TL;DR

Queer in STEM: A national survey of sexual diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:11:57 -0400

Queer in STEM: A national survey of sexual diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.:

In the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the social experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer (LGBTQ) professionals are often overlooked. Those of us who work in STEM research or teaching know that LGBTQ colleagues are out there, if we know where to look, but we know very little about the LGBTQ folks who work in STEM, as a group. Basic, general information regrading the following questions is hard to come by:

What do we study?
What kinds of institutions do we work at?
What kinds of communities do we live in?
What degree of acceptance and support have we found in our chosen career fields?

We’re Jeremy Yoder, a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Minnesota; and Allison Mattheis, who just accepted a faculty position in the College of Education at California State University Los Angeles. As queer academics, we’re interested in understanding and improving the climate for LGBTQ faculty, staff, and graduate students in the sciences. This led us to the idea of developing and conducting a systematic, nationwide survey of LGBTQ folks in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), asking basic questions to identify who we are, what fields we work in, how our careers compare to those of our straight peers, and how our identities interact with our chosen work.

To begin to answer those questions, we’ve initiated this online survey of LGBTQ folks working in STEM. If you’re queer, have completed at least a bachelor’s or technical degree, and are working in STEM in any capacity — grad school, the tenure track, corporate R&D, the nonprofit sector, or science communication — we want to hear from you, and we need your help to collect a comprehensive sample.

You can take the survey and learn how to help spread the word right here. Thanks in advance!

In addition to the lesbian, bisexual, gay, trans*, and queer/questioning populations, they’re looking for responses from undecided, intersex, asexual, and genderqueer people, “and more.” So it sounds like they’re trying to survey a pretty broad group. It is limited to Americans, unfortunately.

If you aren’t in their target population, please signal boost to help them reach more people!

(Found via The Asexual Agenda.)

dragoncharming: The smallrus is tiniest of the seal family,...

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:33:20 -0400

dragoncharming:

The smallrus is tiniest of the seal family, not much larger (and rather similiar in shape) to the garden slug. They prefer damp areas with large amounts of water, like well-watered gardens with fish ponds, and can often be seen sporting in puddles and bird baths, making their typical call (a sort of squeaky bellow.*) Any gardener is generally delighted to see the smallrus appear, as the occasional nibble of a leaf is more than made up for by their ability to keep down the number of mosquito larvae and other small aquatic nuisances.

This is so my ex-husband’s fault.

One day he was wandering around singing “I am the smallrus!”

“How big is a smallrus?” I asked.

“Very, very tiny.”

“Awww.”

“They’re bred as sock warmers. You can put your socks on the smallri to keep warm.”

“AWWWWW!”

“They purr.”

“AWWWWWWWWWWW!”

And just when I was thinking that I had misjudged this man for ten whole years, that he was capable of great depths of adorableness, that his capacity for cuteness was far beyond anything I’d guessed, and he’d merely been hiding it behind a facade of mild pervesion and non-sequitor—

“And they’re great with honey-mustard sauce!”

*sigh*

As my friend Kathy said, “He is capable of great flights of whimsy, you just can’t listen all the way to the end.” -Ursula Vernon

—————————-

*Inhale a good lungful of helium and yell “GRONK!” and you’ve about got it.

Become a contributor to The Asexual Agenda

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:35:26 -0400

Become a contributor to The Asexual Agenda:

It’s that time again! The Asexual Agenda is looking for new bloggers.

The Asexual Agenda is not a 101 blog, and is not a visibility effort. It is a blog written by ace-spectrum people, for ace-spectrum people, at a level that is higher than what you find in the news. We talk about experiences, identity politics, intersectionality, academic research, asexual activism, and anything else you like.

Expectations:

If you become a contributor, I expect you to correspond with us by e-mail, and I expect you to write on occasion. You decide what to write about on your own.

How to apply:

To apply, please e-mail us at asexualagenda@gmail.com by May 31st. Briefly (in ~100 words) tell us about yourself, and why you’d like to contribute. Also include a writing sample (300-1000 words), something that would be suitable to publish on The Asexual Agenda.

The application process is not meant to be difficult or intimidating. In past experience, most rejections have been because applicants did not know what the blog was about. Please look at our site to get an idea.

Guest posts:

If you can’t contribute regularly, we are always open for guest posts. Please e-mail us at asexualagenda@gmail.com.

