Swans on Tea

Huge blogroll of women blogging on science and technology at Sciencewoman. Via sciencegeekgirl

Greg Laden has some valid beefs in The Truth Is In There
Yes, the LHC people should have disclosed the faulty transformer immediately. It was an absolute mistake not to do so. No disagreement there.
However,
The hubris. It hurts. That these scientists think that they can and should do this is wrong and, frankly, scary. [...]

Very succinct. “Arguments Against Research”
Posting a quote would ruin the effectiveness; it’s more of a linear explanation.

And I still feel fine.
The latest brouhaha, of course is the LHC, which is supposed to destroy us all, but this is not the first time that science, some (quasi-) scientific phenomenon, or scientists, have supposedly threatened to pushed us into the abyss. Here’s a sampling of recent scenarios, ignoring the many-more-numerous armageddon/rapture predictions [...]

They’re just systematically figuring out how to beat the computer by figuring out the rules, via hypotheses and experimentation.
How Videogames Blind Us With Science
At one point, Steinkuehler met up with one of the kids who’d built the Excel model to crack the boss. “Do you realize that what you’re doing is the essence [...]

Because this fire needs more fuel.
Why Girls Leave Science And Math - Confidence, Says Psychologist
The study confirmed that old stereotypes die slowly. Both boys and girls perceived that teachers thought boys were stronger at math and science. For boys this represented a support, while for girls it acted as a barrier.
Top barriers for all age [...]

Preparing to rescue Hubble at The Big Picture (23 photos)

Can you predict Nobel Prize winners by counting citations?
Short version: Previously, Yes. Currently, no. Like sports.
In some sense this is like the “parity” many sports fans talk about. Making good predictions in an NCAA tournament bracket or fantasy football league can be pretty difficult, because there has been an increase in the [...]

The question asked at incoherently scattered ponderings: Why would anyone want to get a PhD in sciences?
[T]he bottom line is that 10 years later non-PhD path can provide on the order of 0.5 million more in earnings than the PhD path. And one could argue that the career options after completing PhD and 1 [...]

Humbling at indexed.
Observation: Jessica’s plots vary as either 1/r, r or r2, but I can’t recall any that had an actual inflection point (in my semi-random sampling). There could be some subtle implications in inflection points. No asymptotic functions I can recall, either.

Ran across the tube containing Standards in Science Blogging and My Inbox. I’m interested in standards of science blogging, so I gave it a read. The author almost gets it right when talking about the right way and wrong way to support your argument.
There is a right way and a wrong way to [...]

Giving your new results away too soon
[W]here do you announce your results first: in the title? In the abstract? In the introduction? Or, in the results paragraph? If you wait to long your paper will become a whodunit and readers will get bored and stop reading your paper. If the clue of your paper is [...]