Hundreds of Chicago students walk out of standardized test. (via Common Dreams) How the brain makes tradeoffs in favoring some skills over others. (via Time Healthland) Girls are better at designing superheroes than you. (via BetterSupes) Bacteria churn out first ever petrol-like biofuel. (via NewScientist) Featured image credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH. Got a link you think we sho... »
So I was at SkepTech this last weekend and it was wonderful. Great people, and lots of extremely interesting talks. But one thing that’s kind of getting to me is how we keep asking “well how does the internet change this?” or “is the internet positive or negative?” Inevitably, every single time that gets asked, the answer is “well sometimes it helps and sometimes it hurts and it really depen... »
Justin Vacula. Oh Justin, Justin. Why did you have to write an article that denied rape culture and leave it there for me to read first thing in the morning after only getting 6 hours of sleep? I mean really? Because you know what that means? It means I have to respond, and honestly, I’d rather just leave you alone to continue festering in your confirmation bias. But no, you caught me when I... »
Ellie Mae O’Hagan wrote an article recently at the Guardian suggesting that feminism should not lose sight of its anger in an attempt to look and sound pleasing. In response, she’s gotten a lot of people telling her that she’s policing, that she’s lost in an image of feminism as angry, or that she’s trying to tell people the right way to do feminism. The problem with ... »
Undervaccination is becoming more common in U.S. children. (via 2 Minute Medicine) Harvard scientists develop a dynamic color camouflage system in their soft-bodied robots. Older news, but linked because cool video! (via Harvard News) Google has removed the “Make Me Asian” app and similar ones from their store. (via NPR) Obama gives an unexpected nod to climate change in his inaugural... »
Why exercise may do a teenage mind good. (via NPR) A review of Phoebe Hyde’s The Beauty Experiment, where she forgoes makeup and beauty routines for a year. (via The New Inquiry) A response to Time magazine’s article on young people fragmenting the pro-choice movement. (via RH Reality Check) Old medicine found in a 2,200-year-old shipwreck. (via Nature Medicine) Featured image credit: ... »
Update: This post was written a at Skepticon, but I unfortunately had my hard drive crash and only just got my computer back now. So some of this might be a wee bit outdated, but still relevant. Arguments are a common occurrence in online life. Particularly in a freethought type community (like we have here in atheist land), we tend to disagree with each other quite often. When arguments happen on... »
A profile of Edith Windsor, the woman behind the Supreme Court DOMA case. (via The New York Times) A University of Texas professor resigns after a review finds numerous errors and a conflict of interest in a hydraulic fracking study. (via NPR StateImpact) Scientists create a fish with legs. (via Gizmodo) A new study find that a ketamine-like drug has fast-acting antidepressant effects. (via Scienc... »
