This seems to about sum it up.
ht: Bartcop
Scientists share images of lost city in Honduras
NBC News: A high-tech team of scientists and filmmakers shared pictures of what appears to have been a centuries-old civilization in Honduras, one year after they used laser-mapping technology to identify traces of structures in the thick jungle.
The square-shaped and rounded structures, seen in computerized elevation maps of a rugged rain forest, may have been the last vestiges of pyramids, palaces and houses in a fabled settlement known as “la Ciudad Blanca,” or the White City.
Photo: Readings from a laser-mapping system were combined to produce a 3-D map of the Honduran rain forest, and then the vegetation was virtually lifted up from the scene to reveal the ruins of a circular structure. (UTL Scientific)
AFP: A top judicial panel cleared the way for same-sex marriage in Brazil Tuesday, ruling that gay couples could not be denied marriage licenses.
The National Council of Justice, which oversees the Brazilian judicial system and is headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, said…
How the fuck does Bill Nye expect this to happen? What do you want to do, force women to enroll in science courses, regardless of whether or not they want to do it? Just for the sake of having “enough” women? Why the fuck do these fractions matter so much? It’s not like people are holding guns to our head and threatening to kill us if we become interested in science.
Maybe, just maybe, a lot of us DON’T FUCKING WANT to be scientists. Is that a crime?
Hi there, princess-munchkin. Female engineering student here.
Bill Nye is not saying that you HAVE to be a scientist, and you are right that no one is holding a gun to my head because I am interested in science, but let me tell you some of the struggles of being a woman in the STEM fields.
1) Because I am a woman, I am not expected these fields. I first fully realized this when I was in high school, on my robotics team. See, although my robotics team was about 50% female, most of the women were part of the “business administration” side of things: finance, marketting, PR, membership, etc. Was this a problem? Absolutely not. But I was there to be an engineer, and specifically, to be the robot programmer. This was met with a lot of hesitation at first from some of the other students (all of whom happened to be male. This is not necessarily a bad thing.) You see, all of the robot programmers before me were guys. Computer programming is just a thing that guys do, or so they thought. Even after I had proved myself to the mentors on the team, many of the students still underestimated my abilities. There were rumors going around that I wouldn’t have been able to program the robot at all if the lead software mentor wasn’t there to help me. This was just flat-out false, but it wasn’t until I won an award for the team that the other students actually saw my merit.
2) There is not a lot of encouragement for women to go into these fields. I first noticed this when I was in elementary school. I was always interested in math, science, you name it, but many of my teachers and family members pushed that to the side for a long time. When I asked for legos for christmas, I would get ballet slippers. In fact, for a long time, I was training to be a professional dancer. I loved to dance. I loved math more, but no one seemed to notice that about me. It wasn’t until I had a long conversation with one particular teacher in high school that I decided to look into engineering. I had never even considered it as an option before, because no one decided to encourage me to pursue my interest in science. If it hadn’t been for that teacher, I would probably not be at the school I am at right now.
3) For a long time, Engineering/Science/Math WAS a “boys only” club. Let me tell you when some of the top technical schools and societies started letting women in:
- RPI, The oldest tech school in the country, founded in 1824. Started admitting women in 1942 to “replace men called to war.” Campus housing for women wasn’t constructed until 1966.
- Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honors Society - Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1968.
- Caltech - Currently rated #3 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1891. Started admitting women in 1970.
- Georgia Tech - Currently rated #5 in undergraduate engineering. Founded in 1885. Started admitting women in 1952.
Do you see the implications of this? Engineering has been a part of our society since around the late 1800s (in the case of RPI, since the 1820s), but women weren’t even allowed in for the most part until the 1950s, regardless of their merit.
4) Because of the fact that it was a “boys only” club for such a long time, there are not a lot of women engineers and scientists to look up to. When you’re reading your physics, chemistry, and math text books, the majority of those theories were came up with by men. It is true that much of our history was written by White Men, but this does not mean that the fact that there are few women scientists to look up does not matter.
So, as you can hopefully see, princess-munckin, or anyone else that shares the opinions of princess-munchkin, Bill Nye was not arguing that women that are not interested in STEM should go into those fields anyway. But he IS arguing against all of the systematic barriers set up against women who ARE interested in engineering and science. There are several women out there who are just as good as the boys at math and science, but will never pursue their interests because it just doesn’t seem like an option. That was me for a long time. I am super grateful for the fact that I fought against that, and that I ended up where I am.
if you don’t like science, fine. Don’t be a scientist. But if one day you have a daughter and she shows interest in being a scientist, PLEASE encourage her. Because Bill Nye is right, there needs to be more women scientists in the world.