Concept Awesome: Resources for asexual survivors of rape and sexual assault

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:49:29 -0400

Concept Awesome: Resources for asexual survivors of rape and sexual assault:

queenieofaces:

(Obvious trigger warnings apply to the whole post, although there’s no graphic discussion of anything. If you don’t want to see this on your dashboard, I will be tagging everything related to this project with ”resources for ace survivors,” so you can blacklist that. )

I’ve decided that…

This is a brilliant project and you should all go and check it out.

U.S. Lawmaker Proposes New Criteria for Choosing NSF Grants - ScienceInsider

Tue, 14 May 2013 08:42:52 -0400

U.S. Lawmaker Proposes New Criteria for Choosing NSF Grants - ScienceInsider:

greenchestnuts:

The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it would also set in motion a process to determine whether the same criteria should be adopted by every other federal science agency.

How about no.

Also, go Representative Johnson!

I cannot express how cranky I’ve been about this bill since Rep. Smith proposed it, and how ashamed I am that he apparently hails from my city.

It wouldn’t quite replace peer review, but it would certainly constrain it, and it would open NSF funding awards to politically-based challenges and introduce much more political bias into the system. Between this, the sequester, and the temporary ban on funding political science research through the NSF, it’s been a bad few months for science funding in the US.

godlessace: This was inspired by Sciatrix’s post, “It’s...

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:42:08 -0400

godlessace:

This was inspired by Sciatrix’s post, “It’s Complicated, Let Me Draw You This Graph: Asexuality and Reductionism”.

Oh my god, it’s so true.

It's Complicated, Let Me Draw You This Graph: Asexuality and Reductionism

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:20:00 -0400

It's Complicated, Let Me Draw You This Graph: Asexuality and Reductionism:

So I’ve been thinking about asexual culture and asexual perspectives lately. There were a few recent comments on an old post at Asexuality Unabashed on the topic, and then last week’s journal club got drawn out on a tangent about whether asexual people see the world differently than allosexual people, on the whole.

I often see people complaining that asexual culture boils down to cake, Sherlock and Doctor Who, and that it’s just an annoying collection of in-jokes. The thing is, I don’t actually think that’s true. I’m one of those people whose thinking about sexuality is very much a product of the time I’ve spent in ace circles, and I am always noticing that I think very differently about things than many of my peers. For that reason alone, I think there’s more to ace culture than the references that people often seem to think of.

So here’s one thing I think is central to asexual culture: a reductionist view of sexuality.

Hey, I wrote a thing for the Asexual Agenda! If you’re interested in reading more, you should check out the link.

You know what's awesome? Inside Nature's Giants. That's awesome.

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:26:03 -0400

I am curled up watching enthusiastic people dissect (ethically sourced) dead animals and explain what all the structures do and how the animal’s anatomy helps it do cool things, and how and why it evolved these structures. I’m fascinated, especially since anatomy is not my strong suit. They have kangaroos and giant squids and whales and now insects and trees (in the Jungle episode). There are all these alien ways of structuring a body and achieving some very basic goals, like locomotion and effective breathing.

It is the best program. Most of the episodes are available in full on Youtube at any given time. You should all go watch it.

almightylsama: carry-on-my-wayward-butt: improbablenormality: ...

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:18:38 -0400

almightylsama:

carry-on-my-wayward-butt:

improbablenormality:

l-s-lovegood:

Whattttt? how did I not know about this?

Source

Source

Quick note: the lines don’t have to point upwards and straight next to each other, you can point them in any direction you want.

time to learn a new language

is it weird that i want to learn how to do this? like, i don’t even watch the show, but this is really neat and pretty???

Look, Jez, I found a downloadable Gallifreyan generator! I’ve been playing with it all evening. :D

I am now procrastinating on writing about science by... writing about different science on tumblr.

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:18:51 -0400

Well done, Sci.

kingedmundsroyalmurder: [snip] I spent most of the Wilson and Holldobbler article going, “but you...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:11:02 -0400

kingedmundsroyalmurder:

[snip]

I spent most of the Wilson and Holldobbler article going, “but you haven’t proved anything. You’re just talking in circles.” And possibly that’s just because I don’t actually have a clear idea about how group selection is supposed to work, but I found it seriously unconvincing.

