Hmmm

Andrew rattles off information about the music playing in the pizza to his girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist). Sebastian, of course, plays for Mia and teaches her to appreciate jazz. Music, then, effectively serves as both an emotional conduit and a subtle affirmation of power: where Fletcher uses his status as Andrew’s teacher as a cudgel to assert his dominance, Guy and Sebastian — and, indeed, Andrew — maintain their status as the more worldly, dominant partner in a subtler way, through the assertion of their artistic skill and cultural knowledge. With the exception of Mia, the women on the receiving end of this treatment are directionless and therefore ideal counterparts: Madeline’s field in graduate school is never specified, Nicole doesn’t even know her major, and all we know about Elena is that she is so incompetent that she has to have a man show her how to boil water. (That is the stuff of fantasy.)

Full article here. Warning: spoilers for all the films in the article.

Science is Cool!

The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a "stellar wind" moving at over 4 million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.

Read more and see the amazing video here.

The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a "stellar wind" moving at over 4 million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-hubble-star-inflating-giant.html#jCp

The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a "stellar wind" moving at over 4 million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-hubble-star-inflating-giant.html#jCp

The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a "stellar wind" moving at over 4 million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-hubble-star-inflating-giant.html#jCp

There is no gene for the human spirit

One way to think about this is simply as a reflection of the fact that, to date, we have found no limitations to the improvements that can be made with particular types of practice. As training techniques are improved and new heights of achievement are discovered, people in every area of human endeavor are constantly finding ways to get better, to raise the bar on what was thought to be possible, and there is no sign that this will stop. The horizons of human potential are expanding with each new generation.

Full article here.


Strangely, rather than making me want to go out and get my practice on it just makes me want to watch Gattaca again. ;-) 

Nature is Cool!

Kudos to this particularly well lived albatross!

Heheh

My favorite game of gender swap in scientists' bios form: click here.

h/t Beth

Socialization is a powerful thing

And we would do well to remember that. It's amazing to me how often people refuse to accept that most behaviors are learned.

History is cool!

I think I need to visit Denmark and Turkey.

The Great Sleep

Scientists having fun. :)

Good article

I'm one of those that just doesn't get all the hullabaloo about Neill Blomkamp movies. With Chappie coming up, someone else who it seems is also left a little disappointed by his films has written a really nice article. It's a bit long but worth it if you have an interest in films and or sci/fi.

The one thing I do quite admire about Blomkamp?

The original sci-fi movie not based on a preexisting intellectual property is an endangered species, but Blomkamp has made three in a row.

Made of Awesome!!!

Check this out!

For Cat Lovers

Really, there is so much that entertained me in this article but the real question is: do you think your cat has what it takes?

Science is Cool!

Sadly, I did not see one of these when I was in Australia last week. I did see one of these.

A Must Read

I was hunting around for the character list* from The Luminaries, and came by this fantastic article by Eleanor Catton.

I love this type of piece. It's not one you read and then go "no, no, no that's all wrong" or "yes, that's exactly what I think" but one where you think "there are so many interesting observations here, I want to have more discussion right now."

Dr M and I talk about this all the time:

The machine of consumerism is designed to encourage us all to believe that our preferences are significant and self-revealing; that a taste for Coke over Pepsi, or for KFC over McDonald’s, means something about us; that our tastes comprise, in sum, a kind of aggregate expression of our unique selfhood.

And this observation speaks directly to my inner reading self:

At its best, literature is pure encounter: it resists consumption because it cannot be used up and it cannot expire. The bonds that are formed between readers and writers, between readers and characters, and between readers and ideas, are meaningful in a way that the bonds formed between consumers and products can never be

But don't take my word for it. Go read it! It's a readers must read.


*why could I not just reference the book's list, you ask? well, I got the audiobook, all 29+ hours of it.

A Good Point

ETA2: Another good point.

ETA: A more in depth look at the concept mentioned in the video below.

Check out this video, and a browse around the other posts is certainly worth your time.

hat tip: GL

Why do anything? It's all on the internet!

After watching a bevy of movies with old dudes romantically linked with women who could conceivably (even if unlikely) have been their children, I was thinking I'd go over a few careers and compare ages at time of filming between the stars. Turns out I don't need to, it's already been done. I love the internet.

Leading Men Age, But Their Love Interests Don't


Some of these are way worse than others. The one that really squicked me out was the pair in which the guy is older than my dad and the gal is younger than me!

Linky Link

Too good not to share!



hat tip: Jed

A Good Read

This is my life, after all. Who could possibly know more about it than me?

According to the internet, the answer to this question is, “anyone with an internet connection and the means to communicate their thoughts to me.”

I cannot tell you how many times in the last week alone I’ve been interrupted whilst talking about my own lived experiences by white people who “just want to share their opinions”. Everyone, it seems, has opinions to share about my life and whether or not I’ve truly experienced it the way I say I have.

Read the full article here.

Quotable

"You're just doing this to get laid." Oh, son. You know what I do to get laid? I treat women as humans while being super smart and attractive. This is a trick that works really well, so I've kept doing it solely for my wife's benefit.

Seen here. 
(And I highly recommend the post linked in the first paragraph.)

Truth in Headlines...

Would be a refreshing thing.

Check out this funny link for what that might look like.


hat tip: Dr M

Women Like Each Other

Many people (and esp. the folks in my former writers' group) have heard my endless harping on the lack of female relationships being depicted, well, any damn where and there's a reason for it! Women like each other and you'd hardly know it from the majority of popular media images.

Women are loyal friends and we regularly work and rely on one another, yet it’s a rare treat to see women publicly portrayed as working together for the common good and embraced for doing so – in movies or in news.

That quote is from this very good article that you should definitely read.