Science & Society

The good news-- I am writing a four eBook series with O'Reilly (publishers of MAKE) on four Do-It-Yourself Space topics!  Woo hoo! Now the advice portion.  I occasionally have a habit of taking a more difficult path.  Here is that difficult path.  For the easy path, I recommend just doing steps 9-11, skip to 14-15, then close with 20-22 (marked in bold). 1) Get an agent by responding to a call for authors on an IT encyclopedia.2) Offer to write the encyclopedia.3) Write 30 page proposal.4) Agent submits proposal to publisher.5) Publisher loves proposal.6) Publisher decides…

How could I miss it - and you did too. A very comprehensive article on standardization as a way to reduce environmental pollution has appeared here, and has almost gone unnoticed. I think it is worth reading, if only to acknowledge the existence of this issue and the need for all of us to pay attention to it. Here is an excerpt of Enrico's conclusions from the study: The imposition to manufacturers of standards to improve environmental impact does not damage the market; The universal charger for mobile phones developed in Europe demonstrates that standards imposed by governments can be…

Marc Kuchner built the Facebook group 'Marketing for Scientists' to help drag the usually reticent science population into this century's culture of social media and the rise of the individual.  Now out for pre-order is his book, "Marketing for Scientists: How to Shine in Tough Times", at Amazon:  http://amzn.to/kdK3Zf. The book's blurb: It's a tough time to be a scientist: universities are shuttering science departments, federal funding agencies are facing flat budgets, and many newspapers have dropped their science sections altogether. But according to Marc Kuchner, this…

Sexting, where people send photographs and sexually explicit text messages to titillate them  and perhaps increase the likelihood of a sexual relationship,  is a fairly new phenomenon. The Internet has made the act of infidelity much easier and though sex and infidelity are now only a keyboard away, the goal for many seems to remain physical, face-to-face contact, at least in sexual relationships.   Obviously plenty of people lie or try to initiate cyber-relationships with no interest in actual human contact. A new study by Diane Kholos Wysocki from the University of Nebraska…

This is the extended abstract of an article you cannot read anywhere, which ensures that one can later claim “nobody could have possibly foreseen as the relevant literature clearly shows …” (here more on why).  The article clarifies the singularity concept’s terminology and criticizes the concept itself, finishing with global suicide as the only expected annomality: Singularity: Nothing Unusual Except For Global Suicide This article aims to present a rational rather than wishful perspective on the so called 'singularity hypothesis'.  In the face of imminent super-human rationality…

I see a lot of talk on 'the future of science journalism'-- or science writing, or science funding, or science careers.  I'm guilty of contributing to it myself, but the 'future of' debates miss one point.  There isn't a single monolithic direction things are heading.  There isn't one solution. In fact, there's not even 'one starting point' we're all moving from. Historically, there have been multiple ways to make a living as a science writer or a science journalist.  You could be a paid researcher who writes on the side (thus stealing bread from the career writer's mouth…

For climate scientists to make positive inroads in policy regarding a problem we know is only going to get worse - pollution and climate change - they need to police the actions of a few in their circle, most notably the very loud. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has existed for over two decades now - they are not new to politics and this is not gotcha journalism from WikiLeaks; they have also already been implicated by an independent commission created by the United Nations for their use of 'gray' literature published as data and for ignoring commentary on what studies…

A while back I mentioned a project that was keeping me away from the blog . . . well, it's done now! I was hired by the director of Hopkins Marine Station, where I did my PhD, to write their annual newsletter. It took my relationship with Illustrator to a whole new level, and, while I've never yet been able to do a project with an Adobe product without some moments of GRRR and also ARGHH, it was overall a great experience. The little squid illustration I posted earlier came from a feature I designed for the newsletter called "Hopkins Abroad," showing all the places that professors, students,…

If you're in an older generation and a female calls another female "dude", it may seem strange to you.  It happens all of the time and should be a sign that sexism is less today but a recent study from Psychology of Women Quarterly says subtle, unnoticed daily acts of sexism like that, even women doing it to women, are a concern. They are not talking about overt sexism, such as the stereotype of union workers catcalling women who walk by, but rather things like calling women "girls" and not calling men "boys" or referring to a collective group as "guys" are subtle forms of sexism that…

Germany shortens school ("turbo abi") and abolishes mandatory military training at the same time! This year, those that otherwise would have marched to the shooting range instead squeeze in between the seats taken by immigrants and the standing space occupied by usual graduates wrestling the new “turbo” graduates. The icing on the cake is how the universities deal with it. You may have heard of Germany’s Thilo Sarrazin and his book “Germany Abolishes Itself: How We Are Risking the Future of Our Nation”. It focuses on the influx of Islamic culture that makes it almost impossible for…