Recommended Reading

[Trigger warning for sexual harassment, assault, violence, and rape culture.]

For background on "the Elevator Incident," which has precipitated all sorts of discussion about misogyny and rape culture within the atheist, skeptic, and/or scientific community/ies, go here.

First, read Jennifer Ouellette's "Is It Cold in Here?"

Then, read Zuska's "What Constitutes Blatant Sexism of the Most Egregious Sort?"

Finally, read Eric Michael Johnson's "The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion." Shaker Erica passed on this last one, and she notes that the author "doesn't just make the comparison (apes use coersive sexual behavior and so do humans, surprise!) and leave it at that—he goes on to not only emphasize that 'biology is not destiny' but also to make case studies of primate societies that don't display that behavior (yay for bonobos, once again!). ... And he ends the whole thing with a call for societal change that left me embarrassingly teary-eyed at work. In particular, he stresses that, 'While specific policies that protect women from coercion and exploitation remain important, what we're ultimately after is social change'." It is a remarkable piece.

Photo of the Day

Winners of the Google Science Fair (L-R): Lauren Hodge, Shree Bose, and Naomi Shah.
The girls swept up at the inaugural Google Science Fair, winning all three age categories. Shree Bose also won the Grand Prize.

And lest you get visions of baking soda volcanoes: Lauren Hodge, winner of the 13-14 age group, "studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken," Naomi Shah, winner of the 15-16 age group, "endeavored to prove that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people's reliance on asthma medications," and Shree Bose, winner of the 17-18 age group, "discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs." !!!

Our judges said the unifying elements of all three young women were their intellectual curiosity, their tenaciousness and their ambition to use science to find solutions to big problems. They examined complex problems and found both simple solutions that can be implemented by the general public—like changing your cooking habits or removing toxins from your home—as well as more complex solutions that can be addressed in labs by doctors and researchers, such as Shree's groundbreaking discovery, which could have wider implications for cancer research.

Emphasis mine. What extraordinary young women.

LOVE the Lego trophies, btw.

See A Baby born with foot in His brain

A baby who was born with a foot in his brain has been declared fit and healthy three months after shocking doctors with the "once in a lifetime finding in the operating room"

A Colorado Springs family is part of one of the strangest cases in medical history.

Dr. Paul Grabb, a pediatric brain surgeon, said he discovered a small foot growing inside the brain of 3-day-old Sam Esquibel, reported KMGH-TV in Denver.

The appendage threatened the newborn's life.

When Grabb performed the life-saving surgery at Memorial Hospital for Children in Colorado Springs, he was in for another surprise: he also found what appeared to be parts of an intestine in the folds of the infant's tiny brain, in addition to another developing foot, hand and thigh.