thusspakezuska | October 17, 2007Washington Post reports on the appointment of Susan Orr:
The Bush administration again has appointed a chief of
family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services
who has been critical of contraception.
Susan Orr, most recently an associate commissioner in the Administration for Children and Families, was appointed Monday to be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. She will oversee $283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.
In a 2001 article in The…
thusspakezuska | October 17, 2007Spitting on Rosalind Franklin's grave is apparently not satisfying enough for Jim Watson. When you are a largemouth ass, you have to do much, much more. So now he's maligned all of Africa and everyone of African descent. Here's a quote:
he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".
Also,
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities…
thusspakezuska | October 16, 2007By way of the Chronicle News Blog...researchers are using a brain-computer interface to allow physically-impaired people move an avatar around in Second Life.
The system consists of a headpiece equipped with electrodes that monitor activity in three areas of the motor cortex (the region of the brain involved in controlling the movement of the arms and legs). An EEG machine reads and graphs the data and relays it to the BCI, where a brain wave analysis algorithm interprets the user's imagined movements. A keyboard emulator then converts this data into a signal and relays it to Second Life,…
thusspakezuska | October 16, 2007Really. I am not making this up. As quoted in The Guardian:
He smiles. "Rosalind is my cross," he says slowly. "I'll bear it. I think she was partially autistic." He pauses for a while, before repeating the suggestion, as if to make it clear that this is no off-the-cuff insult, but a considered diagnosis. "I'd never really thought of scientists as autistic until this whole business of high-intelligence autism came up. There is probably no other explanation for Rosalind's behaviour.
Oh, yes, a considered diagnosis, I'm sure. He's been considering since 1953 what he'd like to preemptively…
thusspakezuska | October 15, 2007So, it's Blog Action Day, and we're all supposed to post something related to the environment. Science Woman has a very hopeful post about how "having a daughter has brought the idea of intergenerational responsibility into much sharper focus" for her.
What shall I tell you? I spent a good part of this afternoon clearing out a neglected, overgrown flower bed in the backyard. It was a beautiful day to be out working in the yard, warm and sunny. We're going to be in the low to mid-70s the rest of the week. That's 15 to 20 degrees warmer than average for this time of year.
It was a very…
thusspakezuska | October 14, 2007I just want to remind those of you who have donated and those of you who might be thinking of donating to Donors Choose, that if you want to receive your nifty Women in Math and Science magnet AND have a chance to win the "Don't Make Me Puke On Your Shoes" t-shirt, you need to send me a copy of your email receipt from Donors Choose. Send it to me at bobtownsuz AT yahoo DOT com. Also, include your mailing address. And thank you for donating!
thusspakezuska | October 12, 2007So eight of you, besides me, so far, think that Donors Choose is a worthy cause. The generous eight have had an impact on 305 students! (See the Leaderboard for details.)
Anybody else? Also, remember the cool prizes available if you donate.
Chad at Uncertain Principles has harangued his readers but I certainly wouldn't do that to you. I merely direct you to his harangue.
thusspakezuska | October 12, 2007I love it. You must read this book review in the TimesOnline (found via Arts & Letters Daily) of Deborah Cameron's The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? Commenting on Cameron's take on all the myths about language differences between men and women:
For Cameron, this is simplistic eyewash, best countered with a few well-aimed stats. She cites the meta-analysis of Janet Hyde, a psychologist who has collated masses of research findings on male-female communications. Hyde's number-crunching suggests that the difference in language use between men and…
thusspakezuska | October 12, 2007By now you've no doubt heard that Al Gore and the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I must confess that this announcement gives me no small degree of schadenfreude when I think of how the denizens of the White House must be feeling about this.
The LA Times notes:
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmental concern is regarded by many as a symbolic rebuke of the Bush administration's reluctance to join a U.N.-led process to reduce global greenhouse gases. The prize often reflects the aspirations of the Nobel committee as much…
thusspakezuska | October 11, 2007I completely blanked out on Scientiae for October, so I really don't want to do that again for November. Yami is hosting, and you can find her call for post here. The theme is talking to yourself which god knows I do enough of, sitting home all day with the cats. I mean, don't get me wrong, China and Bodhi are great, but they don't talk back. Except for the occasionally meow-y demand for More Food, Plz.
Yami includes this very reasonable request to all you dude bloggers:
Finally... the past few Scientiae carnivals have been composed entirely of women's voices. While I think it's…
thusspakezuska | October 11, 2007Apparently the shabby prizes I am offering are not enough to entice very many of you to donate to Donors Choose.
But perhaps you will perk up and open your wallets when you see what Seed is giving away to generous readers!
