thusspakezuska | October 4, 2007Geez, have I ever had a bad blogging month. I've not blogged much lately. I completely missed contributing to this month's Scientiae (these last two weeks with Mom took up a lot of time...) And then I completely blanked out that it was even time for Scientiae to be up, until I saw Sciencewoman's announcement. But indeed, the new Scientiae is up, at Wayfarer Scientista, and the topic is mentoring.
Skookumchick offers up a devastating dissection of a mentoring workshop she was required to attend, but which offered zero useful information as to how she could actually acquire or improve…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2007Probably you've already noticed that Sciencewoman has joined the gang here at ScienceBlogs! Her first post here was on Sept. 20th, which was while I was off traveling with my mom. Helping my mom navigate through her vacation absorbed nearly all my energy and time; there was not much left for blogging, and so I didn't get to formally welcome Sciencewoman at that time. But I assure you, I was (and am) thrilled to pieces to have her here as one of my newest Sciblings.
I am sure many of you who read here, also read Sciencewoman, and I hope you will continue to enjoy her blog at its new…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2007So, I see that sly Dr. Free-Ride is bribing her readers with promises of poems and original artwork from the sprogs and writing blog entries on the topic of their choice if only they will contribute to Donors Choose. Very clever, very clever indeed. And not to be outdone, Sciencewoman is promising a personalized handprint from Minnow to anyone who donates $25 or more to her challenge.
What to do, what to do? I have not written a poem since my teen years. Though as a 7-yr-old, I did launch the entrepreneurial Poem Manufacturing Company, which promised you a poem on the topic of your…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2007I wasn't a part of ScienceBlogs yet last June for the first Donors Choose fund-raiser, but I sure am glad to be able to participate this year. If you haven't heard of Donors Choose, here's a quick description:
DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.
A bunch of us…
thusspakezuska | September 27, 2007Saw this over at The Chem Blog. Couldn't help offering my own spin on it. Chem Blog needs some serious shoe-puking.
I recommend you read the original, then my version. It will be more fun that way.
Oh god that is so freaking depressing isn't it? Reminds me of a sad story from when I was in grad school. Seems there was a boy with good looking transcripts but about equivalent to those of a girl in the program so they gave a hearty fellowship to the boy because, as you may have guessed, he's got a Y chromosome and this advantage must be exacerbated with fellowships, grants and pats on…
thusspakezuska | September 19, 2007The Scientist wants you to vote for your favorite life science blogs. To get the party started, they asked seven prominent science bloggers to recommend their favorite science blogs. I mean, they asked seven prominent male science bloggers for their recommendations. This is science, after all, and we need to be precise.
So, they didn't ask any women - big deal, whine whine. Right?
Yeah, well, in the grand scheme of things, who gives a rat's ass? It's just some dumb article in one magazine.
But in the grand scheme of things, this is just one more example of how women get overlooked…
thusspakezuska | September 19, 2007From the Chronicle News Blog...
...it will be 25 years ago tomorrow that Mr. Fahlman, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, invented the digital smiley face.
After a colleague joked about a contaminated elevator on an electronic bulletin board, Mr. Fahlman had his eureka moment: He recommended that future quipsters mark their jokes with ":-)" to make sure no one misconstrued their comments.
What great blessings the emoticon has brought to our society! Although I do think the Abraham Lincoln emoticon is just a little too much:
-- "==):-)=" --
Happy birthday, little…
thusspakezuska | September 16, 2007Posting will be sparse to non-existent over the next week, as it has been the past few days. This is because I'm hanging with Mom for a week or so. Actually, I'm hanging with my mom and my sister at the beach at Cape Hatteras. Sister and I have spent months planning this undertaking. Cape Hatteras is a place very special to my mom; it was a beloved vacation spot for her and my dad, and it is more special to her since he passed. She hasn't been back there in years, and her failing health has made it questionable whether she might be able to undertake such a trip at all. So it's very…
thusspakezuska | September 12, 2007So I'm skimming along in Google Reader, thinking it's the year 2007, when whoa! I happen upon this post by Female Science Professor. Did he actually call her "science lady"? WTF? What millennium are we living in?
And this is the kind of response you get from the authorities when you are calling about a long-standing, well-documented problem of stalking/harassment. But hey, she wasn't actually physically assaulted by the stalker, so what's the big deal, right? Plus, she was asking for it.
What if she was physically assaulted and was actually unable to ask for it at the time - i.e…
thusspakezuska | September 12, 2007There's a wonderful three-part interview with Shobita Parthasarathy, author of Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology, and the Comparative Politics of Health Care , over at The World's Fair. The interview is broken up into three parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Here's an excerpt from Part 1 to get your mouth watering:
WF: What's your argument?
