Science & Society

Ig Nobel Prizes 2014: From Jesus On Toast To Baby Feces In Sausages

Lord Toast. Credit: Catarina Mota, CC BY-NC-SA By Akshat Rathi, The Conversation and Flora Lisica, The Conversation The 24th Ig Nobel prizes were announced on September 18th. The prizes annually award scientific research that “first makes people laugh and ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 19 2014 - 4:30pm

More Children Making Music, But Are Lessons Too Conventional?

Does this count as homework? Credit: Rob Boudon, CC BY By Mark Banks, University of Leicester ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 20 2014 - 3:05pm

Vitriolic Abuse Of Anita Sarkeesian: Why The Games Industry Needs Her

Sarkeesian has been the focus of much online hatred since she started her website Feminist Frequency in 2009. Credit: Anita Sarkeesian By Jessamy Gleeson, Swinburne University of Technology Three weeks ago, well-known feminist gaming critic Anita Sarkeesi ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 22 2014 - 6:29pm

Scientists Are Not Trusted By Americans- Here's Why

There is a downside to 'follow the money' arguments made by academics against scientists in pharmaceutical and oil companies- it comes back to haunt them also. A paper in PNAS finds that Americans seem wary of researchers because they get grant ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2014 - 2:00pm

End Segregation With More Suburban Sprawl

What causes segregation? No one knows. No one even knows where the line is. For example, in science classes, there is worry that if there are not enough people 'like' an individual, they will feel intimidated and excluded. But when there are lot ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 23 2014 - 9:12am

Surveys Are Not Science

Surveys are interesting and surveys can sometimes indicate what a certain number of people in a group might be thinking- but so can betting services. In the 2012 election, the Intrade betting service got as many states right in the presidential election a ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 25 2014 - 7:00am

Big Data And Full-Genome Analysis Not All They’re Cracked Up To Be

Knowing your DNA will is not a panacea. Credit: PA/Harvard University By Walter Gilbert, Harvard University Walter Gilbert won the Nobel Prize in 1980 in Chemistry for his contribution to sequence DNA, or “determination of base sequences in a nucleic acid ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 24 2014 - 11:00am

Patriarchy’s Ghosts In The Light Bulbs

'To be, or not to be' male or female? Maxine Peake plays Hamlet. Credit: Jonathan Keenan/Royal Exchange Theatre By Mareile Pfannebecker, University of Manchester The ghost, in this autumn’s Royal Exchange Theatre production of Hamlet, is in the ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 24 2014 - 2:01pm

126,000 Reasons Why The Emma Watson Hoax Isn't All Bad News

UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and actor Emma Watson launched the HeForShe Campaign at the United Nations headquarters in New York, September 20th. Credit: EPA/JASON SZENES By Evita March, Federation University Australia In less than a week since actor Emma ...

Article - The Conversation - Sep 25 2014 - 3:30pm

Government Says Economy Is Better, The Long-Term Unemployed Disagree

The government says the unemployment level is back at 2009 levels- but they use a metric that no one outside government would consider valid, namely how many people collect unemployment checks. After people have been unemployed past the expiration of the ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 26 2014 - 6:31am