Links - 3rd June 2014

5 facts about Fox News | Pew Research Center - "Fox News was very tough on the last Democratic candidate for president. (But MSNBC was even tougher on the Republican). During the late stages of the 2012 presidential campaign, a Pew Research analysis found that Barack Obama received far more negative coverage than positive on the Fox News Channel. Yet Fox found its ideological mirror image in MSNBC. In the final stretch of the campaign, nearly half (46%) of Obama’s coverage on Fox was negative, while just 6% was positive in tone. But MSNBC produced an even harsher narrative about the Republican in the race: 71% of Romney’s coverage was negative, versus 3% positive."

Fox and MSNBC Viewers Largely Misinformed: Fairleigh Dickinson University Poll - "Compared to people who didn't follow the news, Fox News viewers were 18 percentage points less likely to know that the Egyptian protesters had overthrown Mubarak and six percentage points less likely to know that the Syrian protesters had thus far failed to overthrow Al-Assad. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News, Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and a PublicMind poll analyst, said in a press release. Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don't watch any news at all. Conversely, people who got their news from MSNBC -- which is widely seen as the liberal counterpart to the conservative Fox News -- were more likely to know the results of the Arab Spring protests but less likely to know that the Occupy Wall Street movement is composed primarily of Democrats. MSNBC viewers still knew less about the Arab Spring than people who didn't follow the news -- they were three percent less likely to know that the Egyptian protests had been successful and two percent less likely to know that the Syrian protests had been unsuccessful -- but they performed significantly better than Fox News viewers on those questions... Fox News and MSNBC viewers both fared poorly overall, but on different issues... On the majority of the questions, though, less partisan sources were better. The best-informed people on the Arab Spring questions were those who watched Sunday morning news shows. These viewers were 16 percentage points more likely to know the Egyptian protests were successful and eight percent more likely to know the Syrian protests were unsuccessful... It helps that Sunday shows and NPR tend to be less partisan than Fox News or MSNBC, but they have an edge even over other nonpartisan sources, like The New York Times or USA Today. The primary factor, said Woolley, is more the format of a news source than its partisan leaning... Sunday shows are also less likely to degenerate into people shouting at each other, said Cassino. Viewers pick up more information from this sort of calm discussion than from other formats. Unfortunately, these shows have a much smaller audience than the shouters."

The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting - "Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 28 percent of its viewers to vote Republican, depending on the audience measure. The Fox News effect could be a temporary learning effect for rational voters, or a permanent effect for nonrational voters subject to persuasion."
The bias here is not stated (at least not in the abstract): rational voters do not vote Republican

Women in science, is pregnancy a “disability”? - "My entering class of 2002 at Emory University consisted almost entirely women with the exception of maybe 2-3 men in a large group of maybe 15 or so people. This super-sized class was a complete fluke–almost everyone who received offers from Emory chose Emory as their top pick that year to the chagrin of many fine graduate neuroscience programs. In retaliation, other schools moved their deadlines up the following year. I felt lucky to have such a large diverse class, like I had a better sampling of the population of future neuroscientists."
Almost all women = diversity?!
Presumably she'd rather maternity leave not be classified as disability leave, so new mothers will have to take unpaid leave

Is This the World's First "Sexual Home Appliance?" Probably Not! - "The updated version is also Bluetooth enabled. You can control the A10 Cyclone SA's rotation speed as the data is written in CSV files—meaning you can customize the rotations to match whatever you are watching. The evening news, for example. Baseball. Whatever. Then, you can upload that data to the internet and share with others. Because sharing is caring. The hope is that adult video companies will also release data to go with their films."

Watch The extraordinary moment a snake eats its OWN TAIL after mistaking it for a rival predator

Abortions outnumber live births among NYC's black community

Second man jailed for underage sex with drunk girl at *Scape skate park - "

This Is How Much It Costs to Own a Vagina: An Itemized List - "Were you aware of the fact that in your 20s alone, you will spend over $26,000 on vaginal maintenance? Herewith, we do the math on just how much that cooter is costing you. "
Comment on Jezebel's questionable assumptions: "My vagina is overly cheap compared to the American ones who seem to swim in luxury:
No pill.
One pack of pads a month (2.50 euros)
Free testing.
Free medicine.
No abortion so far.
No hair removal.
1/2 a toilet paper roll a week (2?? Are you serious? What kind of vagina do you guys have? The Mariana Trench?)
Condoms (5 euros for a box of 12, shared with sexual partner)
No antibiotics.
No pain killers (tweeking with my diet to avoid cramps instead. Veggies work wonders)
If I do get pain, the painkillers I use are free.
Just sayin'."

