Scientiae 3rd Edition – April Fool

There is no Scientae carnival. No one submitted any entries 😦 😥

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April Fool!

I almost had you for a minute.

There were lots of very interesting entries.

Tell your friends, tell your families.

Here ye! here ye! The April Fool is here to discuss and disseminate wimyn’s views on science, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The quote isn’t right? I need to do some more revision before my citizenship exam? Rats.

Science

Computational Computing Parts I, II and III from Adventures in Applied Math

Pregnancy and Listeria or poly-cystic ovary syndrome by a Natural Scientist

Energy release by Earthquakes by Green Gabbro

Enzymes, enigma and ego from Post doc ergo propter doc

Liberty [should mean that we are free from cr*p like this]

Not having a functioning TV gives a skewed, sane but skewed, view of the world. Which fortunately means I miss this:

Discovery Channel wants host for engineering show (reported also by Element List and Fairer Science). It looks like a fun job. Only the host has to be MALE. Which reminds me how annoying I found the MALE hosts of Brainiacs when I watch it in England. This issue was also discussed by elementlist

Then there are the stresses of entering the “real” world. As discussed by Science Woman job hunting can be really stressful and really annoying. She wants to know about an interview at a department that has already shown how clueless is can be.

But wait perhaps there is life outside the academic research world, but then perhaps you will be considered a leak. What is that? There was a post a few weeks ago in Naturejobs and then the blogosphere responded, with glee.

Read about life as a leak Part 1 and 2 from Thus Spake Zuska. The comments to Part 2 are particularly interesting. I had not realized that science had become such an elitist clique club. Fairer Science [these people have a lot of good things to say] has their thoughts on Zuska’s posts. The leaky pipeline issue is also discussed by ScienceWoman with some further input from FemaleCSgradstudent. Sciencegeek in response discusses her desire not to enter academia. In a post from the archives, Astrodyke posts on a NYT article and on a Physics Today letter to the editor on a similar issue. A great summary of the issue of women in academic science is at Women in Science.

Untenured prof wants to know if she has a five year itch or is the college town she living in just not right for her.

Think we have it bad, as women that is. What about racism? Tenured Radical discusses the Dr James Sherley case at MIT. TR raises an interesting point, does this sound familiar?:

But here’s where I would like (as a white, queer, feminist if you didn’t know) to muster some sympathy for Professor Sherley, whose politics in general I would probably more or less disagree with. Racism in higher education, because it does not take the form of physical violence, and mostly does not take the form of direct name-calling, is not taken seriously at virtually every institution I know.

If you replace “racism” with “sexism” it might also help. I found out about TR’s post from here.

K8grrl adds her comments about a panel discussion on women in science at MIT. Great advice being given to her when she asked about a bad departmental situation:

Both Hopkins and Barres advised me that I should have gotten out of the situation, and that I should have talked to someone about it. Are you fucking KIDDING me? I shouted over the increasing din (because I was not the only one pissed to hear this ‘advice’) that I had allies by being a union organizer for five years. Hopkins just said, “Oh, well, um yes.”

To which her solution is:

So, organize, organize, organize! Stop worrying about how your salary might go down if humanities students salaries go up (it won’t happen), stop worrying about dues (they’re 1% of salary), stop worrying the teamsters are going to end up on your committee (yes, I’ve heard that one before). If you are tired of the fact that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far as a man in this profession, you need to gather people around you. You need to lead, and you need to build leadership. It’s the only thing that’s ever worked at ending any oppression.

Also on the issue of race, Veo Claramente has an interesting post on being Indian, and being a scientist. As she puts it:

I am joyously Indian and fiercely proud to be so. I am also a scientist and proud of that. I am not necessarily an Indian scientist is all.

Dr Brazen Hussy discusses “emotional” women.

A frightening issue over cyberbulling is reported by SeeJaneCompute. Intrigued? Go and find out. Geeky Mum has more.

Happiness brings up the rear:

Men can be fairy godmothers, especially to women in STEM, but, as Fairer Science reports, they need help fitting into fairy godmotherhood.

Things can be good, and can get better; read about the Good, the bad and the ugly at twice tenured.

After a discussion with Zuska, I decided to reveal all about why I did a Ph.D. I didn’t have any long term plans of being an academic. It is still one of the best decisions that I have ever made.

Following the advice of Jenny F Scientist (at A Natural Scientist) on assertiveness training both in general and when public speaking, will make you a lot happier. Lab Lemming has some suggestions on how pregnant lab workers should be considered. You have three options.

Astodyke reports on a very impressive young scientist, the latest Intel Science Fair winner who had this project: Science Fair. Mary – you ROCK!

Logo

There were no submissions for a logo. So we still need one. Get photoshop out and see what you can come up with for the next carnival edition.

Acknowledgements

I have to thank all the wonderful bloggers. Your posts were so great that I went on and read many more. Even though it meant putting the carnival together took forever. My “Women in Science” blogroll has similarly expanded. I have learnt so much over the last few days.

Skookumchick and Sciencewoman were very helpful at finding posts to make this the great carnival it is. Thanks for your help.

Next Carnival is at See Jane Compute. Info on how to submit your post is here. Remember even if you use Technorati tags to also email a link to scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com

Finally, I hope I didn’t miss any one and I hope all the links work. If not, please email scientiaecarnival [a] gmail [dt] com and let me know!