I opened my local newspaper this morning to find faculty opining that any cuts to their salaries should be reflected as reduced time spent in the classroom. For example, the article quotes Professor Keith Watenpaugh of the University of California, Davis religious studies department:

Any job can be complicated by pregnancy or motherhood, but scientific careers may be in their own special category. Depending on the field, you've got exposure to toxic chemicals, radiation, or all manner of microorganisms in the lab; the multitudinous dangers of field work; and the odd and sometimes exceptionally hours required of some experiments or observations in the lab and field.

Today, I want to toot the horn for science communicators, science writers and bloggers who are taking up the slack. Most people, including some women, have no interest in science. I know because if I compare the stats between my writing about science with my writing about sex, well, let’s be real. I know where folks interest are centered. So why waste my time? Here is why. You got your pseudo science, your misinterpreted science and journalists who don’t know science but scare the bejeebers out of you for ratings science.

Members of the University of California, Davis Academic Senate (mostly tenured and tenure-track faculty) recently received an e-mail that contained this warning:

Imagine yourself 144 years ago on June 19, 1865. It is has been two and a half years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.  The place, Galveston, Texas. You might see federal troops coming into town or you might be one of the first to hear Gen. Gordon Granger make the announcement to enslaved citizens that they were free. 

My initial answer is usually “No.” In my head a so-called “chick flick” is fluffy, superficial and it reeks of girly-girl craziness in pursuit of beefcake. Or so I have been told. If I dig a little deeper inside of myself I think “How do I know this?” Well, movie reviewers and critics, mostly male but some female critics have passively taught me the negative confines of a chick flick. So I wonder, do women see movies differently than men?

College students tired of the low-level, short-term retail or temporary office jobs they frequently hold during the summer are increasingly looking abroad for opportunities to serve. Today I want to introduce you to the blogs of a few young women who are working and studying abroad this summer, as their blogs are already quite engaging.

Think back to a time when you took a risk that succeeded. Now reflect on a time when you tried something and it bombed. What did you or others do differently in the first instance and the second? How did you recover from your failure in the second instance, and what would you do differently if you had another chance?

There is cursing. There is cussing. For the purpose of this post it is important for you to know the difference. Now first let's remove the religious definition of cursing. I'm talking generic U.S. English so called "bad words" we aspire not to say in public but they have been seeping out. Yes, all seven of them.  I’m not talking about cursing, this is the superlative form, cussing.

Recently I was at a board meeting for a local women's business organization and one of the members who is also a Mom shared something that took me by surprise. She had been at a college graduation where the graduation speaker literally spoke a message of doom and gloom for 2009 graduates. As she put it, "the speaker basically told these young adults that while they succeeded in getting their diploma there are no jobs to be found so be ready for disappointment and dependence on your parents".

It is the last week of National Masturbation Month.  I remember when Masturbation for Peace first came to my attention.  Ah, good times for a good cause. Anyway, I have been thinking about sex and sexuality. Particularly this day in California with a ruling on Proposition 8. My fear is that our collective ignorance and intolerance about sexuality is literally killing our children and will continue to do so. It is not doing the grown folks much good either.

When so many Americans are semiliterate at best when it comes to science, it's all too easy for erroneous or biased information to spread throughout the mainstream media and the blogosphere. Fortunately, women science bloggers are on the pseudoscience beat, aiming to correct misconceptions. This post provides a sampling of women bloggers' work in improving scientific literacy.