Stop Nodding!

Rob Knop talks about a great teaching moment: A student who refused to just smile and nod: I was very grateful for that student. You see, when professors ask, “do you understand that?”, it’s not a test. It’s not the professor trying to catch the students up in admitting to being confused, it’s not the… Continue reading Stop Nodding!

Falling Rock Zone

Large meteorite hits northern Norway: A large meteorite struck in northern Norway this week, landing with an impact an astronomer compared to the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima. The meteorite appeared as a ball of fire just after 2 a.m. Wednesday, visible across several hundred miles in the sunlit summer sky above the Arctic Circle,… Continue reading Falling Rock Zone

Class Implications of the Brain Drain

Over at Gene Expression, Razib responds to my brain drain comments in a way that provokes some twinges of Liberal Guilt: Second, Chad like many others points to the issue of foreign scientists allowing us (Americans) to be complacent about nourishing home grown talent. I don’t totally dismiss this, there are probably many doctors and… Continue reading Class Implications of the Brain Drain

Shameful History

We had an interesting colloquium yesterday from Mark Walker, a colleague in the History department, on the subject of Peter Debye, a Dutch chemist and Nobel laureate. It seems that a book published last year on Einstein in the Netherlands included some material accusing Debye of being a Nazi collaborator, which touched off a major… Continue reading Shameful History

Get Your Flamewar On

It’s not really all that flame-tastic, but Janet has a nice post on the women in science thing, taking off from yesterday’s post, and my comment that I don’t really have the energy to wage a “women in science” flamewar at the moment. If you do have the energy, head over to Janet’s blog. But… Continue reading Get Your Flamewar On

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Nerdify the World

Scott Aaronson takes up the eternal question of why there are so few women in science. His contribution to the nature/ nurture side of the debate is particularly noteworthy: To put the point differently: suppose (hypothetically) that what repelled women from computer science were all the vending-machine-fueled all-nighters, empty pizza boxes stacked to the ceiling,… Continue reading Nerdify the World

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