A+ comment
(via amazingatheist)
12 injured in New Orleans Mother’s Day shooting
WWLTV: At least 12 people are injured after gunfire rang out at a Mother’s Day second-line parade in the 7th Ward of the city of New Orleans.
Police say around 200 people were in the area when the shooting occurred. Three suspects are believed to be involved.
The youngest victim is 10-years-old, officials say. Three of the victims who were shot are in critical condition.
Follow the latest at Breaking News.
May 10, 1774: The reign of Louis XVI begins.
Louis XVI succeeded his grandfather Louis XV as King of France and of Navarre at age nineteen. By this time he had already been married to the Austrian Archduchess Maria Antonia, or Marie Antoinette, for four years; their marriage had, so far, been unfruitful — the couple had failed to produce any children and would not until 1778; in addition to his and his wife’s progenitive problems, the new King was faced with numerous issues which required the immediate attention of a tenacious and resourceful head of state (he was not one), including France’s financial problems (later including the enormous debt accumulated after the American War of Independence), and various social, economic, political problems that the King was in the end unable to fully address, though not due to a severe disinterest or lack of intelligence but rather the feebleness of his character (he was often described, as both a child and adult, as shy and indecisive). Some of his actions were popular with the people, such as his approval of the Edict of Versailles in 1787, which granted certain non-Catholic religious groups the right to openly practice in France; he also reinstated the regional parlements, which decentralized power from the crown but also enabled nobles to block the attempted radical reforms of Terray and Maupeou, who were both dismissed only months after Louis XVI’s ascension to the throne. Tensions between the privileged First and Second Estates and the Third Estate (whose members made up 98% of the country’s population), widespread food shortages, and general unrest and malaise, persisted throughout his reign.
In 1789, the King was forced in his desperation to summon the Estates-General, the first time this assembly had been called in 175 years; this summons, the declaration of the National Assembly, the Tennis Court Oath, and the Storming of the Bastille marked the beginning of the French Revolution, which ended - at least for Louis - in his deposition and execution.
Science: A+
Once you’ve stopped screaming in rage and/or pounding your head against the desk, let’s discuss this.
To start with, this photo is real, and was part of a quiz given at Blue Ridge Christian Academy, a private religious school. Since the school is private, and not public, this is not a violation of the First Amendment (unlike the flagrant stomping of the Constitution going on in Louisiana). In other words, this school can legally teach this. My complaint, therefore, is not a legal one.
Image: A fourth grade “science” quiz given at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina, via Slate.
Wow…
Cheers erupt as spire tops One World Trade Center
TODAY.com: A crane lifted the last of a 408-foot tall spire on top of One World Trade Center on Friday, a capstone to an emotional 12-year effort to replace the towers destroyed by terrorists.
Photo: Skyline of lower Manhattan seen from Jersey City, New Jersey (Anne Thompson / NBC News)
Smart Phones Shipped, First Quarter 2013
Researchers at IDC report that 216 million smart phones were shipped in the first quarter of 2013, up 63 million from the same period in 2012.
Via Reuters:
Sales of the iPhone 5 helped Apple’s volumes grow 6.6 percent to 37.4 million phones in the quarter from a year earlier, but that was not enough to stop its share of the market dropping to 17.3 percent from 23 percent, research firm IDC said.
A flood of cheaper Android-powered devices from the South Korean maker lifted its shipments about 60 percent to 70.7 million, giving it a 32.7 percent of the market, up from 28.8 percent a year earlier.
During the first quarter Samsung shipped more smartphones than the next four vendors combined, IDC said.
Image: Smart phones shipped worldwide, first quarter 2013.
May 9, 1994: Nelson Mandela is Elected President of South Africa
On this day in 1994, South Africa’s parliament elected Nelson Mandela as the country’s next president. The next day, Mandela was inaugurated, becoming the nation’s first black president and a symbol of change in the post-apartheid era.
Nelson Mandela’s election was even more triumphant, as he had spent 27 years in prison for his involvement in the anti-apartheid and anti-colonial movement. While in prison, Mandela had been confined to a small cell with the floor his bed, a bucket for a toilet, and he was forced to do hard labor in a quarry. He was allowed one visitor a year for 30 minutes. He could write and receive one letter every six months.
Through his intelligence, charm and dignified defiance, Nelson Mandela eventually bent even the most brutal prison officials to his will, assumed leadership over his jailed comrades and became the master of his own prison. He emerged from it the mature leader who would fight and win the great political battles that would create a new democratic South Africa.
Learn more about Nelson Mandela’s time in prison and his early years as a revolutionary with FRONTLINE’s The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela site.
Photo: South African National Congress (ANC) President Nelson Mandela gives a clenched fist to supporters upon his arrival for his first election rally on March 15, 1994 (WALTER DHLADHLA/AFP/Getty Images).
(via mohandasgandhi)