In addition to the $15,000 in matching funds that Seed is putting up for the challenges themselves, DONORS can enter to win one of the following:
1 fresh, new iPod nano
21 "Seed Hearts Threadless" tee shirts
21 ScienceBlogs mugs
21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
9 copies of "The Best American Science Writing 2007"
How does this work? Simple: interested donors can…
thusspakezuska | October 10, 2007From the Chronicle of Higher Education, Home-Schooled Students Rise in Supply and Demand:
"Home schooling often really allows students to develop a passion," says Sabena Moretz, associate director of admissions at Richmond. "With a traditional high school, most of the time you don't see a kid who's gotten so excited with the history of Monticello or got themselves onto an archaeology dig."
Recognizing that sense of passion is what led Virginia Commonwealth University to create two engineering scholarships this year for home-schoolers, says Russell Jamison, dean of the engineering school. "We…
thusspakezuska | October 9, 2007I know I would. So how do you do that? Well, Seed Media Group will help you by matching your donation. The first $15,000 in donations made through the Scienceblogs Challenge will be matched by Seed Media Group through its Science Literacy Grants. From the press release:
Seed Media Group is launching the Seed Media Group Science Literacy Grants, a commitment valued at $100,000 through a combination of cash (matching contributions of funds raised on its online community site Scienceblogs) and in-kind advertising (in its print magazine Seed and on Scienceblogs).
Today, science affects every…
thusspakezuska | October 9, 2007MentorNet, the premier e-mentoring organization, has recently launched the MentorNet Blog. Mary Fernandez tells us in the inaugural entry:
In this blog, I plan to explore the inspiring, unexpected, and exciting reasons to choose a STEM career, and I am asking the MentorNet community to help me tell their stories. Here's a list of some of the more obvious reasons to explore:
Fun!
Freedom
Flexibility
Challenge
Impact on society
Money
If you would like to contribute a story about your career to MentorNet's blog, just email Mary at blog AT mentornet DOT net, and she'll post your contribution…
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007One of my readers recently wrote to me to talk about the frustrations of trying to manage a career in science while needing to work part-time for a period of time, due to health concerns.
Part-time employment is something that many of us might want to consider for a variety of reasons, at various stages in life. Maybe, like my correspondent, we're temporarily ill and can't keep to a full-time (read: 80 hours per week) schedule in an academic lab (or even a more "normal" sort of schedule in a corporate setting). Maybe there's a new child that needs our attention, and working part-time for…
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007Thanks to those of you who have donated so far! You've helped get the TSZ challenge to 39% of fulfillment!
The way Donors Choose works, more than one person can add a proposal to a challenge, and/or individuals could choose to donate to a proposal separate from a challenge. That's why you will see that some of the proposals on my challenge list have been fully funded even though I have not yet reached my challenge funding goal. So I've added a few new proposals to the list for you to choose from, if you are still considering donating. Here are a few of them:
Put Science Back in the…
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007So it seems there's a $10,000 blogging scholarship, and ScienceBlog's own Shelley Batts has made the cut! (Second year in a row!) She's one of 20 finalists and, I believe, the only science blogger among the 20. And she could really use the money. And wouldn't it be way cool to have a woman science blogger win this? So just cruise on over there and vote for Shelley. I want to vote for her a second time but they won't let me. Guess I'll have to go log on to some different computers and vote again...Hey, if you, unlike me, have a job, you could vote at work AND at home!!!! I'll have to…
thusspakezuska | October 5, 2007What does it take to be included in The Best Science Writing 2007?
Well, it helps if you write for the New Yorker or the New York Times. Eleven of 20 contributions selected for this volume originally appeared in the New Yorker or the New York Times or New York Times Magazine. It also helps if you are writing about something to do with human beings (twelve articles), and especially if you can contrive to write about the human brain (seven of those twelve articles). We humans do like to read about our brains.
You will have just a slight edge if you are a man (thirteen contributions…
thusspakezuska | October 5, 2007I spent a lot of time on airplanes in the last few weeks, and so I spent a lot of time reading in-flight magazines. Southwest's Spirit is not so bad. In the pages of the September edition I learned about Galco's Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles, dedicated to preserving all the unique and tasty soda pops of the world.
John Nese decided in 1995 to devote part of his small Los Angeles grocery store to the fizzy concoctions. Disturbed by the idea that Coke and Pepsi would forever wipe out his beloved rare sodas, Nese started stocking the goods. Along the way, he contacted small soda makers,…
thusspakezuska | October 5, 2007Dr. Free-Ride has provided a nice summary of how the Science Bloggers' Challenge for Donors Choose is going so far. And can you believe those readers over at Mike Dunford's blog? They've already maxed out his challenge!
And you all are no slouches either...look at Dr. Free-Ride's top five lists. You've put Thus Spake Zuska in all of 'em.
I know we can do even better! And besides, don't you all want a magnet? Or chance to win a t-shirt????? Or, at the very least, that happy feeling inside that comes from knowing you did something good to help our teachers and kids?
Remember, if you…