"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." - B. F. Skinner

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YouTube - 呼叫魚 - This fish is REALLY fresh.

Letters: Exploding 'roaches - 05 December 1992 - New Scientist - "While I have heard of borax being recommended as a cockroach poison, it apparently acts slowly and sodium fluoride is preferred. However, I have personal - very favourable - experience with a slight variation on this recipe for spicing the sugar-flour pellet. This is to incorporate ordinary baking powder (sodium bicarbonate) into it... their continued consumption of the baking powder leads to a state of gas accumulation which causes the stomach lining of the cockroach to burst. Exit cockroach"

Plastic chemicals 'feminise boys' - "Males exposed to high doses in the womb went on to be less likely to play with boys' toys like cars or to join in rough and tumble games, they found... "This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true 'gender benders'.""
Progressives must use more plastic

Question time: Cindy Crawford - "Q: Fashion gets blamed for encouraging eating disorders.
A: I think people want to find something to blame. An eating disorder is way more than a girl looking at a magazine and seeing a picture of a skinny model. Maybe that's one tiny piece of the puzzle, but I think it's a lot more about self-esteem and self-love and control, so it's too simplistic to just blame it on models who are skinny.
Does the fashion industry like women?
A: We as the consumers, we as the women, have the power. If you don't like something, don't buy it. Don't buy the magazine if you don't like what it says. If you don't like the image a brand is putting out, don't buy it. What I really don't agree with is people who complain about it but still support it. You're giving your power away. If people don't want skinny models, stop buying the magazine with the skinny model, and believe me those magazines will change fast. It's business."

From Tunis to Tehran, the great veil debate - "Often forgotten amid such controversies in Europe - which tend to center on allegations of "Islamophobia" or the desire of Western nations to control a minority community - is the fact that nowhere is the debate over the Islamic veil older or more heated than in Muslim societies themselves... In 1970s Egypt, for example, head scarves were donned mainly by rural women. Today, on the streets of Cairo, at least 80 percent of women cover their hair... [veiling] stems from various cultural traditions that predate Islam... "Whenever states get involved with it, it gets worse... Take the example of the Islamic Republic [of Iran]. When you push women so far, they become very innovative; They come up with things that Khomeini never would have predicted."... After Turkey in 2000 banned wearing head scarves for driver's-license photos, many women simply took to using computer programs to insert images of hair over their scarves... women are commanded to reveal their faces when making the pilgrimage to Mecca. Ms. Milani argues that behind that requirement lies much the same logic that led Britain's Mr. Straw to insist on seeing women's faces when he talks to them. "Why the command to uncover the face? It's exactly the same argument," she says. "It's a public setting, and people need to know who's standing next to them.""

The latest research on the correlation between religion and niceness. - "If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones. The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion... All humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct... Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque. The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power"

Can I file for a divorce on grounds of adultery if I suspect my wife of cheating on me with a woman? - "The law only recognises adultery between individuals of the opposite sex... Frankly, it may be just cheaper to pay her more attention and get some action going in the bedroom"
That's what I like about advice columns - they give advice instead of going into social commentary and analysing power relations and, in the end, missing the point of the original question.

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors - "It is natural to describe key events in terms of the work of individuals who made a mark in science: Copernicus, Vesalius, Darwin, Wallace and the rest. But this does not mean that science has progressed as a result of the work of a string of irreplaceable geniuses possessed of a special insight into how the world works. Geniuses maybe (though not always); but irreplaceable certainly not. Scientific progress builds step by step, and as the example of Darwin and Wallace shows, when the time is ripe, two or more individuals may make the next step independently of one another. It is the luck of the draw, or historical accident, whose name gets remembered as the discoverer of a new phenomenon. What is much more important than human genius is the development of technology, and it is no surprise that the start of the scientific revolution `coincides' with the development of the telescope and the microscope... If Newton had never lived, scientific progress might have been held back by a few decades. But only by a few decades. Edmond Halley or Robert Hooke might well have come up with the famous inverse square law of gravity; Gottfried Leibniz actually did invent calculus independently of Newton (and made a better job of it); and Christiaan Huygens's superior wave theory of light was held back by Newton's espousal of the rival particle theory."

The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science - "We are used to hearing that economic interests have corrupted scientific findings, but the possibility that science might be corrupted by noble causes is largely overlooked. This book shows that this danger is real, that values can often lead to poor science, and that we are more likely to accept lower quality science when it lends support to our political preferences. Using the examples of biodiversity and climate science and the attack on Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist on these two issues, Aynsley Kellow reveals how the reliance of environmental science on mathematical models and the infusion of values into its conduct have produced a preference for virtual over observational data. It argues that both sides of politics are capable of exerting such an influence, but suggests some reasons why those on the political Left seem to be more prone to do so at present, to the detriment of public policy."

A Few Questions for Belle de Jour, Call Girl and Scientist - "Q. Has anything you learned as a call girl proven useful in your life as a scientist?
A. It taught me a lot about being able to talk to a variety of people with different backgrounds and relating to their points of view. Also the value of listening to them instead of rabbiting on about Fact This and Evidence That quite so much. Also, the power of being a decent-looking blond woman in the world. People may not take you seriously at first but they don’t resent your approach. Once the door is cracked open, it’s up to you to show your value as an intelligent person. Leveraging my sexuality to promote my work? You bet."

Fur: Would you rather go naked? Not any longer - "From a line-up that included Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer and Elle Macpherson, only Turlington has stayed true to her word. All the others have, at one time or another, chosen to promote or wear real fur in the intervening years... Leather is a by-product, whereas animals are killed solely for their fur. Can it ever be truly "ethical"? "I don't have a problem with people following their principles, but what bugs me is when people pick and choose," says Lynn. "People are really misinformed about the products they wear. Nobody argues with the pesticides used on cotton plants that will kill wildlife. To think that silk or cotton doesn't do damage to the environment is a lie... Karl Lagerfeld, perennial bete noire of the anti-fur lobby, is unapologetic about using it: "In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish"... "I came across a supplier of kangaroo fur from Western Australia where, because of changes to the environment, kangaroo numbers have become far too high in areas and the vegetation has been destroyed, so they have to be culled.""