What Will Adele's 56-Date North American Tour Do to Her Vocal Cords? A Chart

Adele announced the dates for her upcoming North American tour on Monday, and I’m starting to get nervous about what 56 performances of songs like “Hello” and “Chasing Pavements” will do to her voice. Will the followup to 25 be an ambient album filled with the synthesized wails and moans of a musical artist having to…
How Much Would It Cost to Actually Throw a Game of Thrones Wedding?
I don't know why you'd want to replicate one of the weddings from Game of Thrones—seeing as they generally end in something between regular murder and mass murder—but if you did, how much would that actually cost? In real human dollars? Taking into account food for a 40,000-person khalasar, imported poisons made into…
Data Shows Girls Around The World Underestimate Themselves In Math
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has gathered data comparing countries all over the world on their track record of gender differences in various skills, degrees, work, and wages. It's an interesting cross section of opportunity, gender imbalance, and culture. The OECD even took into…
How to Be Good at Math as a Woman: Pretend You're Someone Else
Do you know how, in the education system, everyone is always saying that women are terrible at math and then if you make a math mistake when you're called up to the board everyone's like, "THAT'S IT; GET YOUR UTERUS OUT OF HERE; SWING THOSE CHILD-BEARING HIPS OFF TO A HUMANITIES LESSON." No? Well, ok, it happens…
All the Characters on Friends Were Suicidal Caffeine Junkies, FYI
It may seem pointless to discuss the coffee-drinking habits of television characters that faded away in 2004, but the Internet is a repository of pointless stuff, and, anyway, you’ve probably always wanted to know if Chandler’s caffeine consumption was physically dangerous. Didn’t it seem like everyone on Friends…
Sara Volz, Teenage Scientist of Tomorrow, Turned Her Room into a Lab
In the not-so-distant future, when humanities majors (the unskilled laborers of academia) become so commonplace that they make Falstaff’s birthday a national holiday on which people are only allowed to talk to each other in heroic couplets, anyone who studied a hard science (i.e. not sociology) will be treated like a…
‘Grandma Got STEM’ Challenges the Stereotype of Technologically Hapless Old People
Denigrating grandmothers for their supposed lack of technological prowess is bullshit because a) big fucking deal you can use a computer — your grandmother was probably old enough during the moon landing to roll her eyes when Neil Armstrong read his cheesy "one small step" line, and b) grandmothers are really crafty,…
Science to Women: Try Literature Instead
Could these AP exam prep books from the Princeton Review be any more obvious? English and history are for ladies, and math and science are for boys. Since many text books now overcompensate with science covers that feature ladies (please see: every stock photo of a girl looking into a microscope ever — honestly, it…
Senator Ron Johnson Sure Hopes Tammy Baldwin Can Understand Math
Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin was among the most progressive members of the US House of Representatives during her tenure as a Wisconsin Congresswoman. Wisconsin's senior Senator Ron Johnson is a Tea Party idiot. But so far, everything is hunky dory! Baldwin is confident that the two can work together in Washington, and…
In Defense of Cheating
You know what I hate? Cheating. Cheating is shitty, and people shouldn't cheat. But you know what I don't hate? Also cheating! Cheating is great sometimes, and super helpful. I'm specifically talking about academic cheating, but the same applies to cheating in general—cheating hurts people, and it hurts the cheater,…
Maybe 'Girly Math' Isn't Such a Bad Idea
Winnie Cooper — I mean Danica McKellar, sorry — has a new book out called Girls Get Curves, a followup to her first girly arithmetic book, Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who's Boss. Girls Get Curves tackles geometry, and, as in Kiss My Math, McKellar gives math a peppy, slightly ditzy makeover by coming up with…
Scientists Find Golden Ratio in Your Uterus
With all the government officials crowded in there, I'm amazed that they were able to do it, but scientists have announced that during their travels through the human uterus, they've discovered something math-magical — proportions approaching what naturalists, scientists, and general knowledge nerds refer to as the…
Science Cheerleaders Invite Children to Admire Their Perky, Bouncy Brains
One of the challenges in convincing little girls to want to be smart is that they've been indoctrinated by society and princess culture into thinking that being smart is a thing that ugly mustachioed chicks do because no one wanted to marry them and they're too allergic to hoard cats. Enter the Science Cheerleaders…
Girls More Likely to Freak Out When Faced with a Math Problem, Says Study That Doesn't Help the Problem
If the phrase "word problem" still provokes vivid night terrors of you sitting in a dystopian future classroom as uniformed classmates jeer at you for not being able to figure out how long it will take some imaginary fucking train to get to some imaginary fucking destination quickly enough for your totalitarian eighth…
