Weird Science

[Fool]

I can't wait for stem cell tooth paste to whiten my teeth.

[Uncle Mxy]

And now, some amusing pseudoscience...

http://www.aclu.org/womensrights/edu...s20090325.html

Under the sex-segregation program at Hankins Middle School this year, teachers had been instructed to treat boys and girls differently. At a teacher training, teachers were informed that boys should be taught about "heroic behavior" but that girls should learn "good character." Teachers were told that male hormone levels directly relate to success at "traditional male tasks" but that when stress levels rise in an adolescent girl's brain, "other things shut down." A story in the Mobile Press-Register reported that a language arts exercise for sixth grade girls involved asking the girls to use as many descriptive words as possible to describe their dream wedding cake, while the boys were asked to brainstorm action verbs used in sports.

According to Mark Jones, whose son Jacob attends Hankins Middle School, the school principal told him that the changes at Hankins were necessary because boys' and girls' brains are so different that they needed different curriculums.

[Big Swami]

I hear "anywhere else in the world" has good schools.

[Uncle Mxy]

Just add 'nano' and you can even make roadside drug testing sound cool...
Well, almost.
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23111/

[Uncle Mxy]

http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

[Glenn]

Is light gray text the future?

[Uncle Mxy]

Yes it is. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Here's a weighty matter for your consideration:
http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2009/0...cts_our_p.html

A research team found that they could alter people's judgement of importance just by getting them to answer questions using a heavier clipboard.

In a series of short elegant experiments, a research team led by psychologist Nils Jostmann found that people holding a heavy clipboard would, for example, value foreign currencies more highly than those using a lighter clipboard.

Of course, this might be because of the simple association that larger amounts of money weigh more, so they looked at whether more abstract judgements about value could be affected by weight.

Subsequent studies showed that heavier clipboards led to participants placing more importance on the university listening to student opinions, and that participants were more likely to link their opinion of whether Amsterdam was a great city to the competence of the mayor.

[UxKa]

Multitasking is bad for you now:

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/03/6417.ars

If I'm ever hunting for a job again, I'm going to go against the grain on my resume when it comes to being a great multitasker.

[Uncle Mxy]

Everything is good for you if you wait long enough for researchers to dig into it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...st-health.html

Of course, everything is bad for you too. How do you keep all this science straight? Just remember that living greatly increases your chances of dying and you'll be fine... until you die.

[Uncle Mxy]

Taking care of global warming, one supercomputer at a time...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz0PPPxmQF3

Shh... don't tell anyone about how green electric cars aren't.