Culture

Scientific Blogging's University Writing Competition kicks off next Tuesday, September 1st.  There's been a lot of buzz and excitement about our first-ever writing competition that will give one lucky grad student a $2,500 cash prize, and a paid 3-month writing internship at Scientific Blogging.

Last week we revealed the Top 10 Schools for Science based on the results of a 3-year study performed by US News&World Report. The study ranked the nation’s best science graduate programs, based upon the results of surveys sent to academics in Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Science, Mathematics, and Physics.

So who came out on top? Several universities had a strong showing in one particular science specialty, but the top schools demonstrated high performance in multiple disciplines. Which schools scored the highest across all specialties? Here are the Top 10:

1.    Stanford University

While your co-geeks may out this as a simple math trick, most people unable to recite pi past the decimal point will be amazed. It also has the advantage of requiring almost no physical, sleight-of-hand expertise.

1. Set the deck—from the top down, it should read 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, A, A, A (the numbers in any suit and all four aces).

2. Shuffle, being sure not to affect the top 12 cards (yes, this is a cheap trick).

3. Ask an audience member to pick and state a number between 10 and 20 (not 20!).

4. Taking one at a time from the top of the deck, count that many cards into a face-down pile on the table.

5. Ask your dupe to add the two digits of his/her number and state the sum.

In today's political hotbed of ideological divisions there seems to be no end to the catch phrases that are used to convey some sentiment regarding the evils of government.  A popular bumper-sticker notes "I love my country, but I fear my government".

What does that even mean?  What is a country without a government?  It certainly can't be so trivial as to pronounce a love for the square of dirt someone is standing on, so what is this statement supposed to represent?  

FOXP2 is known as “the language gene.” When it goes wrong, as it famously did for a family in England, it can cause severe deficits in language ability.

Pinker goes after Gladwell, for doing a sloppy job on picking and analyzing the research he uses, and then does it himself in his critique of Gladwell. Ooops!

By now many of you may have read Steven Pinker’s review of Gladwell’s latest book, What the Dog Saw in the New York Times over the weekend.

What do rock climbing, book clubs, and sci fi have in common? The answer is they all help an astrophysicist with job hunting. Read on for why and how!

Back on May 1st, 6 months ago, I decided to transition to a pure freelancer lifestyle. At the time, Stephanie P. asked "How do you transition from research to writing within NASA?" My answer was "I think I need to see what luck I get hunting, before I can speak with any credence on 'how to transition'!?!". And indeed, freelancing @NASA is still a nut to crack. Their culture doesn't encourage outside contribution as much as I think it needs to.