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The straight male mind

images-1A study published this week uncovered that heterosexual men had higher levels of depression than gay and bisexual men.

The authors gave several hypotheses to explain the finding that straight men have higher stress than out gay men, reports today’s Slate Magazine. “Some were limitations to the study. The sample size of 87 was relatively small, and the respondents were drawn via online ads and word of mouth, likely producing a selection bias—gay folks who are most at peace with their sexuality might be more willing to participate than those still struggling. Other hypotheses related to the character-building component of surviving and rejecting years of shame and stigma. Perhaps this struggle produces coping skills that straight men never need to learn. Continue reading “The straight male mind”

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The mind of the player

It’s no secret these days that professional football players are reporting injuries and chronic health problems as never before, after decades of denial by sports officials of the dangers of the game.

While attention increasingly focuses on such things a brain injuries that occur during players careers, sports psychologists now also are looking at players minds in their assessment of entry skills, as reported in today’s New York Times.images

“For decades, hundreds of college players have gathered each year at the N.F.L.’s scouting combine, where their strength is tested, their speed is timed and, in a test to measure their intelligence, they are asked questions like ‘When a rope is selling 20 cents per 2 feet, how many feet can you buy for 30 dollars?’ Continue reading “The mind of the player”

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Puerto Rico says no on adoption

Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court narrowly voted Wednesday to uphold a law banning gay couples from adopting children.Unknown

The 5-4 vote came in the case of an unidentified woman who has sought for the last eight years to adopt a 12-year-old girl who her partner of more than 20 years had through in vitro fertilization, reports Huffington Post.  “It was the first time that the court heard a case on same-sex adoptions.

“A majority of judges upheld the constitutionality of a law that states a person cannot adopt a single-parent child if the would-be adopter is of the same sex as the child’s mother or father without that parent losing their legal rights. Continue reading “Puerto Rico says no on adoption”

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More on Hillary and the panda

The story revealing that FreedomWorks produced a video with an obscene scene featuring a giant panda, Hillary Clinton, and oral sex created quite a stir and, according to former officials of the influential tea party group, had staffers at the conservative advocacy group and super-PAC “freaking out,” as one put it, reports Mother Jones.images-1

“That was to be expected, especially since FreedomWorks is the target of an internal investigation mounted by its board of trustees after board members received “allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees,” according to a letter the board sent in December to Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks. Continue reading “More on Hillary and the panda”

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The drumbeat of cyberwar

imagesThe White House has said it will step up diplomatic pressure overcybercrime and intellectual property theft from US businesses and security interests, in an announcement that indirectly cast China as one of the biggest perpetrators, reports today’s edition of The Guardian.

“The US attorney general, Eric Holder, said the plan included working with like-minded governments to tackle offenders using trade restrictions and criminal prosecutions. There would be a 120-day review to see whether new US legislation is needed.

“A hacker in China can acquire source code from a software company in Virginia without leaving his or her desk,” Holder said. Continue reading “The drumbeat of cyberwar”

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College degree as minimum job requirement

The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma, albeit an expensive one, and increasingly a requirement for getting even the lowest-level job.

Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college

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-educated population, reports today’s New York

Times.  “Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills. Continue reading “College degree as minimum job requirement”

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The other sin of the American South

imgres-2Contemporary American politics cannot be understood apart from the North-South divide in the U.S., as I and others have argued, writes Michael Lind in today’s Salon Magazine.   “Neither can contemporary American economic debates.  The real choice facing America in the 21st century is the same one that faced it in the 19th and 20th centuries — Northernomics or Southernomics?

“Northernomics is the high-road strategy of building a flourishing national economy by means of government-business cooperation and government investment in R&D, infrastructure and education.  Continue reading “The other sin of the American South”

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Art and the economy explained

Experts agree that arts and culture are an important part of the economy – but the precise relationship is complicated.

