Beryl Lieff Benderly, in her longwinded, shortsighted analysis of "The Real Science Gap," (July-August 2010) errs in two regards. First, she assumes that entering faculty rank is the major goal of postgraduate research training, but because there are fewer positions than candidates for them, the students are doomed to extended postdoc drudgery. Academia is, however, neither the exclusive nor the optimal career path for research trainees. Many go into industry, e.g. high-tech or pharmaceutical where, given the steady importation of brains from abroad, the demand exceeds supply. Others go ... Read More
Use the Phone While Driving, Get Dumped
August 27, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
We've all heard the warnings about using cell phones behind the wheel; several recent studies have shown that even hands-free mobiles are more distracting to motorists than driving drunk. Now a paper in Family Science Review points to another chilling threat posed by phoning and driving: Do it and you might get dumped. According to University of Minnesota professor Paul Rosenblatt's paper, communication with family members suffers for the same reasons car calling is hazardous to driving — it slows motorists' reaction times and reduces their attention spans. "A delay in the conversation ... Read More
The Death Throes of Pelicans and Presidents
August 26, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Although a discouraged office seeker fired the shot, the nation's best doctors probably killed U.S. President James A. Garfield. After Garfield survived the first night of the July 1881 shooting (much to everyone's surprise), his doctors decided their best course was to get that nasty lead out of the president. So for the next 11 weeks, they poked and probed with unsterilized instruments and bare hands — the fingers of 15 different doctors pushed into the president's side that first night — looking for the slug. Even though Joseph Lister's germ theory was not consulted during Garfield's ... Read More
World Press Photos in Focus
August 25, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The nature of the profession means that even the best images photojournalists produce are generally confined to a small box in a field of newspaper text or, at best, a magazine or Web page. We're used to viewing "artistic" photographs in large scale at a gallery or museum, but the work of the world's press shooters is rarely afforded the same privileged display. That's one of the most compelling reasons to take in the annual World Press Photo Exhibition, now in its 53rd year and coming to New York and Ottawa in August, and Mexico City, Montreal, Stuttgart, Prague, Bogota, Kyoto, Naples, ... Read More
Don’t Panic. It’s Only the Internet.
August 24, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
The U.S. established a new military brain center in Maryland this year called Cyber Command, the geek soldier's answer to Central Command, where our military hackers work to protect military networks from enemy hackers abroad. Along with this year's "cybersecurity bill" in Congress, the command center belongs to a larger effort to protect the nation from "cyberwar" ... whatever that might mean. Cyberwar has become one of the "foreign frights of 2010," and not just in the U.S. Some 20 nations have been setting up cyberdefense headquarters to develop new "weapons" and steel their networks ... Read More
Resurrecting the Dead Sea
August 23, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Fathi Huweimel leans carefully over the edge of a jagged slab of broken asphalt, peering down into a 60-foot-deep crater that was level ground just yesterday. All around him sprawl the ruins of Ghawr al Hadithah, once a farming village in central Jordan but now a jigsaw of broken houses, shattered roads and abandoned tomato fields growing wild amid the massive holes pocking the earth. To the east, the village gives way to desert fringed by stark, sere mountains. To the west, a few hundred yards away, lie the glimmering waters of the Dead Sea. "We've had about 75 holes open up in the last ... Read More
Get Plenty of Sleep Before Imitating Rock Gods
August 20, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Well, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies has come and gone, and we're assuming San Antonio proved an ideal choice to host. But it wasn't all napping and rapid-eye movement. One of the papers presented at the conference took a close look at how getting enough sleep improves your abilities at — wait for it — "Guitar Hero." One of the top-five best-selling video game franchises of all time — more than 38 million copies have been sold since the original was released in 2005 — "Guitar Hero" challenges gamers to play along to classic hits using ... Read More
How Polling Places Can Affect Your Vote
August 19, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Political pundits seldom pause to ponder polling places. Unless the lines in a given location are so long they discourage voting, the question of where ballots are cast is usually ignored as irrelevant. But wonks — especially those who straddle political science and social psychology — know better. They argue the physical location of the polls not only affects how many people vote; it may also influence last-minute decisions regarding which box to mark or lever to pull. As the November election approaches, we offer some recent studies that attempt to think outside the ballot ... Read More
State of Embarrassment — Texas
August 18, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
You've Probably Heard About: The textbook changes. The Republican-controlled Board of Education has altered curriculum so that the state’s 4.8 million students are taught to question the United Nations, Social Security and Medicare; closely study the “conservative resurgence” of the 1980s and ’90s; and learn the Judeo-Christian influences on the Founding Fathers. Removed: The suggestion that hip-hop is part of a social movement. Breathe easy, Texas. But Did You Know: Gov. Rick Perry told tea-partiers last year that Texas could secede from the Union if Washington politicians ... Read More
