The way we try to recruit girls into STEM fields is all wrong. We typically compare them to some great woman or someone that has gone before them. We are saying, “Hey, you can be like Madam Curie or Sally Ride.” It is recruiting by intimidation. We need to change that message. We need to recruit by appealing to WHY we need them in STEM. We NEED you to help make the world a better place We NEED you to help discover the cure for cancer. We NEED you because you have the ability to change the course of humanity for the better.

Tim Holt on why we still see the number of females in STEM fields fall way behind their male counterparts. Also see how geography paved the way for women in science.

(↬ gender and science)

(via scinerds)

Source: explore-blog

Let’s agree that we’re in agreement about the climate and move on

An international team of scientists recently surveyed almost 12,000 climate science research publications to gauge the consensus on manmade global warming among people who know lots about climate science. They did this because some people still like to pretend like there’s plenty of skepticism and doubt about what’s causing all this. 

What did they find? Well, of the 4,000 papers that declared a position on the cause of global warming since 1991, 97.1% of them agreed that humans were causing a majority of global warming. The rest? Most of them didn’t claim a position because it’s so well-accepted that they didn’t want to waste the space. 

And just how small is the leftover, even if it was real doubt (which it isn’t)? That 2.9% remainder is less than:

Can we start accepting how much everyone who understands the science is in agreement and work on fixing it and adapting to it? The doubt is not real. Just like the Loch Ness Monster.

Read more about the climate research survey at Smithsonian.com. Read more about the crazy psychology behind conspiracy theories here (which is all I am willing to call climate science denialism from here on out).

So there.

Explosion on the Moon!

Pock-marked with craters and splotched with long-cold beds of dark lava, our moon holds thousands of footprints from its violent past. But we don’t really think of it having a violent present.

Well, it still gets its fair share of action. On March 17, 2013, NASA astronomers captured video of a meteorite striking the moon. It made an explosion bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, like a temporary star drawn on the lunar surface. It turns out that these collisions are not that rare.

Most of the moon’s many meteor marks date from a period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. That, combined with a magma-riffic adolescence gave the moon the special look we know today. Of course, none of that is as violent as the moon’s birth.

Anyway, make sure to watch that video above and see the meteor strike live. You’ll never look at the moon the same way again.

Watch and Hear: Crystal Clear

Crystals are ordered, complexly symmetrical, and even dynamic in their growth and dissolution. It’s no wonder we’re attracted to these chemical lattices as an art form. Linden Gledhill’s new montage of microscopic crystals and food dyes takes that to its aesthetic apex. In this great video, he uses them as a colorful backdrop to a track off Jon Hopkins’ (no relation to the medical school) new album Immunity.

See what amazingness can occur when a scientist (Gledhill is a trained biochemist) and an artist join forces? Let’s do more of that.

Check out links to Gledhill’s other microscopic explorations as well as a cool behind the scenes look at which chemical reactions made the colors you’re enjoying at The Creator’s Project (also on Tumblr).

(via The Creators Project)

Source: Vice Magazine

crookedindifference: First Solar Eclipse Photograph Berkowski made the first solar eclipse photograph on July 28, 1851, also using the daguerrotype process, at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad in Russia). Berkowski, a local daguerrotypist whose first name was never published, observed at the Royal Observatory. A small 6-cm refracting telescope was attached to the 15.8-cm Fraunhofer heliometer and a 84-second exposure was taken shortly after the beginning of totality. Daguerreotype astronomy. That’s a new one for me.
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crookedindifference:

First Solar Eclipse Photograph

Berkowski made the first solar eclipse photograph on July 28, 1851, also using the daguerrotype process, at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad in Russia). Berkowski, a local daguerrotypist whose first name was never published, observed at the Royal Observatory. A small 6-cm refracting telescope was attached to the 15.8-cm Fraunhofer heliometer and a 84-second exposure was taken shortly after the beginning of totality.

Daguerreotype astronomy. That’s a new one for me.

(via itsfullofstars)

Source: Wikipedia

Do you identify with LGBTQ? Do you work or study in STEM? Take a survey and help to make sure the issues of this community are not overlooked! My road through working and studying in science has been relatively easy (except for the usual academic challenges). But I’m a straight, white male, and I haven’t had to experience the explicit and systemic prejudices that so many people have to deal with every day, even in such a “progressive” field as this. But I’ve met many folks over the years who have had to deal with that, and it’s not easy for some (to make the understatement of the ever). To feel welcome, comfortable, equal and wanted in STEM fields (and in the world at large) … that’s what people deserve, and that’s the environment we should work to create. That’s why I am so glad to hear that Jeremy Yoder and Allison Mattheis have put together this survey. By finding out how people’s careers and experiences relate to their peers, we can see where work remains to be done. It’s a great model for other groups. Help spread the word, and if you or someone you know that works or studies in STEM wants to take the survey, visit http://bit.ly/queerSTEM
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Do you identify with LGBTQ? Do you work or study in STEM? Take a survey and help to make sure the issues of this community are not overlooked!

My road through working and studying in science has been relatively easy (except for the usual academic challenges). But I’m a straight, white male, and I haven’t had to experience the explicit and systemic prejudices that so many people have to deal with every day, even in such a “progressive” field as this. But I’ve met many folks over the years who have had to deal with that, and it’s not easy for some (to make the understatement of the ever). To feel welcome, comfortable, equal and wanted in STEM fields (and in the world at large) … that’s what people deserve, and that’s the environment we should work to create.

That’s why I am so glad to hear that Jeremy Yoder and Allison Mattheis have put together this survey. By finding out how people’s careers and experiences relate to their peers, we can see where work remains to be done. It’s a great model for other groups.

Help spread the word, and if you or someone you know that works or studies in STEM wants to take the survey, visit http://bit.ly/queerSTEM