Article Roundup

A pair of articles I found interesting today - one interesting and one just plain bizarre. First, the interesting:

A New Frontier for Title IX: Science (New York Times) John Tierney explores a new arena for potential Title IX implementation: the sciences. It seems that NASA, the National Science Foundation, and other organizations are inquiring into scientific labs that receive governmental research funding to determine whether there's a gender disparity (caused by sexism/gender bias) to be remedied by Title IX by gender quotas or some other action.

Tierney does a decent job throughout the article exploring the various potential reasons for gender disparity in the sciences (and why they may or may not be bias-based), though he by no means advocates one or any of the theories outlined. The part where he gets a bit iffy for my tastes, though, is in his concluding paragraph:

Whether or not quotas are ever imposed, some of the most productive science and engineering departments in America are busy filling out new federal paperwork. The agencies that have been cutting financing for Fermilab and the Spirit rover on Mars are paying for investigations of a problem that may not even exist. How is this good for scientists of either sex?

Sure, we should focus our efforts on making new and important scientific discoveries, but to imply that the fulfillment of those endeavors justifies turning a blind eye to gender imbalance in the sciences is crazy. You can't take the humanity out of the sciences, lest we all start viewing each other as soulless robots working on an assembly line towards bigger and better things.

One of Tierney's major theses seems to be: maybe women are as good at science as men and just choose to do something else more often than men do? While that could be true, I'd rather give the issue a fair shake and look into things a bit more closely. I think it's worth the time and effort (and yes, paperwork). Regardless, it'll be interesting to see results of the inquiries. Stay tuned, faithful(?) reader.

Addendum: I just realized that, shockingly, there's no mention anywhere in Tierney's article about those ever-infamous comments by former Harvard president, Lawrence Summers, about the innate abilities of men and women in the sciences. Bold.

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And now, the plain bizzare:

Last tenant 'found decapitated' (BBC NEWS, tipped off by reddit.com)

A sad headline, but the article starts out on a fairly straightforward note:

"A man who was found with his head severed by a chainsaw was fighting to stay in a block of 70 flats in Hampshire cleared for redevelopment."

Simple enough. What made me really scratch my head, though, was the following conclusion from the coroner's office:

"As far as we know nobody else was involved. There's nothing suspicious about the death."

Um, what? I asked around to see if anyone could come up with a plausible way to cleanly behead oneself by chainsaw, and the handful of people I asked all seemed to think of the same solution: fix the chainsaw into a horizontal position and then fall onto it. Touche. Though you have to imagine that the circumstances surrounding the poor gentleman's death might have merited further inquiry?

An Historic Event

I never thought I'd live to see the day of such an historic event. I can't tell you how much I've been enraptured by the international news that's dominated every major news outlet, how much the news has deeply touched me and made me believe that there's a chance for our little ol' world after all: Brad and Angelina had their twins! And in France even!

O
M
G
!!

Y'all, I'm so excited. This could not have come at a better time. What with all the hate and fighting going on, blah blah blah, this could really be that key defining moment that brings us together, around the world, for peace and love. Think about how everyone in the Middle East, in the Sudan, in all those other regions with silly little misunderstandings will be able to drop their weapons and break bread over such a monumental and joyous occasion.

Honestly, just think of how much Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline have done for the world already? Make those kids UN ambassadors, seriously. It kind of makes me feel like I need to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or something. I'll tell you one thing, though: I'm sure glad I didn't go into international relations, now that our world's sorted itself out and all. Sciences or bust, man.

I am, so I eat?

In honor of my fast-approaching quarter-life birthday (and subsequent crisis), I thought this Science Daily article from a few weeks ago was too appropriate:

Morbid Thoughts Whet The Appetite

ScienceDaily (June 27, 2008) — Can watching TV news or crime shows trigger overeating? According to new research in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who are thinking about their own deaths want to consume more.

So let me get this straight: seeing my birthday cake will cause me to think more about my own mortality, which will make me more likely to eat all of said cake, which will make me question my mortality again, which will make me wonder where the ice cream ever ended up?

Damn it. You can find the rest of the article here while I go dig out that quart of Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough...

Sunday Playlists - Super Guilty Late Night Mix

Here's the plan: each Sunday, a playlist of songs to inspire diversion from that Death Cab album your labmate/co-worker won't stop playing. (Was Narrow Stairs even that good anyway?)

This week's playlist is for those late nights when you're stuck in lab, no one else is around, and you decide it's safe enough to blast those pump-up songs you secretly love...you know, those guilty favorites. Fair warning: You should consider turning off your last.fm scrobbling for some of the later songs.

* Extra fun for the astute scientist/listener: Which two songs' beats sound almost identical? It's like they're not even trying anymore.

1. Elevator - Flo Rida (feat. Timbaland)








2. Don't Stop the Music - Rihanna








3. Dangerous - Kardinal Offishall (feat. Akon)








4. The Way I Are - Timbaland (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.)







5. Gimme More - Britney Spears








6. Touch My Body - Mariah Carey








7. Leavin' - Jesse McCartney








8. Say it Right - Nelly Furtado







9. Lovestoned / I Think She Knows - Justin Timberlake

Boyz 2 pipettemen

An article in Nature Magazine (Nature 454, 149 (2008)) - whose oh-so-clever(?) title is above - recently piqued my curiosity. In an effort to sell more pipettes and automated machinery to the MTV/TRL generation, biotech company Eppendorf decided to hire a creative consulting firm to spice up their image.

The result? Well, I'll let you read the first bit of the Nature article to find out...I could never do it equal justice:

In a dreary, lonely lab a young female postdoc puts down her pipette to massage her aching latexed hands. Sounds like the perfect set-up for a hot new music video. Well at least it does to Tyler Kay, creative director at Compare Networks Production Group (CNPG) in San Francisco, California. A recent release from CNPG features a group of five winsome young men singing the praises of a new automated pipetting system called epMotion, made by international biotech company Eppendorf.

As the lab heroine is whisked to a beach under the Golden Gate Bridge, the band members gyrate around her and her glasses are shed along with her inhibitions, just before the chorus. “Girl you need epMotion” (whispered: “yeah girl it’s time to automate.”)

I already bought tickets to their concert tour with Hannah Montana. And for all you fanboys/girls out there, here's the band's publicity image (also included in the Nature article) which you can now plaster to your high school bedroom ceiling. I think the photo's caption speaks for itself:

Later in the same article, an interview with Tyler Kay (the creative director behind all this) is quite revealing:

Kay, a self-taught film-maker with Biocompare since near its inception, wrote the song with a list of product features and intense background research. “I had to listen to a whole lot of boy-band songs,” says Kay. “I started to gain an appreciation for it. Those guys really know how to crank out the hits on a few chords."

Indeed.

Apparently, the YouTube clip has gotten quite a bit of hits...let's see if we can push it over the edge: