Monday, December 21, 2009

goodnight, keith moon.

Goodnight, Keith Moon.

algae + sewage = fuel!


NASA is doing something really cool; besides the whole space exploration thing, in light of the rising cost of energy, depleting resources, and climate change, they have been experimenting with alternate sources of energy and have been devising a method of growing algae in waste water for the purpose of making biofuel.

Read the full article here on SPACE.COM.

nowhere to hide



Only 10% of the world's surface remains remote; that is, within 48 hours of a major city. More than half of the world's population lives within a day of a major city, so one can see the connections between interdependence and sustainability reflected in these figures.

Read the full article here on Discover magazine.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

heavage? um, no.



ok, so this man fashion trend is just not going to happen. men + cleavage = heavage.

just no.

do people seriously think this is hott?

read the full article here on gawker.

more on heavage here as well.

you can now make outlawed sparks at home!



it doesn't surprise me that after sparks was outlawed in december of 2008 that some dude here in SF reverse-engineered a recipe from a saved can of old sparks.

the results? you can't even tell the difference!

read the full article here on SF Weekly

Monday, November 23, 2009

+1 for obama: science education


though i'm not completely happy with what obama has been doing since starting his term, there is definitely progress being made, from implementing a national ocean policy (finally!) and now pledging more support for science education. yeah, obama!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

dead whale found washed up on norcal beach



a female blue whale washed ashore near ft. bragg, california on october 20, 2009. it always saddens me to see things like this happen.

read the full story on sfist

transgender homecoming queen!

this is pretty cool. the college of william and mary has crowned their first transgender homecoming queen. not only that, ze identifies as genderqueer.

how cool is that?

read the full story here on flat news

10 films you didn't know were directed by women


i have to admit, i was surprised by most, if not all of these films that had been directed by women. i would have never pinned american psycho, pet sematary, or billy madison to have been directed by a woman. especially billy madison.

read the full article here on film school rejects

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Monday, October 19, 2009

obama's new pro-pot policy

obama is telling the feds to lay off of medical marijuana users and dispensaries. thanks, obama!



read about obama's new pot-friendly policy on gawker

female force comics

here is a series of comics featuring powerful female political figures. it's about time! women are rarely seen in comics as "superheroes," (there are a few exceptions- wonderwoman and supergirl come to mind) and i think this is a great thing for young women to have. it's important for women and girls to be able to identify with women who are powerful for something other than being sexually attractive.



also featured are michelle obama, condoleeza rice, and caroline kennedy.

you can see them here at blue water productions

national ocean policy

it's about time for a national ocean policy. thanks, obama.



read the full article on discover magazine

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

miraculous medical moment

gordon moore required the implementation of a metal plate into his head because he lost part of his skull in an automobile accident. fifty years later, he no longer needs the metal plate- because his skull has grown back.

read the full article at discover magazine here

the 7 p's of men's violence

from xyonline:

for a moment my eyes turned away from the workshop participants and out through the
windows of the small conference room and towards the Himalayas, north of Kathmandu. I
was there, leading a workshop, largely the outgrowth of remarkable work of UNICEF and
UNIFEM which, a year earlier, had brought together women and men from throughout South
Asia to discuss the problem of violence against women and girls and, most importantly, to work together to find solutions.

As I turned back to the women and men in the group, it felt more familiar than different: women taking enormous chances – in some cases risking their lives – to fight the tide of violence against women and girls. Men who were just beginning to find their anti-patriarchal voices and to discover ways to work alongside women. And what pleasantly surprised me was the positive response to a series of ideas I presented about men’s violence: until then, I wasn’t entirely sure if they were mainly about the realities in North and South America and Europe – that is largely-Europeanized cultures – or whether they had a larger resonance.

read the full article here on xyonline

role of men and boys in the lives of children

from xyonline:

Indeed, the rights and well-being of the child are best served when relations between men and women in the household are based on mutual respect, equal rights and shared responsibilities. In line with this reflection and taking into account its past experience, UNICEF must broaden its research and programme focus to include men and boys as important actors in programmes of cooperation.

This background paper is part of an ongoing effort to better understand the role that men can play in the lives of children and women. Arguments for UNICEF’s support to activities focused on men and boys are discussed. This is supported by UNICEF’s previous and ongoing initiatives to involve men in development programmes for children and women as well as a general review of current literature.

read the full article on xyonline here

working together to end abuse

from xyonline:

In recent years most of the children'’s and women’'s wellbeing and gender equality programmes have largely focused on women and girls as beneficiaries and agents of change. However, the conceptual shift from Women in Development (WID) to Gender and Development (GAD), which has been taking place since the 1980s, was partly borne out of recognition of the inadequacies of focusing on women and girls in isolation. GAD approaches necessitate a focus on men/boys as well as women/girls. Since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, international programmes have had a broad mandate to serve the needs of women and men of all ages and to address gender inequities. The belief that it is desirable to involve boys and men in efforts towards gender equality is now becoming institutionalised in the philosophies and programmes of the UN and other international and national organisations.

read the full article on xyonline

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

dual screen laptops are in the works!



isn't that a gorgeous machine?

here's proof from mashable that dual screen laptops are in the works.

scientist learn from robots and schools of fish how to prevent traffic jams



this is pretty cool. scientists at nissan are looking at schools of fish to learn how to reduce traffic jams and accidents. this is the second time nissan has attempted to study animal behavior and how it can be implemented in a crash avoidance system.

