I’m really happy when a plan comes together, which means when my general plan of “talk about science journalism and cut through some of the hype” converged with a new year’s resolution plan of “summarize papers regularly on MAL”, I was thrilled. There’s an article recently published in Cell that’s actually quite cool, and it’s being picked up i... »
A recent study published in PNAS has been floating on my radar for a while — this one, proclaiming a physical reaction to emotional content that is universal across cultures and languages. There’s some interesting data here, and a couple issues I have about how they represented their data, and how it’s been picked up by the public as far as I have seen. The Good: More Evidence th... »
This was a very clever study and a very cute result. In short: in order to test whether the increased attentiveness and distraction associated with phobias was related to an evolutionary advantage of quickly sensing threats, or if it was due to the increased emotional significance of, say, spiders to arachnophobes. If increased attentiveness was a result of a need to detect threats, then arachnoph... »
Proud to honor Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield with his very own paper doll. »
An Op-Ed by Maureen Dowd trying to explain conflicting predictions about the fate of the Y chromosome sent me on an eye-rolling spree. It fits the cultural zeitgeist, I suppose; the image of a war between the genders. Something about women coldly calculating that men are an evolutionary waste of space (due to their inability to bear children) and doing away with the gender. This fact, coupled with... »
For those of you who perhaps live under a rock, you might not have noticed that last night twitter changed their block function. The new version, rather than preventing blocked users from following or mentioning blocking users in their tweets, simply prevented blocking users from being alerted to those tweets. This was, needless to say, an unpopular move and, amid a rising current of angry users, ... »
Last week I talked about my experiences going to conventions in less than conventional dress, but I left the account of my being fondled brief as I thought it deserved its own discussion. This is that discussion, and it comes with what is becomming a distressingly boilerplate trigger warning. One of the big questions I had when I started wearing my Slave Leo costume was whether I would have the so... »
Almost a year ago, I put up a post about my genderbent Slave Leia costume. I talked a lot about why I decided to create it and my insecurities around exposing myself on the internet. It got a little more attention than I expected, and when I was finished hiding under my bed, I started wearing the costume to cons and costume parties. I thought I’d share some of my frightening and enlightening... »
Ah ha! That's the one. I couldn't remember where I originally heard the story. Everyone should listen to that episode! – Mar 07, 12:37 PM
These portraits are great! BTW, the prologue of this This American Life episode tells the Van Halen story and features TMBG talking about their own... – Mar 06, 6:47 PM
Just found this thanks to Caitlin over at Fit and Feminist so only read the recap but I just wanted to say I think this... – Mar 06, 2:41 AM
All of these selfies took courage to post, and I'm grateful that you started this project and put yourself out there. So many people would... – Mar 06, 2:34 AM
I was unaware of this project til now, but I am so impressed and proud of you. I'm a 41 year old woman who does... – Mar 05, 6:00 PM
I said this on twitter but I will say it here. #OperationFlawless gave me strength and a newfound understanding of what beauty is and what... – Mar 05, 3:44 PM