One of the most powerful women in the world won’t speak at Smith College after protests - "The commencement speaker purity bug has hit Smith College. The Northampton, Mass., women’s college announced Monday that International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde has withdrawn as the school’s 2014 commencement speaker due to faculty and student protests over the IMF’s policies... Lagarde is one of the most accomplished and powerful women in the world. She has made history several times — as the first female head of the IMF, the first female finance minister of a G8 nation and the first female chairman of international law firm Baker & McKenzie. Critics of the IMF argue the organization has had a damaging influence on the economies of developing nations... At colleges and universities, particularly liberal arts institutions like Smith, these moments often raise uncomfortable questions about what, if any, responsibility they have to protect or foster dissident viewpoints. In her statement announcing Lagarde’s decision with “regret,” McCartney, the Smith president, was deliberate in including a fair amount of chastisement:
I want to underscore this fact: An invitation to speak at a commencement is not an endorsement of all views or policies of an individual or the institution she or he leads. Such a test would preclude virtually anyone in public office or position of influence. Moreover, such a test would seem anathema to our core values of free thought and diversity of opinion. I remain committed to leading a college where differing views can be heard and debated with respect... In a recent editorial, Sandra Y.L. Korn, a Harvard undergraduate student, went so far as to suggest the concept of academic freedom should give way to “justice”... Will ousting Lagarde as Smith commencement speaker undo the perceived ills of the IMF? Probably not. But it all but ensures that Lagarde’s perspective won’t be represented at Smith on Sunday."

A Woman’s Sexual Experience Means Nothing - "Men should be less concerned with finding a chaste wife than finding a loyal one. Consider the following about virgins: Either she is a virgin because she is young, or she is a old prude who wants to use men with her sexuality. In the former case, she is but a young girl with plenty of time for her to turn into a slut, since all sluts are born virgins, or in the latter case, she is the worst type of relationship material possible as she is unable to open up to a man’s love, only using her sexuality as a means to some end, always placing her interests above any man’s."

Nadya Hutagalung admits she left Singapore so her kids 'could be kids' - "This is why we left Singapore. Kids need to be kids. The youth suicide rates are high & unreported."

Angkot Gets the Hollywood Treatment in New Video Game - "The angkot is one of the country’s most notorious forms of public transportation. Loved for its price but loathed for its relentless habit of innocently stopping anywhere it pleases. The long-existing minibus is, for better or worse, an intrinsic part of Jakarta’s urban experience... Aside from that tradition of picking up, dropping off, and simply just stopping to stock up on passengers anywhere and anytime it pleases, the angkot is prone to running at its own speed — tortoise slow, thunderously fast (or at least as fast as its rusted engines allow), or an egregious mix of the two for the benefit of those riding behind. These characteristics make the angkot the perfect subject for a video game; a fact not lost on the guys behind Indonesian developers Oray Studios and Inmotion."

Survey asks Japanese women at what age they had their first kiss - " LC Love Cosmetic notes that part of the reason for these three prefectures having such young ages for women’s first kisses was that many of their kissing partners weren’t lovers but rather friends or cousins. Apparently, these women were so curious about smooching that they started experimenting with whomever was available... The national average, according to this survey at least, puts the average age for first kisses at 17.7 years old. Just in time for high school graduation. In addition to finding out about Japanese women’s early romantic adventures, LC Love Cosmetic has looked at other areas of Japan’s feminine side, including studying the country’s average bust size by prefecture. We couldn’t find any correlation between how big women’s breasts were and their ages at their first kiss, but maybe we’re not looking hard enough. And if you’re wondering why LC Love Cosmetic is so interested in Japanese women’s kissing habits, we can only guess that it has something to do with market research for their “kiss beautifying liquid.”"