Jezebel
Weird Science
Posts Tagged “
Weird Science
”
Weird Science
The Future Of Fertility
Scientists Predict That Babies Of The Future Will Be Born To Centarians With Artificial Wombs
2007 marked a baby boomlet, with the most babies born in the United States since 1957. One of the factors behind the baby landslide is the fact that more "professional women who delayed childbearing until their 40s" are having kids, says USA Today, and at least some of those women probably had some help in the fertility department with in vitro fertilization. To mark the 30th birth of Louise Brown, the first baby who was born using IVF, Nature magazine surveyed several fertility experts for an article called Making Babies: The Next 30 Years. And what scientific advancements are these experts predicting in the baby making arena? They're forecasting that women of any age (as old as 100!) will be able to conceive, that artificial wombs will be created, that infertility will be a thing of the past, and that the price of IVF will plummet to less than $100. More »
Weird Science
Government Officials: Should Title IX Apply To Science Departments?
If you're familiar with Title IX, you probably just think of it as the law forbidding gender discrimination in college and high school sports. But in actuality, the law forbids gender discrimination in all forms of education, and there's a growing call to apply Title IX to science departments receiving federal grants. As we've discussed before, women are opting out of "hard science" fields like physics and chemistry, though they are the majority in sciences like psychology and biology. Opponents of applying Title IX to science departments say that male bias is not to blame for the disparity — female choice is. The NY Times' John Tierney quotes columnist cum clinical psychologist Susan Pinker: "Creating equal opportunities for women does not mean that they’ll choose what men choose in equal numbers. The freedom to act on one’s preferences can create a more exaggerated gender split in some fields.” More »
weird science
Why Women Are Opting Out Of The Hard Sciences
American women are few and far between at the upper levels in the "hard" sciences, otherwise known as physics and chemistry as opposed to biology and medicine. A new group of studies suggest that women — who, according to the Boston Globe constitute "20 percent of the nation's engineers, fewer than one-third of chemists, and only about a quarter of computer and math professionals" — are rarities in these fields because they are opting out of them, not because of the paucity of opportunities available. "Substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else," the Globe's Elaine McArdle writes. In countries where women have fewer economic choices, like the Philippines, Thailand and Russia, the disparity between men and women in the hard sciences is far less substantial. More »
clips
Feeling nostalgic? John Hughes has been in the news this week. First there was a profile of the writer/director in the Los Angeles Times (he helped write Drillbit Taylor, but under a pseudonym, shh!) and a NPR piece about Long Duk Dong. Now, Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, has posted a YouTube clip (to promote her new book) in which she reenacts a key scene from Pretty in Pink using dolls. More »
"That Girl Was, Is, And Will Always Be Nada"
Feeling nostalgic? John Hughes has been in the news this week. First there was a profile of the writer/director in the Los Angeles Times (he helped write Drillbit Taylor, but under a pseudonym, shh!) and a NPR piece about Long Duk Dong. Now, Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries, has posted a YouTube clip (to promote her new book) in which she reenacts a key scene from Pretty in Pink using dolls. More »
standards of beauty
Cosmetics Companies Are Blinding Us With Junk Science
Skin care manufacturers always brag about the kind of results their products will deliver, and these days, they're doing it with "science." Creams promise to "refuel surface cells" with "anti-aging triple response" or "reinforce skin's matrix layer by layer." According to a story in the Times of London today, the market for "cosmeceuticals," cosmetics sold on the strength of their supposed scientific innovation, is about $205 million. But, reports the paper, scientists say there is little evidence to support the claims that the "active" ingredients in these products have any beneficial effect on the skin. In other words, many of them don't do anything. More »
weird science
What Sorts Of Awesome Experiments Should We Conduct?
With all this girls-kicking-ass-in-science-fairs talk, we realized that we don't do nearly as many experiments as we should around here. Also, after our failed attempt at making a Barbie electric chair, we realized that we're not the ones who should be conducting these experiments. So we called on our pal Jessy, the girl who invented the Barbie electric chair, to be our resident mad scientist. We're not really sure what Jessy should tackle first, so we want you guys to tell us. What should she build? What should she test? What myth should she bust? What should she blow up? (We totally intend on having her blow lots of shit up.) Anyway, let us know! Either leave a comment or email us. More »
name game
Anns Get As, Barbaras Get Bs, & Christinas Get Crap
Attention all Annas, Alices, Alexandras and Alyssas! Congratulations on getting As in school. And shame on you, Christine, Catherine and Cameron, for making Cs. According to a new study, Newsweek reports, people gravitate toward things that begin with their initials, even when those things are undesirable, like bad grades or a baseball strikeout. Leif Nelson of the UC San Diego, and Joseph Simmons of Yale call these "moniker maladies" and found that students with names that begin with C and D tend to make Cs and Ds; baseball players whose names begin with K strike out at a higher rate; and a guy named Joe is more likely to live in Jonestown than Akron. More »
So, you know how everyone has always told you that dandruff is caused by, like, dry skin or dehydration? It turns out that's not exactly true. It's actually caused by Malassezia globosa, a fungus that grows (and likely sexually reproduces) on the skin of between 50 percent and 90 percent of people. Malassezia globosa also causes eczema and skin infections in newborns. The fact that it sexually reproduces is new (if grody) information that scientists can use to potentially produce more effective dandruff shampoos (which is why the research was conducted by Proctor and Gamble Beauty). [Yahoo News]
The magazine New Scientist compiled a top ten list of the most bizarre scientific experiments ever conducted. Number 10: scientists at Penn State discovered by dismembering fake female turkeys that male turkeys would attempt to mate with even just a head on a stick. [Insert your own joke about turkeys or heads on sticks here] [The Guardian]
According to British evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry, 1,000 years from now humanity will split into two distinct subspecies. The descendants of the upper classes will be "tall, slim, attractive, intelligent, and creative," while the "under class" will have "evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures." The women of the "upper class" humans will "develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features." Though the species will have glossier hair, they will have lost the "emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect." Sounds like Paris Hilton to us! [BBC News]
weird science
