Raise your hand if you've consumed an alcoholic beverage or smoked marijuana in the last month. Raise your hand if you abstained from using alcohol until you were of legal age. Now, raise your hand if you refrained from smoking pot in the last month because it's illegal. Anyone? Do strict alcohol and marijuana laws actually prevent their use? That's the question a team of researchers set out to answer in a recent paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy. Their cross-national comparison of drinking and cannabis use among 10th-graders indicates that although strict alcohol ... Read More
Female Teachers Add to Students’ Math Anxiety
February 5, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In spite of the multitude of research indicating otherwise, the assumption that boys are biologically better at math than girls is alive and well at schools across the nation. And a new study indicates that when female teachers believe the stereotype, they pass their own mathematical anxiety on to the girls in their classes. While the perpetuation of the idea is troubling, the implications are more so: The girls who believe their gender possesses inferior math skills do significantly worse in the subject than the girls who don't. Researchers at the University of Chicago conducted a ... Read More
Why Have Women Magicians Vanished?
February 5, 2010 • By • 14 Comments
In the early 1900s, Adelaide Herrmann was one of the most famous magicians of her day. She inherited her husband Alexander's magic show upon his death in 1896 and performed internationally for 30 years. A hundred years later, few people could name her as quickly as they would Houdini, and few can name any contemporary female magicians as famous as David Blaine or David Copperfield. Research studies show that female membership in magic clubs and performances hovers around 5 percent. Why there aren't more women magicians is an intriguing question, especially in an age when women are ... Read More
A Long March Out of the Closet
February 3, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington over the weekend, President Obama reaffirmed his pledge to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that bars homosexuals from openly serving in the U.S. armed forces. Don't Ask, Don't Tell, engineered as a compromise by a chastened Bill Clinton in 1993 after failing to overturn the outright ban on gays serving in the military, has incited numerous controversies, and keeping gays closeted and fearful of being discharged. Obama's recent sentiment toward the policy isn't surprising: He's been vaguely promising to overturn it since ... Read More