SP: I argue that the influence of national context is felt far beyond public policy and political debate to the level of practice, fundamentally influencing human genome science and technology. Through a comparison of how genetic testing…
thusspakezuska | September 11, 2007Lots of my Sciblings have blogged about 9.11.01 today. I particularly recommend Abel Pharmboy's post, and the video that Orac posted if you can stand to watch it.
I don't feel that I have anything meaningful to add. I felt that way in the weeks after the tragedy, when K-State engineering organized a panel to talk to students and faculty about...I suppose our response to the aftermath. There was a lot of worry about how some of our graduate students, postdocs, and faculty might be treated. I worried about my dear friend who is from Iran. I have no memory of what I said to the gathered…
thusspakezuska | September 11, 2007Female Science Professor works with Professor Troll. Perhaps many of you have a similar colleague or acquaintance.
What do you do when you constantly have to rub shoulders with Professor Troll's ilk? Like mosquitoes in summer, they buzz around strong, intelligent women, unable to stay away, compelled to bite with the little meanness of remarks on your lack of merit, while simultaneously injecting the irritant of blather based on their wildly inflated ego. You will find the words "rigorous" and "hard science" and "real scientists do/would/are..." popping up in their conversation a lot.…
thusspakezuska | September 11, 2007Young Female Scientist asks her readers to rank their undergraduate and graduate institutions on a scale of 1 to 10, "10 being the most egalitarian and synergistic even with conflicting opinions from strong personality types (probably doesn't exist), 1 being the most sexist, demeaning, lawsuit-deserving place in the world". She wants people to name names - not their own, but that of their institutions.
In the four comments she got, nobody named names.
Apparently people - women? - do not feel safe enough to call out their departments and institutions on their sexism. What if someone…
thusspakezuska | September 11, 2007I found the link to this video over at She's Such a Geek! - thanks, Charlie! Listen to one female geek's response to reading the book. I particular loved her saying that the "she" in "She's Such a Geek!" should not make men feel excluded - they should just "ignore the s in front of the he as we have been ignoring its absence" for lo these many years. Hee! Enjoy!
thusspakezuska | September 10, 2007Martin Rundkvist has kindly posted for us all a photo of a gender-training kit now available in stores. Don't delay! You'll want to make sure your daughter or niece learns her place in life early on. If she insists on a career, let her know that maids are in need in all hotels and many of our finer families' homes. Sigh. If only they sold that dreamy-looking maid-y dress in the picture to go along with it, and in pink. What more does a little girl need? Put down those legos, and, yes, "let us cleaning!" Pretty!
Oh, Martin, I hope you shielded your daughter's eyes when you happened…
thusspakezuska | September 10, 2007I saw this advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War Over College Affirmative Action, by Peter Schmidt. Schmidt is a deputy editor at the Chronicle. I don't have a copy of the book but the excerpt I read on amazon.com is very well-written and just astonishing. There's a website and blog to accompany the book, where you can find an excerpt and table of contents, a list of books cited or of interest, and links by chapter. These links put a world of information at your fingertips - reports, books, websites for information about…
thusspakezuska | September 10, 2007You may notice I've modified the blog so that comments are now numbered. This may be helpful in responding to various comments in a thread, especially if the threads get long.
Thanks to PZ Myers for sharing his nifty code!
thusspakezuska | September 7, 2007Loathe as I am to admit it, a copy of James Watson's historical novel The Double Helix does reside on one of my bookshelves. (Though I did purchase it in a used bookstore, so he garnered no profit from me.) As you may recall, The Double Helix, based loosely on Watson's experiences in England at the time the structure of DNA was discovered, showcased his imaginative powers, and introduced the world to a character known as "Rosy". Rosy was a disagreeable, plodding scientist - really barely more than a good technician - incapable of understanding the meaning of her data. Her fashion sense…
thusspakezuska | September 6, 2007The 2008 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference (organized by ScienceBlog's very own Bora Zivkovic) is fast approaching.
Karen Ventii and I will be co-chairing a 1 hour session tentatively called "Exploring Women in Science Blogging". (This announcement also appears on her blog here.)
We are interested to get your feedback and comments on what we are proposing and your suggestions for improving or making it better. Here are some details:
There will be a diverse panel of female science bloggers (we're thinking one graduate student, one professor, and a third in industry or in business for…
thusspakezuska | September 6, 2007I can barely bring myself to blog on this topic, it is so tiresome. (Thanks to Sheril at The Intersection for this link.)
Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks.
Men like attractive women! Women look for security and financial success in men! It must be evolution! All proven from some bits of data gathered in speed dating! Because this is totally how we pick the people we spend our lives with! All men seek out women on the basis of physical attractiveness, and all women screen men on the basis of financial potential! It's in the…