Science & Society

A baffling report says health workers fail to understand the importance of sex for Tanzanian children.   Yes, children. Community health organizations working on AIDS prevention projects in Tanzania, frequently fail to understand how children in Tanzania deal with sex, says Miranda van Reeuwijk, who followed groups of children in Tanzania between 2004 and 2008.   van Reeuwijk followed the children in order to help change this situation and says the children mainly view sex as something from which they can personally benefit, but frequently hide their relationships from parents and…

That DNA evidence that could exonerate you? You don't have a right to it, says the US Supreme Court. Actually, not being a lawyer or constitutional scholar, I don't know what kinds of evidence you have a constitutional right to when you go on trial, so I'm not going to comment on the correctness of the decision. But legal scholarship aside, two things are obvious: 1) When we try someone for a crime, we want the best, most reliable evidence possible. It's probably reasonably safe to say that most people with at least some wisps of sanity would like our criminal justice system to convict the…

Over at the Monkey Cage: Fact: Academicians tend to be politically differentiated according to discipline, with those in the social sciences and humanities on the left, those in the natural sciences in the middle, and those in engineering and business on the right. Argument: This is no coincidence. Students’ political attitudes are being shaped by their professors. Counterargument: Agreed. It’s not a coincidence. But the operative force is self-selection, not socialization. I haven't seen any surveys, but this characterization of political differentiation jives with what I've seen. Of course…

The University of Leicester’s School of Management wonders if more religious control of banks might have lessened the impact of the global financial crisis. Buying into the notion that a 'sub-prime' housing market led to the latest global financial crisis, they say developing new practices which can address the issues that led the world to the brink of collapse are a vital part of recovery. Professor Martin Parker, Director of Research for the Management School, thinks a banking system consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Sharia) may be a solution so the university is hosting a…

Girls are gathering online to remake action-oriented Japanese animation videos geared toward males - you know, because males are genetically engineered to like action cartoons with bounty hunter vampires who need to kill their half-brothers that run an evil clan - into romances, because girls are genetically engineered to like ... well, you get the point.    Anime is a style of animation popularized in Japan, usually in material that contains action-filled plots with fantastic or futuristic themes. The style is used in manga, computer games and videos. "Boys are more into the…

When a steep decline in the wool trade prompted an 18th century credit crunch, folks in Yorkshire took up a new (and dangerous) business venture - counterfeiting. In the 18th century, coining was a treasonable offense and therefore punishable by death but in the 1760s and 1770s, a decline in the textile trade motivated hundreds of Yorkshire people from rural communities to risk the gallows by counterfeiting British and Spanish coins.  Concentrated around Halifax, counterfeiting became the new cottage industry and involved hundreds of people at its peak. The operation was led by a 'royal…

Is Internet expression a fundamental right?   Certainly a subset of the modern generation has  demonstrated an irrational sense of entitlement about free content, to the detriment of media companies that have tried to provide it like the New York Times, but parts of copyrighted material have always been allowed under fair use.    What if court interpretation of fair use has changed? University of Arkansas law professor Ned Snow says current judicial interpretation of fair use, a 150-year-old doctrine that allows people to use copied material in their speech, has…

I wrote about the opening of the World Science Festival 2009 and Edward O. Wilson's 80th birthday at the Lincoln Center in New York City but he was not the only august personage in attendance.  Present to give tribute to him was also molecular biologist, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, James Watson. You might think there would be no love lost between these men, since Wilson once described Watson as "the most unpleasant human being I had ever met"(1) which Watson mentioned in the first 30 seconds of his salute and indeed, he does not suffer fools gladly and as a…

The second World Science Festival kicked off at Lincoln Center in New York City last evening with a birthday tribute to Edward O. Wilson, everyone's favorite ant man, and science fans fron the culture world along with, presumably, science fans from the science world. What do you think was the high point of E.O. Wilson's 80th birthday celebration?   "Happy Birthday" sung by 200 people in the lobby and the Abyssinian Baptist Church Choir?    A politically incorrect tribute from Nobel laureate James Watson (more on that later)?    Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello or a new…

The premise behind the pokerbot is simple: there are many, many bad players in online, low-limit poker games, and thus by playing a tight, mistake-free strategy, you will win over time. Unfortunately, because the worst players are in low-limit games and because Joe from Topeka takes his allotted thirty seconds every time he’s confronted with a $0.05 raise, you might make a better hourly wage mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or participating in medical trials, even if you play multiple tables at once (see earlier blog "Internet Poker: By the Numbers"). Enter the pokerbot: instead of doing the…