As governments and organizations increasingly have to justify spending, the big question remains: does investment in the arts stimulate growth, or are the arts the product of economic development? These questions were posed in today’s edition of The Guardian in a story that continues below:imgres-1

“Few people think of the economic impact of visiting a gallery or buying a ticket to the theatre. But arts and culture in the US generated $135.2 billion (£87 billion) and supported 4.1 million jobs in 2010, according to the latest economic snapshot from the non-profit advocacy group, Americans for the Arts. It would seem that the case for continued arts funding is clear cut – enjoying the arts boosts the economy. But experts say the link between arts investment and economic output is tenuous. Continue reading “Art and the economy explained”

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Media non-violence trumps violence

Young children who are encouraged to watch TV programs that depict kindness, respect, and cooperation are more likely to express those traits than kids who watch everyday TV fare that includes fictional violence.

Setting the media violence debate upside  down, researchers have found that low-income boys, who tend to watch the most television, benefited the most in displaying empathy after watching nonviolent shows, reports the Christian Science Monitor.imgres-2

“And many of the parents who were guided on what kind of pro-social content to watch and how to avoid violent shows asked that such advice continue even after the study. Continue reading “Media non-violence trumps violence”

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Introducing the “People’s Satellite”

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In the unlikely surroundings of a windowless basement laboratory at Nasa Ames in California, a revolutionary spacecraft is taking shape.

Through a crowded-funded project, a mini-satellite is being prepared for launch that will, in turn, contain even more tiny satellites representing the donors, as the BBC reports: “Cornell University graduate student Zac Manchester has been lent this lab to develop KickSat. This 30cm- (12in-)  long satellite will contain 200 even smaller satellites, he’s called sprites. Around the size of a couple of postage stamps, these are probably the smallest spacecraft ever developed. Continue reading “Introducing the “People’s Satellite””

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eHarmony blues

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The Christian co-founder of the popular dating site eHarmony is no stranger to sparking controversy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.Now, however, Neil Clark Warren has gone even further, saying he’s “tired” of the same-sex marriage debate and what he perceives as its negative impact on eHarmony, reports Huffington Post.

“’I think this issue of same-sex marriage within the next five to 15 years will be no issue anymore, Warren told Yahoo! Finance. We’ve made too much of it. I’m tired of it. It has really damaged our company.’ Continue reading “eHarmony blues”

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The end of blimps

And so ends the U.S. military’s dream of mega-blimps strapped with powerful surveillance gear. The Army confirms to Danger Room that it’s killed the last of those lighter-than-air ships, so says DangerRoom

“Say goodbye to the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. Built by Northrop Grumman, it’s a

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dimpled blimp as long as a football field; seven stories high; and carries a price tag of over half a billion dollars. The plan was to use the blimp over Afghanistan, where its gondola could haul seventons of cargo — including advanced camera gear able to see dozens of square miles of terrain with crystal-clear resolution at a single blink. It would stay 20,000 feet above the warzone for weeks at a time, something beyond the capabilities of any spy plane, manned or piloted. Trials over Afghanistan were slated for early this year. Continue reading “The end of blimps”

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Eat less meat, the scientists now say

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People in the richworld should become “demitarians” – eating half as much meat as usual, while stopping short of giving it up – in order to avoid severe environmental damage, scientists have urged, in the clearest picture yet of how farming practices are destroying the natural world, say today’s The Guardian

“They said the horsemeat scandal had uncovered the dark side of our lust for meat, which has fuelled a trade in undocumented livestock and mislabelled cheap ready meals. ‘There is a food chain risk,’ said Professor Mark Sutton, who coined the term demitarian and is lead author of a UN Environment Programme study published on Monday . ‘Now is a good time to talk to people about this.’

“The quest for ever cheaper meat in the past few decades – most people even in rich countries ate significantly less meat one and two generations ago – has resulted in a massive expansion of intensively farmed livestock. Continue reading “Eat less meat, the scientists now say”

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Grunge and androgyny in make-up

Several strong themes seem to have emerged from the New York fall 2013 fashion collections, including a strong trend for grunge and androgynous make up, reports the New York Times fashion page today:

Grunge: “With its basic theme of anti-glamour, the grunge revival that has lasted several seasons now has been tricky for beauty. ‘There is this thought to try and give grunge more polish, maybe for a more

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considered woman,’ said James Kaliardos, a makeup artist who works with brands like Maybelline, M.A.C. and NARS. “Last season, a lot of brands paid me a lot of money just to put moisturizer on the cheeks,” he said with a wry chuckle. Continue reading “Grunge and androgyny in make-up”

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The Magdalene laundry slave women

imgresAs if the Catholic Church doesn’t have enough problems.

