thusspakezuska
Posts by this author
August 4, 2008
Jenny F. Scientist reports the following:
Recently, three women joined my lab, more than doubling the female population. (Just in time for me to leave.) There was instant bonding, which I had only seen before among married postdocs or among single grad students. But it is lovely to have other women…
August 4, 2008
For those of you who participated in last fall's Donors Choose challenge - and those of you who didn't! - here is a painless way to help out a really worthy cause.
A media website Seed digs called BigThink is in the middle of a DonorsChoose drive, and Seed has agreed to help them out.
Basically,…
August 4, 2008
Please note, if you were planning to attend the ScienceBlogger meetup in New York City this coming Saturday, the location has changed. Here are the details about the new location:
The new spot will be at a bar on the west side called Social. Seed has reserved a room in the back, and it's three…
August 4, 2008
During my time as a blogger, I have discovered that I am lousy at one of a blogger's sacred chores: maintaining the blogroll. The ideal of what my blogroll would be is perhaps best exemplified by Janet's at Adventures in Ethics and Science, or Peggy's at Women in Science. The sad reality, of…
August 4, 2008
A great post at eduwonkette looks at gender and stereotype threat in math performance. Stereotype threat has been well-documented in "laboratory" settings, but eduwonkette reports on a study in a real-life setting:
These men and women were, by all accounts, in the pipeline for math and science…
August 3, 2008
I believe there was at least one of my readers who expressed an interest in attending this Saturday's ScienceBlogger meetup in New York City - Falyne? Still planning to attend? Maybe there are more of you and you just didn't speak up? I know there are many people who are primarily readers of…
August 1, 2008
Female Science Professor has a great Q&A post, So They Had To Hire A Woman. Here's a sample:
Question: So you're going to get a Ph.D.? Couldn't you find anyone to marry you?
Answer 1: Why would I want to get married when so many men are just like you?
Answer 2: That's right, and I want to be a…
July 31, 2008
What makes you a member of family, or a citizen of a nation? Over at Sciencewoman, Alice reports on a session she attended at this year's NWSA conference:
In a session on the technologies of citizenship, Banu Submramaniam of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst talked about the developing…
July 29, 2008
The theme for August's Scientiae is transitions. All month long I thought I would write something about the transition that was forced on me some time ago, to which I am still not quite adapted: from happy participant in the paid workforce to migraineur on disability. But as it happens, I've got…
July 29, 2008
You all may be aware of the moronically stupid column by John Tierney that ran in the NY Times recently, an opinion piece disguised as reporting. I haven't had a chance yet to give my own response to this piece of tripe, or to show you how it is but one more piece in Christina Hoff Sommers's…
July 25, 2008
Earlier this year I reviewed Douglas Tallamy's Bringing Nature Home, which inspired me to convert my garden to all or mostly native plants. I swore this year would be a much better gardening year than last. Visions of gardening glory danced in my head. Ah, early spring. Now we are baking in the…
July 24, 2008
Blame it on Abel, who blogged his vasectomy, and Janet, who blogged her mammogram. Also blame Drugmonkey and Physioprof, who along with Abel, Janet, and others encouraged me to Blog My D&C. Yep. So here goes.
It all started innocently enough back in May with my annual exam. First…
July 22, 2008
Planning to be in/around/near New York City on August 9, 2008? There's a reader-Scienceblogger meet-up event in the works, being planned even as you read this, probably for around 3 pm. We'd like to know whether you think you'll be in the area and likely to attend. If so, please leave a comment…
July 20, 2008
I've been sorting through books lately, in an effort to cull and control my ever-burgeoning collection, and of course I have to browse through each book to decide if I want to keep it. It's a slow, but rewarding process. This evening I was wandering through Migraine: The Complete Guide, when I…
July 20, 2008
This weekend is the 160th anniversary of the first (US) women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, July 19 and 20, 1848. At Seneca Falls, Elizabeth Cady Stanton rewrote the Declaration of Independence as the Declaration of Women's Rights, beginning, of course, with "We hold these truths to be self…
July 16, 2008
Hello, dear readers...if there are any of you left...I've been away for a week taking care of mom, plus the usual migraine breaks...back home now, and hoping to get back in the blogging groove asap.
