Random links
- Unexpected sex differences in brain development
- "A team of researchers from the NIH recently released some of the most comprehensive research yet on sex differences in brain development, as measured by high-resolution MRI scans. ... What's particularly interesting about this new report is that the NIH group found that sex differences diminish as a function of age, from age 9 through age 22." Perhaps the differences between men and women aren't entirely a matter of socialization...
- Wind farm scrapped over fears for birds
- "Docking Shoal scheme shelved and £10m wasted on the £1.5bn wind power project that could have powered 400,000 homes" - I've mentioned before that wind turbines kill birds and that wind projects are often treated different - but in this case it's a $2.4 billion wind farm getting scrapped over an estimate of 94 bird deaths per year. (That's about $25 million per estimated bird death per year). The Telegraph reports slightly lower bird death estimates - with that study reporting an estimate of about 71 with the 94 killed by the sum of the other approved projects.
- Quebec forum seeks French word for 'hashtag'
- "English words like "email" and "networking" pepper digital and economic parlance in the French-speaking world, to the chagrin of the attendees at the first French Language World Forum, who are struggling to find French alternatives." - wonder if they'll send the language police after people who fail to replace the words they're currently used with the new ones brought up by this forum. Also gets into the difficulties in new works migrating between Quebec, European, and African French.
- Briton jailed for four years in Dubai after customs find cannabis weighing less than a grain of sugar under his shoe
- The problem of zero-tolerance policies: "A search by customs officials uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes." Found in another article looking at new scanning technologies that might soon invade an airport near you.
- White House expands Title IX support to science, tech
- Will quotas restricting the number of male scientists be imposed in the US? Somehow I'm guessing that these rules will likely ignore the female-majority fields - e.g. biology. Interestingly in the US post-title-IX implementation there's actually a greater gender disparity in the number of degrees issued (previously 17% fewer degrees to women, now 25% fewer degrees to men).