Links for 2011-05-06

"In selecting works, I've decided to go for the widest stylistic range I can think of and the widest range of settings, interests and authors. [...] It also provides a surplus of certain kinds of books that I find tedious because they follow such a strong template and are so driven by market fads: memoirs of white women who grew up on African farms that followed on Alexandra Fuller's great memoir of life in Rhodesia and now memoirs of child soldiers and survivors of Darfur. But I think that's an interesting kind of reading in its own right-to sort distinctively written examples of such mini-genres from the templates which emerge to structure most writing of this kind. I'm also only considering books that I think are provocative sparks to intensely-felt conversation, so avoiding works that are worthy in some fashion or another but tend to only invite a kind of pious, numbed consensus appreciation for their worthiness."

"There is indeed a difference between a CV and a resume. But as a PhD who has applied for and gotten many jobs, I don't think the difference between a CV and a resume is clear. It's clear there is some difference, but it's not necessarily clear what that difference is. So I am not at all surprised if, given the lack of career resources for PhDs leaving academia, no one had ever explained to these poor souls that the person hiring them for a nonacademic job didn't want abstracts of all their conference papers, posters, etc."

"A report by the National Academies, which advises our country on science and technology, last fall found that the U.S. ranks 27 out of 29 wealthy countries in proportion of college students with degrees in science or engineering. It called on federal and state governments to improve teaching in math and science by targeting early childhood education, the public-school curriculum for both, and by supporting teacher training in crucial subjects.

1,000 Scientists in 1,000 Days, a program that Scientific American is now launching as part of its Change the Equation initiatives with our parent Nature Publishing Group, aims to help with all of those goals by making it easier for scientists and teachers to connect. The idea is simple. We seek scientists who are willing to volunteer to advise on curricula, answer a classroom's questions, or visit a school--for instance, to do a lab or to talk about what you do. How much you choose to participate will be up to you."