Science & Society

Scholars at Indiana University  say that lower citation rates for women are due to bias. In the past, fewer women worked outside the home and as that gradually shifted, there was hiring bias, which means historically women have had fewer science citations than men. That's simple numbers, just like fewer handicapped people and conservatives get citations in modern academia. But is that bias? The authors say it is, and speculate it might be the trickle-down effects of having fewer female deans in science.  Their cross-disciplinary quantitative analysis of academic publication…

The majority of all violent crime in Sweden is committed by a small number of people and they have a definable demographic - personality disorders, substance abuse problems and almost all males (92%) who early in life develop violent criminality and begin with a large number of non-violent crimes.  In their paper, the scholars at Sahlgrenska Academy examined 2.5 million people in Swedish criminal and population registers and matched all convictions for violent crime in Sweden between 1973 and 2004 with nation-wide population register for those born between 1958 to 1980 (2.5…

A couple of days ago, I read this on Real Clear Science: Why Spelling Tests Don’t Help Kids Spell by Misty Adoniou I highly recommend this short article, but I would like to pick out one sentence: Nor is getting children to write their spelling words out 10 times, even if they have to do it in rainbow colours. I have, from time to time, found myself dealing with children or overseas students over the matter of English spelling and grammar.  With the youngsters, one thing that struck me as unhelpful is the use of coloured letters. I knew one boy who was dyslexic, and managed to mask this…

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103086/scientism-huma... http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-06-03/science-mat… http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2012/06/01/patenting-and-per… http://www.forbes.com/sites/keldjensen/2012/04/12/intelligence-is-overr… http://cen.acs.org/articles/90/i23/Rise-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions.html http://www.pizzadelivery.org/news/more-pizza-less-cancer-10238/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/05/09/opinions-on-genetic-… http://ap.peninsulaclarion.com/pstories/us/20120216/956104094.shtml http://news.yahoo.com/huge-…

A new paper from the University of South Carolina says that mothers in the U.S. are far less physically active than they were in previous decades and now spend more time engaged in sedentary activities like watching television than in cooking, cleaning and exercising combined.  Since epidemiology is gradually transforming into sociology, the paper in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings,led by epidemiologist Edward Archer, isn't a surprise, it is just surprising that the indictment of US women is framed as insights into the nation's pervasive health problems such as childhood obesity and diabetes…

NASA should trademark 'has implications for life on other planets' - every other month there are claims about habitable exoplanets, but they are based on statistical wobbles and it isn't informing the public as well it such claims could because the habitable planet zones are not narrow enough. Instead, we should be taking a more conservative approach to bold assertions - being conservative is the essence of science. And that means looking at habitable zones where life-sustaining planets might exist: planets that have liquid water and solid or liquid surfaces, as opposed to gas giants like…

Video games, including the violent shooter games which are found to be good and bad in various studies, may boost children's learning, health and social skills, according to a review of research published in the American Psychologist. The review comes out as debate continues among psychologists and other health professionals regarding the effects of violent media on youth. An American Psychological Association task force is conducting a comprehensive review of research on violence in video games and interactive media and will release its findings in 2014.   "Important research has…

Rip currents claim more lives in Australia on average each year than bushfires, floods, cyclones and sharks combined - but don't get too nervous, rip currents only cause about 21 confirmed human fatalities per year. Rip currents are strong, narrow seaward-flowing currents that can easily carry unsuspecting swimmers significant distances offshore, leading to exhaustion, panic and often drowning. An analysis of data from Australia's National Coronial Information System shows there was an average 21 confirmed deaths involving rips per year during the period 2004 to 2011. 21 is a lot compared…

If pharmaceutical companies are unethical, scientists are just tinkerers and doctors are educated by marketing, why would parents sign up their kids for medical research? Those concepts are perpetuated in both mass and science media so it's no surprise that only 5 percent of parents have ever participated in any kind of medical research, and a large number of those are already ill. The downside that that is that healthcare for kids can't be improved. Animal models can only do so much when everything you eat at Thanksgiving contains a rodent carcinogen. Still, the situation could be a lot…

The government enjoyed tremendous success steering the goals of science in World War II and that continued during the NASA era. Since that time, government has exercised greater control of science through larger and larger pools of funding that have gradually supplanted corporate basic research. But government control of funding has its downside; fashions in research funding (solar power now, before that), reward structures in universities that focus on government grants and streamlining of scientific agendas undermine traditional scientific norms and may even result in science bubbles. It's…