thusspakezuska | August 20, 2007Maxine Clarke commented on this blog:
It might be an idea to read the Nature site before you opine. As I mentioned at the blog from which you found this information, Nature's mission statement was updated years ago and is available at the "about the journal" page free access. See http://www.nature.com/nature/about/index.html
What has changed is that we have put in a correction to the original mission statement written in 1869.
Try coming over and reading the source first, "then" write your post ;-)
This is puzzling...surely if Nature had already updated its mission statement, it would not…
thusspakezuska | August 19, 2007Sciblings in NYC....we came, we met, we ate and drank, we talked nonstop, thanks to Seed and Adam Bly. I did not puke on Adam Bly's shoes after all. He is a very nice guy. And has a beautiful home in Manhattan.
But when we were in some gin joint on Saturday night, who should join us for a beer but Humphrey Bogart.
Loads of Sciblings in that picture: Jake, Kara, Bora, Chris, Grrl, me, Steve, PZ, Josh, and Catherine (Bora's wife). And I think I missed some people whose names I don't know/don't remember/can't be held responsible for because it was late. You can't see Mo because he took…
thusspakezuska | August 19, 2007Have you read the Nature editorial? Have you read my earlier post about it? Maybe what you are wanting is a deeper textual analysis of the editorial itself. You've come to the right place.
Men [sick]
Our 1869 mission statement is out of date.
That's what the bitchy, complaining women are making us say.
It was 1833 when the English polymath William Whewell first coined the word 'scientist'. Over subsequent decades, the word gradually replaced such commonly used terms as 'natural philosophers' and 'men of science.
Scientist, you see , actually means "men of science". So even if we changed…
thusspakezuska | August 16, 2007By way of the daily Chronicle of Higher Education, I learned that Nature has made a quantum leap into the...well...sort of into the early part of the 20th century.
In an editorial published online this afternoon, the journal announced that it would amend its mission statement, which appears each week next to its table of contents.
The original statement, which dates to 1869, says that Nature's mission is, among other things, "to aid scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of natural knowledge throughout the world."
In these tres modern times…
thusspakezuska | August 16, 2007Nothing gets by Absinthe's diligence.
Inspired by my recent post regarding women's washrooms, Absinthe writes to tell me:
Not having enough washrooms for women violates Title IX. who knew??? Check this out.
Absinthe suggests we study the ratio of womens' to mens' rooms in the top 50 physics, engineering, chemistry, and other science departments. It would certainly be interesting to see the results of such a survey.
thusspakezuska | August 15, 2007Female Science Professor has been posting a set of tales based on her recent, annual trip to spend quality time with the extended family. Those of you with families should be able to sympathize.
In Men Are So Special, she reminisces about last year's bang-up good times:
It might be easier to endure these family visits if I could get away once in a while and take a break from making sandwiches for my uncles, but our family get-togethers occur on an island, in a house surrounded on 3 sides by tall trees and on the fourth side by a cliff. I think it would be easier to escape from Alcatraz.…
thusspakezuska | August 13, 2007So, I can't sleep because I'm very worried about my mom right now. I won't bore you with details; she's okay for the moment but a lot is weighing on my heart.
The upshot is, you get a post about Barbie dolls.
Yes, Barbie dolls. Inspired by Keet & Nini, whose site I found by way of Astrodyke. Thank you, Astrodyke!
The stuff about Barbies is in this post at Keet & Nini's. Keet talks about her daughter loving Disney princesses and playing with Barbies, and reminisces about the other girls in her high school Science Club. She concludes:
I wonder what they are doing now, and…
thusspakezuska | August 13, 2007Benjamin Cohen at The World's Fair has an excellent post up that should interest many readers of this blog. It is an interview with David Hess, author of Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry: Activism, Innovation, and the Environment in an Era of Globalization. Here's the intro, to tempt you to go read the whole post:
David Hess is a longtime leader in the field of STS. Like few scholars, this claim holds true by reference to academic leadership, mentoring, research, and community involvement. His past books, Science and Technology in a Multicultural World (Columbia University Press…
thusspakezuska | August 13, 2007I am so happy for Debbie Schwartz.
I read in my paper this past weekend that Debbie has given her laundry room "the star treatment"!!!!!
What can this mean? Why, let me tell you:
Her super-capacity washer and dryer sit on marble floors and bask in the light of twin bronze chandeliers. A Romanesque sculpture stands on one of the wide polished marble counters designed for folding laundry. The large room has the same cabinets as her gourmet kitchen and a tile stall to dry delicates. There's even a garden view.
Oh my! But wait, that's not all! Debbie, you see, longs for the fresh scent of…
thusspakezuska | August 11, 2007The other day I wrote, half in jest (but only half), about the threat of women taking over the nation's technical universities and thus filling up campus wastecans with used menstrual pads and tampons.
This inspired Absinthe to comment:
Your comment about the trash cans hits a nerve with me... don't even get me started on the issue of female bathrooms in physics departments I have worked/studied at. At UPenn (for instance) for two years I had to hike down three flights of stairs and over to an annex of the physics building to get to a women's bathroom that had a total of two stalls and was…
thusspakezuska | August 10, 2007Three for the price of one in this week's Friday Bookshelf! Which maybe makes up a little for the complete lack of a Friday Bookshelf last week.
First up is Lynn M. Osen's classic, originally published in 1974 and simply titled Women in Mathematics. Osen's slim volume has been beloved - and in print - for over thirty years for the biographical sketches of eight prominent women mathematicians: Hypatia, Maria Agnesi, Emilie de Breteuil, Caroline Herschel, Sophie Germain, Mary Fairfax Somerville, Sonya Kovalevsky, and Emmy Noether. The last chapter, titled "The Feminine Mathtique", is…
thusspakezuska | August 9, 2007I read this article in the LA Times about Russians racing to claim the seabed under the Arctic ice as their territory, other nations fussing that it's really theirs, and everybody ignoring that the only way they can even have this argument is because the damn ice is melting away. Only it's even worse than I realized. Because it isn't just the ice melting away.
Now the permafrost is thawing on land and along the seabeds. If it occurs in the presence of oxygen on land, the decomposing of organic matter leads to the production of CO2. If the permafrost thaws along lake shelves, in the…
thusspakezuska | August 9, 2007It's called "social desirability bias". And the voting public suffers from it.
It leads likely voters to "underestimate their own prejudices when talking to survey takers", says Dalton Conley in the Chronicle Review.
We know we are supposed to treat all candidates the same, regardless of race or gender. So that's what we say when they ask us. But when we go to the polls, something happens. It's not that people walk into the voting booth and say "no way I'm voting for a woman!" No, they think "national security is really important to me" and they somehow convince themselves that the…
thusspakezuska | August 8, 2007I just wanted to take a minute to explicitly thank the two readers who created the nifty new banners you've been seeing here at TSZ. The banner on the main page was created by Alexis and the banner on the individual entry pages was created by Malyze. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
thusspakezuska | August 8, 2007By way of the LA Times, we learn that women are flocking in droves to Caltech this year:
According to preliminary figures, 87 women are entering a freshman class of [235] students in September. That 37% share is Caltech's highest since it began admitting undergraduate women in 1970, when pioneering females comprised 14% of the entering class.
Has Caltech gone soft and squishy? Though they protest that standards were not lowered, the LA Times does not seem convinced.
Although Caltech insists that it did not lower its notoriously tough admission standards or practice affirmative action for…
thusspakezuska | August 6, 2007It's never too early to start thinking about the next Scientiae...which is scheduled for September 1, right here at my place.
Is there a theme? Yes, there's a theme. The theme is....UNLEASH.
That's right. You heard me. Unleash.
What in your life feels locked down and caged in, in need of unleashing? What do you hold inside, unwilling or unable to vent? Does something make you so angry you think it might just destroy the world if you let it out?
Or, what fantastic scientific avenue or byway would you be traveling even now, if not for the nefarious funding system? the machinations of…
thusspakezuska | August 3, 2007The latest Scientiae is up over at Twice's place. Haven't browsed through it all yet, but it's always good reading, so go read!
thusspakezuska | August 3, 2007Thanks to B. Cohen for sending me this link to an installment of McSweeney's Annals of Science. Oh, the mighty struggle of sperm to fertilize egg! That's just good readin'. You'll want to scroll on down and read about electrovibratory massage as well. You may recall I mentioned an essay by Rachel Maines in the last Friday Bookshelf. If this bit on electrovibratory massage piques your interest, maybe you'll want to check out her whole book, The Technology of Orgasm. And if you like the last bit on the McSweeney's link about Stormin' Norman, then by all means do check out Carol Cohn's…
thusspakezuska | July 31, 2007You can study it scientifically, gather the data, analyze it, publish it in Science, and have it discussed on NPR. But by golly, if you are asking us to give up cherished stereotypical beliefs about male and female nature, then you can just take your data and shove it, mister! You are wrong, wrong, wrong, because My Personal Feeling About How Things Are says otherwise.
This, of course, would be the kind of reaction stirred up by Matthias Mehl et al.'s study Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?, published in the July 5, 2007 issue of Science. Let us consider the abstract from the…
thusspakezuska | July 31, 2007Absinthe has an announcement on her blog about a new online support group for junior female particle physicists.
There is a new online discussion group aimed at junior female particle physicists (up to and including the postdoctoral level). The group allows junior females to talk openly and anonymously with other junior female particle physicists from around the world about career issues that are important to them. Most particle physicists at the junior level are based at large laboratories in Europe and the US. The unique work environment at these labs can lead to workplace issues and…