2009
Course #: 00292317
Areas of…
gregladen | July 7, 2008This:
Professor wants to observe illegal assisted suicides
Academic seeks understanding of the right-to-die movement
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, July 03, 2008
Canada's university professors are preparing to defend the right of a Metro Vancouver researcher to witness illegal assisted suicides in the name of increasing understanding of the right-to-die movement.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has formed a high-level committee to investigate claims that Kwantlen Polytechnic University sociologist Russel Ogden was unjustly denied the chance to research…