Meanwhile, Physioprof is off guest-blogging at Feministe for two weeks and you absolutely have to…
July 6, 2008
Why would you celebrate Black Independence Day on July 3rd? It took the work of slaves to build America; the slaves came before the nation, so Black Independence Day would logically precede the traditional Independence Day, July 4th.
On July 3rd, I joined about 200 others in downtown…
July 5, 2008
Mr. Z and I are celebrating America's Fourth of July holiday with that great new American tradition, the STAYCATION!
Later I'll blog about how I began my staycation on July 3rd. Yesterday, Mr. Z and I staycated in style, cleaning out a large and extraordinarily untidy closet. Triumphant but…
July 5, 2008
At my mother's assisted living home, the staff helped my mom and other residents put in a small garden in the spring. Onions, featured in the planting, are now being enjoyed by all. Mom says they are past that first delightful small green onion stage; the bulbs are getting bigger, and the tops…
June 30, 2008
The comics rawked last week! Gracie signed off as the engineer on plans for the bike ramp she constructed for her brother Baldo and his friend. Gracie, you are awesome! Read the strips for June 24 and 25, too. I want more Gracie with my Baldo!
The Chronicle News Blog reports that India will now…
June 30, 2008
Kylie at Podblack asks, for the next Scientiae,
"A voice in the crowd" - are you heard? How are you heard? Are you one of a team that works as a choir or does discordance rule the roost?...who really has control of the megaphone?
Heh. How am I heard? Depends greatly upon the listener, and how…
June 27, 2008
I was browsing the Women's Policy Inc. site, which is awesome, and ran across an item in the June 16, 2008 issue of The Source that just left me with my mouth hanging open. I can't find a permalink for this item; follow this link and scroll down to the fifth item, "House Approves Paid Parental…
June 24, 2008
The latest issue of Smithsonian arrived today, in time for my dinner. There are few things more pleasing than reading and eating on a fine summer day, sitting on the back patio with a light breeze blowing and the perfect toasted cheese sandwich, not burned this time, sitting on my plate.
But…
June 23, 2008
After my last post, Magetoo asks why do I blog? Poor Alison does not understand why I blog at all, being as I am so very bitter and angry, which I suppose we can classify under #8 in my newly numbered list of reasons why I shouldn't blog, with a dollop of #7 and #9.
Anyway, why not talk about why…
June 19, 2008
A number of my Sciblings have taken up the challenge of the last "Ask A ScienceBlogger" question, "Why do you blog, and how does blogging help you with your research?" (See for example Alice and Janet and PhysioProf and Grrl and DrugMonkey.)
I am not currently involved in research, nor am I even…
June 18, 2008
I will admit that rap music has more than once caused me to mutter "These kids today! Their music is just noise! When I was young, our music had a melody!" Or something like that. You know, the stuff mom said when I was young. I won't even mention how the generous dose of misogyny that seems de…
June 16, 2008
Some time ago Penny called my attention to this post by Liz Henry regarding the erasure of women from the tech community via language. I loved it, not least because her most excellent rant includes one of my own pet peeves:
All of this just yanks my chain big time, like when people say in talks…
June 16, 2008
Some time ago I posted info about the Seed lab photo contest. The deadline is long since past, but in the comments on my post I offered to post lab photos that you submitted but that didn't get selected. Barn Owl took me up on my offer. Here's her lab photo followed by her comments. That photo…
June 11, 2008
Hey folks, over at the carnival I missed one entry that got caught in my spam filter.
JaneB at Now, What Was I Doing? muses on how traditional success criteria lead to uneven weight distributions:
The lesson I'm trying to learn this year and next is that when I try to 'play the game' using…