As many as 15,000 Irish women and girls were reportedly held in slave-like conditions in nunneries, where they were held against their will and forced to work in laundries without pay under harsh conditions through the late 1990s.

Originally established to incarcerate Protestant women and girls, the laundries became prisons run by Catholic nuns to house “fallen” women or those “troubled” with problems like learning disabilities. It seems God works in mysterious ways. Continue reading “The Magdalene laundry slave women”

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Gallup’s latest LGBT poll

According to Gallup’s most recent poll of self-identifying LGBT people, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ranges from 1.7% in North Dakota to 5.1% in Hawaii and 10% in the District of Columbia, according to surveys conducted from June-December 2012.imgres-2

No qualification was given as to the validity of the survey methodology. Statistically quantifying the LGBT population is subjective. And since the days of Kinsey homosexuality and heterosexuality have been viewed on a continuum rather than a binary scale. Studies like the recent Gallup poll pointing to the statistics are estimates at best. That said, the most widely accepted statistic is that one in every ten individuals is LGBT, with gender identification located on a separate spectrum.   Continue reading “Gallup’s latest LGBT poll”

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Death by asteroid

imgres-1Most people in the U.S. woke up to a spectacular sight this morning: videos from Russian dashboard cameras showing a fireball in the sky crashing down to the Earth, reports Wired Science.  “The 15-meter meteorite impacted the atmosphere and exploded above the Chelyabinsk region of central Russia, injuring an estimated 1,200 people and causing roughly 1 billion rubles ($33 million U.S.) in damage. It was the largest meteorite to hit the country in more than a century.

“It’s hard to know what’s stranger about the event. That a substantial meteorite hit the Earth on the same day as a 50-meter asteroid is making a record-breaking (and completely safe) close pass, that people have been thinking more and more about how to deflect potentially killer space rocks, or that we live in a day and age when dozens of videos of a fairly rare event can be uploaded to the internet and instantly seen worldwide. Continue reading “Death by asteroid”

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Facebook hacked again

Facebook Inc has said that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised, reports today’s Al Jazeera.

“’Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack,’ the company said in a blog post posted on Friday afternoon, just before the three-day Presidents Day weekend. ‘The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.’imgres

“The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, also said: ‘Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well.’ Continue reading “Facebook hacked again”

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A valentine from the cat

For most of the 20th century, animals weren’t allowed to have emotions.imgres-4 Your dog didn’t actually love you—it (and it was an “it” back then) was just a stimulus–response machine conditioned to act a specific way in a specific situation, says today’s Valentine edition of Wired Science.  “Scientists who said otherwise—that animals actually had minds capable of thoughts and emotions—were accused of ‘anthropomorphizing’ and ridiculed by their peers. Even researchers as famous as chimp specialist Jane Goodall spent years sitting on evidence that animals could do more than just salivate at the sound of a bell.

‘But over time, that bias waned. Just consider the first sentence (and the title) of Virginia Morell’s new book, Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures: ‘Animals have minds.’ Continue reading “A valentine from the cat”

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Who cares about Saturday mail delivery?

Blame it on  Amazon.com.

In an age when hard-copy mail seems out of date, people under 30 are the biggest protesters to canceling Saturday mail deliveries in the U.S.  It seems getting those one-day package deliveries must be habit-forming. African-Americans of all ages don’t like the idea either. But it seems older white people just don’t care much either way, as Pew reports from its most recent survey:

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“A majority of Americans (54%) approve of the U.S. Postal Service’s recent decision to halt Saturday delivery of letters, while 32% disapprove of the decision. The planned end of Saturday mail delivery is a rare government decision that garners bipartisan support – 58% of independents approve of the action, as do 57% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats. Continue reading “Who cares about Saturday mail delivery?”