the eye of Nova's mind

Same-sex parents win lawsuit: A judge rules their child's birth certificate should list both women as legal parents. -- Yay Des Moines!

Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool -- Some of this may shake out to be true, but the conclusion doesn't follow from the discovery. As one of the comments said, the author doesn't take into account the benefit of taking notes. In my experience, the best learning process is 1) reading the material, 2) listening to the lecture & 3) taking handwritten notes. Also, one shouldn't necessarily extrapolate from physics as a subject to all subjects.

Maryland docs push for more stringent oversight on stents

Patterns of connections reveal brain functions: Neuroscientists identify face-recognition areas based on what parts of the brain they link to -- "No two people have the exact same fusiform gyrus structure, but using connectivity patterns, the researchers can now accurately predict which parts of an individual's fusiform gyrus are involved in face recognition."

The rash of sexual assaults in Ann Arbor has made national news. One or two men have attacked women at least six times in the last twelve days. Two of the women attacked are college students, the other four from the surrounding community, women ranging in age from late teens to early 30s.

This recalls an incident on my alma mater's campus my junior year. The college community was (& is) so small & tight-knit, it seemed to rise as one in alertness & defiance. I remember walking the path to my dorm room one late night with a knitting needle concealed in my hand as protection. I consider myself a pacifist, but that night I was simply a woman defending her right to exist free from harm.

(A² doesn't have a hometown newspaper anymore, so I feel the urgency of the situation hasn't been sufficiently communicated to the populace. Detroit is a major news hub not too far away & has highlighted the story, but it's times like this when media close to the source would be so much more informative.)

Teen girls in most deprived areas 5 times as likely to be assaulted

New research: 'Un-growth hormone' increases longevity

How exercise grows a healthy heart -- "The studies in mice suggest that exercise turns on a genetic program that leads the heart to grow as heart muscle cells divide."

Some brain tumors mimic the genetic program of germline cells

Milestone: A methane-metal marriage: UA scientists have inserted metal atoms into methane gas molecules -- a potential advancement for industrial hydrocarbon chemistry and our understanding of how nature uses metals in the molecules of living organisms

Researchers find gene that protects against dementia in high-risk individuals

You are what your father ate: UMMS research suggests paternal diet affects lipid metabolizing genes in offspring

Why must we compensate after buying gifts that threaten our identities? -- "If a vegetarian has to buy a steakhouse gift certificate for a friend, her discomfort will lead her to buy something else that reaffirms her identity, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research."

I was so disappointed in MSNBC's coverage of the returns last night. Not that it wasn't insightful or accurate, but it wasn't inclusive.

When I saw that they had brought Eugene Robinson (from the Washington Post) on as a commentator, I was actually impressed, thinking that was a nice change from Pat Robertson. Eugene is a thoughtful, erudite opinionist with a good lock on the pulse of the American left. As an African-American, he brings a perspective that is not inherently present on the network (although anchors like Keith Olbermann & Rachael Maddow fight the good fight when it comes down to calling out bigotry & interpreting trends others may have missed).

However, all of the team, especially Lawrence O'Donnell, talked over Robinson, not really letting him get a word in edgewise. His speaking style may have something to do with it--he is sometimes soft-spoken & often takes a few moments to get up to steam for his point to shine through. When he is interviewed, he contributes quite a bit to the discourse of why politics are perceived through various lenses, because he's given his time to speak. Chris Matthews interrupts a lot--that's his schtick--but the combination of him & O'Donnell served to drown out anything that Robinson may have elucidated, & that is a shame.

That said, that pales in comparison to what happened after that crew retired for the night, around 2 a.m. That's when the adults went to bed & the college folk were still up. MSNBC brought out a team that was anchored chiefly by a (White) woman who moderated two other (White) women, a White man & a Black man. I'm scouring the MSNBC site for the name of the woman who anchored the late-night coverage; believe me, if/when I uncover it, I will post it. Her moderation was so one-sided & rude one would need to be asleep to not notice.

One of her female colleagues was able to pontificate as to how the House results meant that the American people rejected the progressive platform & would herald a complete change in governance, e&. When the black gentleman would attempt to rebut that woman's comments, the host would cut him off or interrupt. She did not use this behavior with anyone else. My jaw dropped when he told the one woman "I think you're dead wrong" & began to list what factors he thought was important to why the House races didn't portend all doom & gloom; the host literally would not let him finish his second sentence but called for commercial while he was speaking.

