thusspakezuska | March 20, 2009NSF ADVANCE Workshop For Women Transitioning to Academic Careers
The University of Washington's ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change received an award from the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program to hold professional development workshops for Ph.D.-level women in industry, research labs, consulting, or national labs who are interested in transitioning to academic careers in STEM. The first workshop will be held October 18- 20, 2009.
This workshop will be very helpful to women interested in making the transition to academia. The workshop speakers will primarily be successful…
thusspakezuska | March 15, 2009This past Friday morning, as per my usual routine, I sat down to read the Philadelphia Inquirer with my coffee and breakfast. And I came across an article that nearly made me vomit back all that delicious Toy Cow Farms blueberry yoghurt I had just spooned down. I refer, of course, to the piece on the "quaint Victorian home" shared by Darla, Chelsea, and Coco Puff.
Their dwelling has a cedar-shake roof, vaulted ceilings, and hardwood floors, heating and air-conditioning, moldings and casement windows, drapery with valences, and fanciful wallpapers.
At Christmas, music from the RCA Victor…
thusspakezuska | March 14, 2009Pi Day has come and gone. Sciencebloggers have posted their pie recipes and pictures - including, of course, my fabulous Bird Pie - and now it is time to vote for your favorite. You may also enjoy checking out Janet's Pi Day pie roundup. That's one helluva lotta pies she baked! Though none of them were for the birds. I would beg you to vote for my Bird Pie, so that I could win the contest, but I am sure you will be blown away by the culinary accomplishments of my fellow Sciblings, so I'll just suggest that you go vote for someone. Personally, I think that violet custard pie kicks ass.…
thusspakezuska | March 12, 2009Some of us at Scienceblogs have been baking pies and posting pictures and recipes in anticipation of Pi Day (3.14) and in the hopes of winning the Pi Day contest. As I have previously mentioned, I am no pie baker. But why should that stop me from entering the contest? You're right, it shouldn't!
So I went ahead and made Bird Pie. And no, it's not made out of birds. Recipe and photos after the jump.
How To Make Bird Pie
First, get yourself one of those Gladware-type dinner-plate-sized leftover dishes. Take the bottom and either lose it or ruin it in your dishwasher or oven. Now, take…
thusspakezuska | March 11, 2009The Global Marathon For, By, and About Women in Engineering is going on right now! for the next 24 hours. It's part of the Eweek celebration, which was last month, which I totally missed because I was off in a haze not blogging at the time. As I write this, Maria Thompson of Motorola is doing a session on Increasing Your Innovation IQ.
2008 Global Marathon Sessions can be revisited here.
thusspakezuska | March 10, 2009I found Light-skinned-ed Girl via Acmegirl's blogroll. Lots of good stuff about the process of writing, quotes from writers, and the experience of being biracial. I like her idea about the Oscars for books. That is an awards ceremony I would definitely watch!
Black on Campus has a post about Lisa Jackson, chemical engineer, and head of the EPA, with links to several articles about her. Also check out the post on (Not So) Affirmative Action, wherein names are named of the selective admissions schools who admit Black students at a lower rate than other students. You don't hear the likes of…
thusspakezuska | March 10, 2009Guest post from Female Seaside Scientist, for the Diversity in Science Carnival!
Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover is a Professor of Marine Biology, Director of the Duke University Marine Lab, and Chair of the Marine Science and Conservation Division at the Nicholas School. Her research combines biogeochemistry, biodiversity, ecology of chemosynthetic deep-sea vent organisms, marine technology, and astrobiology.
Faculty page here; research page here; cv here.
More after the jump
Professor Van Dover had an early fascination with Jules Verne's Captain Nemo character from the "20,000 Leagues under…
thusspakezuska | March 10, 2009Just in time for Women's History Month and the second edition of the Diversity in Science Carnival, the Association for Computing Machinery has announced that the 2008 Turing Award goes to Barbara Liskov! Here's all the info from the press release:
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has named Barbara Liskov of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) the winner of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award. The award cites Liskov for her foundational innovations to designing and building the pervasive computer system designs that power daily life. Her achievements in programming…
thusspakezuska | March 10, 2009If you've been reading the blogs of some of my Sciblings, you know there is this Pi(e) Day contest going on, till March 14. (Get it?) You are supposed to bake a pie, then post a picture and the recipe. Janet in particular has been posting some very tasty looking pies, and her violet custard pie was just astonishing. I thought briefly about submitting an entry but (1) I am no baker, (2) even when I have attempted to bake something, it's never been a pie, and (3) having seen these other entries, I'd be ashamed to even think of submitting whatever shabby thing I could probably come up with…
thusspakezuska | March 9, 2009For the second time in a week (see here and here) I've blogged about something from the Philadelphia Inquirer. You may or may not know that the Inquirer recently went into bankruptcy proceedings. I don't know what I would do without the Inquirer to read everyday. Blogging is great but it simply cannot replace, in my opinion, regular newspaper reporting. Somewhat tangentially related to that: I recently renewed my subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education. I was given the option to receive it, for a somewhat lesser price, as only an electronic edition. It completely replicates…
thusspakezuska | March 9, 2009Ironing is women's work. And women's work, we know, has nothing to do with engineering or technology. Irons are not technology; they are domestic appliances.