read the full article at discover magazine

coke vaccine?



researchers have found a vaccination for cocaine users to be effective in 40% of those treated.

read the full article here on abc health

jonestown massacre photos



i just finished reading "seductive poison," a survior's account of the jonestown massacre. i had known about the tragedy, but this book revealed details so horrid that i often thought i was reading a work of fiction.

you can see photos of the horrible tragedy here

mr. magic dies



the man that brought hip hop to the mainstream (as in he had the first hip hop radio show anywhere, ever) has died.

read the full story on gawker

Monday, October 5, 2009

gender equitable education in preventing HIV/STI risk

from the xyonline website:

there is growing evidence that HIV/STI and violence risk for both young men and young women is linked to early socialization that promotes certain gender roles. the horizons program and instituto promundo examined the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve young men's attitudes toward gender norms and to reduce HIV/STI risk.

read the full article here on xyonline

involving adolescent boys in reproductive health

from the website xyonline:

a short slideshow discussing the benefits of working on gender equitability earlier in a boy's life, before becoming a man.


read the full article here on xyonline

Sunday, October 4, 2009

essentialism as exhibited in bathroom signs



check out this amazing post on feministing about what signs we use to designate single-gendered bathrooms. it's pretty disgusting. it's cissexist, heterosexist, and clearly leaves trans people in a gray space.

the hpv vaccine for men

i have always heard of women getting the hpv vaccine, in fact i have accompanied a girlfriend or two to get her shot. i wondered at the time why guys weren't vaccinated as well, since men can carry the hpv viruses on our penises, and also hpv can cause penile cancer.

anyways, last month an fda panel recommended males age 9-26 get vaccinated for hpv. personally, i am all for this and will look into getting vaccinated myself.

read the article on feministing

Friday, October 2, 2009

coke is deadlier than ever!


beware fans of the white lady, she's deadlier than ever.

read the full article here on gawker

the impact of your cheeseburger

i found this really interesting blog post at green living tips that breaks down the CO2 emissions of food and their impact on the environment. i was always curious about this information and am glad green living tips made a post about it.

read the original post here at green living tips

Thursday, October 1, 2009

the recession makes the heart grow fonder

to paraphrase a famous quote, "distance makes the heart grow fonder." many couples are finding themselves in long term relationships due to the recession. the good news? they say that techonology "makes it easier to be apart." oh, skype. what would we do without you?

read the full article at the wall street journal

celebrities and self injury



i recently read an article about celebrities cutting themselves. while self injury is a social problem that definitely needs to be addressed, i do not like the way megan fox so lightly described all teenage girls as "dabbling" in cutting, as if this was a healthy, normal thing that all teen girls go through. i wish she didn't have such a casual attitude about it.

check out the original article here on thefrisky.com

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

no impact project

has anyone heard of the no impact project and the no impact man? this awesome dude and his family made no impact on the earth for one year. that's right no trash, no useless energy consumption, zip.



check out the video. i'm thinking about registering and participating. even if you don't participate, the ideas offered are worth considering. taking small steps is better than taking none at all.

read about the experiment in more detail here

great new read



i can't wait to buy this book. two years ago, the authors of this book set out on a cross-country road trip in which they talk to young women about feminism. they talk to many well-known feminists, but also to young women who are not close to feminism at all.

i think this is a great thing because it saddens me how many young women don't identify as feminists. as a young man, in college classes, when asked by the professor who considers themselves a feminist, i often found my hand to be the only one raised, in a class full of young women. i think this book will make feminism accessible to a generation who might be somewhat feminist-phobic.

read the original post at feministing

34 dead after earthquake-induced tsunami hits american somoa



this is really tragic. an 8.0 earthquake in the ocean triggered a tsunami that killed 34 people in american samoa.

read the full post on gawker

jon, kate, plus race



i've personally never watched the show (nor followed the drama of jon's fun times with the ladies), but this is an especially good race analysis of the episode in which jon, who is half korean, tries to teach the children about his asian heritage. kate fumbles. a lot.

read the full article on sociological images

military spends millions on puke-gun, two guys do it in the cheap



apparently the military has spent millions researching and developing a puke-gun- that is a gun, when pointed at the enemy, will dizzy them and make them puke, rendering them unable to fight. well, two guys did it themselves. much cheaper.


read the original article at discover blog

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

mcdonald's is probably near you, especially if you live in the right half of the US



this fantastic image from the sociological images blog denotes the locations of all mcdonald's "restaurants" in the united states.

read the original post at the sociological images blog here

crazy conservatives


that's right folks, your eyes didn't deceive you- 42% of republicans think our president was born OUTSIDE of the US.

really?

read the original article on gawker

MIT students do it on the cheap


in the true DIY nerd spirit, two MIT students launched a camera built out of a cellphone attached to a helium balloon into the stratosphere and took some pretty amazing photographs. it's amazing what creative minds and $150 can do.

read the original article at space.com

photo of the day



the formosa boulevard mass rapid transit station in taiwan. quite breathtaking.

view the original post at gawker

chicago gay bar insists patron match gender on ID


a gay bar in chicago is insisting its patrons' gender presentation match their ID. having an ID that matches one's gender identity a problem for many transgender people that cannot afford a legal name change, much less the surgeries required to obtain a legal gender change as well. this is not just an issue of transphobia, but classist as well.

read the full story here on pink news