I've never seen such disrespectful behavior amongst colleagues at MSNBC. She could have just let him wrap up his point quickly instead of shutting him down. It was something O'Reilly would have done when he heard a talking point with which he didn't agree. I was shocked.

As soon as I get confirmation of the identities of the parties involved, I will pen an email to MSNBC expressing my astonishment & dismay at the dismissiveness I witnessed.

Reposting (and fleshing out) my reply from gwendally's thread re: Austin suicide pilot:

Minimizing people to their own body parts is to dehumanize them. To slur them by utilizing the anatomological term of another sex is to prop up the entire paternalistic hegemony. Using 'vagina' in the original poster's context is to connote all that is weak, emotional, irrational, indeed psychotic with the person who did this terrible deed.

This was the guiding principle in Western society, that men acted while women felt. There was (is) a dualism inherent in its philosophy, that what was rational was masculine while all else was nature, wild, irrational--feminine. This has been observed in the works of Descartes, Aquinas and many other prominent philosophers, stretching back to antiquity. (See Simone Weil for more on this division.)

In the US, the ideal of being seen as a full, rational person (that is, the fight for civil rights) sprang twofold as abolistionism and feminism, during an era of a nation dividing against itself. However, the concepts derive from the same source: natural rights (which is an argument for a different day).

No longer may a person today peruse the classifieds and see "Men only". Women now may own her own property (instead of being seen as property), cast her own vote, seek divorce, and serve on juries. Still, an American woman is paid less for the same work a man does in the corporate world. The sexual double standard still stands. Progress is made incrementally (though at times there may be leaps).

No rational person would fly a plane into a building. The last thing we need to do, at this time, during this discussion, is use semantics to shunt the blame onto a gender that didn't even figure into the perpetrator's worldview. (Read his suicide note. One learns of his first marriage only through mention of divorce; the woman is not named. His heretofore current wife at least warrants mention. His marriages, however--his intimate interactions with the opposite gender--affected his worldview, it would seem, not a whit.)

I see no other way to refute gender insults but to indict Western culture.

In AMC's broadcast of Blazing Saddles today, it silently censored racial and gender slurs. I clearly remember in late 2008 watching it and it wasn't edited out.

I'm not normally for censorship, but I'm heartened that I can watch cable TV in the afternoon without hearing what I consider obscenities.

Edit: Actually, upon further thought, I feel worse about the censorship. A film is a work of art, and it should be appreciated in total. I still don't want to hear slurs over live airwaves, as I so distinctly remember from two years ago.

Blue Is the New Black

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans' mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.

Before the '70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there's a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.

As Arianna Huffington points out in a blog post headlined "The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling": "It doesn't matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk."

(The one exception is black women in America, who are a bit happier than they were in 1972, but still not as happy as black men.)

I'm interested as to the factors that make black women the outlier. I wonder who, if anyone, is conducting in-depth sociological research . . . .

Edit: The Huffington Post article is much better than the one I've featured here. I don't agree with this author's implied attitude toward gender roles or her unsupported claims about inherent differences.

The words of God do not justify cruelty to women -- thanks to supergee

I wish more had been written about how this type of perception affects women as a whole.

Words Mistaken At Face Value

As much as people like to pretend that looks don't matter, there are archetypes ingrained in our subconscious about what certain kinds of people are supposed to look like. And we make assumptions all the time based on those archetypes. When they don't match up, sometimes the accompanying discombobulation can be a pleasant surprise. As when the boy in the baggy pants and bandana turns out to be smartest guy in the class. When the fashion victim announces she has a doctorate in physics. Or when the nerdy talent show contestant turns out to have the voice of a diva.

Savvy folks use stereotypes to their advantage, throwing off the competition or lowering the bar so that when they clear it, it seems that much more impressive.

But recently, those sorts of disconnects have left people distressed. Pundits are perturbed because, in interviews, Elizabeth Edwards displayed little concern for the baby that might be her husband's love child. Comedian Wanda Sykes has been taken to the woodshed because her humor at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner turned pointed. Words alone didn't cause all that aggravation. A lot of it had to do with the person doing the talking. And how she looks.