The start of the new term brings not just new students and qualifying exams, but another round of introspection and soul-searching among the academic set. Which is a good thing for lazy bloggers, because it provokes lots of interesting articles to link to… First up is the always interesting Timothy Burke, who is concerned about […]
Month: August 2006
Story of My Life
One of the things required for the tenure review is a full and up-to-date curriculum vitae. Having spent an inordinate amount of time updating and re-formatting my CV, it seems a shame not to make more use of it than that, so I might as well recycle it into a blog post (after stripping out […]
Justifying Science Enrollments in One Sentence
I’ve talked before about the tension between the desire to encourage students to major in physics and the tight job market in academia. Every time I talk about ways to draw more students into physics, it seems that somebody pops up to call me irresponsible for trying to lure them into a dead-end career track, […]
Science for Girls
There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the science blogosphere about the low numbers of women in science, and I’ve contributed my share of comments. On the theory that you shouldn’t curse the darkness when you could be fumbling for a book of matches, I’ll pass along this call for proposals from the Feminist Press: […]
Ethics of Death
Over at Retrospectacle, Shelley has decided to ask us all a nice, simple, uncontroversial question: “Are you for or against the death penalty, or (if its conditional), in what cases? Furthermore, do you believe that societies that sanction war are hypocritical for opposing the death penalty?” Yeesh. Actually, though, this is relatively easy to answer. […]
Death and Body Mass Index
In the comments to the recent post on BMI, commenter Colst pointed to another study of mortality and BMI that found significantly higher risks for overweight people. Today, I see that Kevin Beck at Dr. Bushwell’s Chimpanzee refuge has a post describing what I think is the same study, with the title Risk of death […]
Qualifying Exam Season
Gordon Watts reminds me that the start of a new academic year means more than just the arrivial of a new crop of freshmen. For grad students, it’s qualifying exam season. For those not in the know, “qualifying exams” are a common feature of most Ph.D. programs. These are big, comprehensive tests that all students […]
Classic Edition: Seventeen Books
Over at A Blog Around the Clock, Bora has reposted an old article written in response to a list of “must-read” SF books, in which he sets out to generate his own list. Never one to shy away from excess, he ends up with a nearly complete list of genre novels since about 1890. Steinn […]
Kids These Days
New students will be showing up on college campuses all across the country in the next few weeks, which means it’s time for the annual “kids these days” reflections on the character of the new freshmen. Apparently, they don’t know all kinds of important stuff, but they don’t drink as much as they used to: […]