Collect a bunch of them, though, and they start looking like technological art objects. Then you can write a book about them.
Which is exactly what Jay Raymond has done. For the past 25 years, he's been collecting vintage electric irons.
But not just any old electric irons. Raymond had a thing for streamlined irons, whose sleek, curvy designs make them look more like an art object than a domestic appliance.
Raymond, it turns out,…
thusspakezuska | March 7, 2009The first Diversity in Science carnival, created and hosted by DNLee of Urban Science Adventures as a Black History Month Celebration, was a great success. Thanks to everyone who contributed!
Now it's time for our second round, which will be hosted right here at Thus Spake Zuska. Naturally, since it is March, our focus this time around will be a Women's History Month Celebration! The theme is "Women Achievers in STEM - Past and Present" and we are asking you to profile a woman in some field of science - your own or maybe one you wish you'd chosen! Tell us something about her life, her…
thusspakezuska | March 5, 2009When you walk or drive by a shuttered factory or other rusting, decaying industrial hulk in your city, do you notice it? If you do, do you just think, "urban blight"? Or do you think "there goes some history in need of documenting?" If the latter, you might be an urban explorer in the making. Keep in mind your new hobby would be illegal, but that hasn't stopped a lot of intrepid souls.
Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer had an article on these determined individuals, who often risk life and limb (and ignore many a no-trespassing sign) to explore and document abandoned industrial buildings…
thusspakezuska | March 1, 2009Reader JC left a comment on a recent post about sexual harassment that led me to a Feminist Law Professor post on a sexual harassment lawsuit against Brigham & Women's Hospital. It is a post well worth reading, if you have ever wondered why more women don't sue over sexual harassment, or why women don't just speak up immediately and complain at the first sign of harassing behavior. Maybe you have been secretly suspecting that women who file sexual harassment charges or lawsuits just have some ax to grind and/or are trying to ruin some Nice Man's career because they are bitter pre-/post-…
thusspakezuska | March 1, 2009Well, February has come and gone, Black History Month is over for another year, and we've had the first round of the Diversity in Science carnival. I am sure some of you who blog may have thought about contributing to this carnival but didn't for a variety of reasons. Maybe, like me, you had family issues and/or health issues going on; I almost didn't make it to contribute to the carnival myself. Maybe your job was making you crazy. Or maybe you thought to yourself, "I am not an expert on diversity. I don't want to offend anyone. I don't really know how to go about writing on this topic…
thusspakezuska | February 28, 2009Mr. Zuska and I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show today. It's always wonderful to enter the show on a dull winter day and be struck with the glory of a giant convention center in full bloom. The show officially opens tomorrow, but today was the preview for Pennsylvania Horticultural Society members - of which there must be a zillion, because the show floor was mobbed.
One of the biggest - certainly one of the most excited - mobs was around this exhibit:
Yes: shoes! Made out of flowers 'n' stuff! Close ups after the jump.
I liked these:
These looked like they'd tickle:
Elegant,…
thusspakezuska | February 27, 2009A week or so ago I went for a walk at the Morris Arboretum on a day with lovely weather, when it had warmed up just enough to make a winter walk delightful. I came around a bend in the path and encountered a cloudy vision of yellow - a witch hazel in full bloom.
It's not the best picture, but mind you I took it with my cell phone. This closeup didn't come out too bad:
Isn't that pretty? Witch hazel blossoms are such amazing things.
And yet -why, why, why, I wondered, why is the Morris Arboretum's witch hazel in such a glory of bloom, while the best my witch hazel can do is produce a few…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2009To avoid a paper review I should be working on...
Via Sciencewoman at Sciencewomen, the BBC Book Meme. Using the second list she has posted, supposedly the actual BBC book list. The ones I've read are in bold. I didn't bother starring the ones I plan to read, since my "plan to read" bookshelf is probably several miles long. Good intentions, we all know what road they pave. List is below the fold.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2009Over at Sciencewomen, Alice has a post up on the topic of colleagiality that includes the story of a casual encounter with a very nice outcome:
...my seatmate was Jamie Comstock, provost of Butler University. She saw I was editing a student's paper, and asked "Faculty or student?" That was nice that she didn't presume I was a student. :-) She introduced herself, and then did I, and mentioned I was in my second year of tenure-track at Purdue. She went back to reading her book, and I went back to my paper; and then she said, "Can I interrupt you for a second?" She said she was very curious to…
thusspakezuska | February 26, 2009SCENE:
At the YMCA: they used to have perfectly serviceable water fountains in the room with the treadmills, elliptical trainers, and weight machines. They ripped them out and replaced them with water coolers that require the use of little conical paper cups - which, of course, must be used once and then thrown away. I and a few others left comments on their comment cards to the effect that this was a fucking stupid move, wasteful in the extreme, bad for the environment, blah blah. Response: we hear your concerns; we are so concerned about sanitation, water coolers are better for everyone,…