And yeah, I agree with you about the lifelong vs. temporary non-reproductiveness. (I’d also say there might be some importance in the choice vs. biology aspect of it. It’s one thing to choose to put off reproduction either temporarily or forever. It’s quite another to be biologically sterile forever and still expected to contribute meaningfully for the sake of the group.) I suppose in a structure where you only have a small number of breeders almost all of the individuals are related in some way, so their genes are getting passed down, but it’s definitely very different from actually having offspring of one’s own. On the other hand, given the massive success of ants and termites especially, it does seem to be a system that works really well, at least in some cases. (The evolutionary weirdness of the entire system might help explain the newer bee lineages moving away from eusociality. It could be that it’s just not beneficial enough to overcome the extreme costs.)

I still think it’s valid to look at eusociality and human society together, but more in a, “our societal structure isn’t the only way to do it and let’s look at how this other system evolved” kind of way as opposed to a, “look, that’s kind of like how we do it, maybe it’s actually the same thing!” one.

Yeeeeaaaaah, that doesn’t really surprise me—it looks like a purely verbal argument, and one that I generally find fairly dodgy. PNAS will actually publish anything submitted by a National Academy of Science member, which E. O. Wilson is, which might explain why it’s in a journal that is usually so highly regarded.

The thing is that eusociality is good in some situations and bad in others—just like everything else, behaviorally. :P I do know that in snapping shrimps and halictid bees—a lineage of bees that has evolved eusociality rather later than and independently from the allodapine bees we’re used to thinking about—eusociality has evolved and been lost multiple times, which is interesting to think about.

kingedmundsroyalmurder: writingfromfactorx: kingedmundsroyalmurder: Semi-convincing arguments for...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 20:48:00 -0400

kingedmundsroyalmurder:

writingfromfactorx:

kingedmundsroyalmurder:

Semi-convincing arguments for eusociality in humans=a suitable connection to class material.

(To clarify, the semi-convincing arguments aren’t mine, they’re just ones that I will be examining in order to justify talking about insect social structures in a class about hominin paleoecology.)

*stares* Mind sharing? Because I’ve seen people make claims that cooperative breeding == eusociality before in other social species, and I gotta say I remain seriously unconvinced—all that does is muddy the terminology for no good reason. I don’t think you can even make convincing arguments that humans are evolving towards eusociality.

Seriously, I’m highly interested to see what exactly they’re going for here. It… might not be very good for your paper—although I admit it, eusociality is awesome, I’d probably try to write about it too—but for personal curiosity, can I see?

The basic argument seems to center around menopause and how it represents a switch from a reproductive to a non-reproductive state (as opposed to naked mole rats, who start out as non-reproductive workers and then some become reproductive later in life). Since one of the characteristics of eusociality is a reproductive division of labor (i.e. some reproduce and some don’t but take care of the young*) they’re saying this counts. There’s also the overlapping of generations that goes on, and one article argues that polyphasic sleep cycles should also be counted as a criterion because they allow for 24 hour care of young.

If you’re interested the main articles I’ve found about this so far are:

Kevin R. Foster and Francis L.W. Ratnieks 2005. “A new eusocial vertebrate?” (Trends in Ecology and Evolution volume 20, issue 7)

Benjamin E. Hardisty and Deby L. Cassill 2009. “Extending eusociality to include vertebrate family units” (Biology and Philosophy volume 25, issue 3) (This one’s a letter, not an official article, but it’s written like an article.)

There are probably others, but I haven’t gone seriously looking. A quick glance through the bibliography of the Hardisty shows a paper suggesting eusociality as a model for matrilineal whales. Nothing jumps out at me in the Foster bibliography as making the deliberate link. Looks like they took a bunch of research about menopause and a bunch of research about eusociality and linked them together. Like you, I don’t find any of this all that convincing and I think it’s broadening the definitions rather farther than they should be. But it’s interesting to poke at.

*obviously the main distinction between the human model of this and the insect model is that humans *choose* to be non-reproductive and insects are biologically sterile, which they don’t really address except to point out that, yes, we realize it’s not exactly the same thing. I think that pokes major holes in their arguments but they don’t seem to think it important.

So I went off and was looking at Wilson and Holldobbler 2005 and—basically, that reads to me like the early beginnings of E.O. Wilson’s attempts to stir the pot and ~~piss off a whole lot of evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists~~ generate discussion by promoting the group selection thing, only without the mathematical theory to back it up. (That’s in Nowak et al. 2010, notable for being a paper in which well over a hundred evolutionary biologists co-authored a critical paper saying they disagreed with its conclusions and mathematical methodology. Lot of fighting. Lot of drama. Not really a good paper, but a very influential one.) Haven’t finished Wilson and Holldobbler itself, but I’m not really seeing much besides a verbal argument that I would lay high odds is mostly EO Wilson. Aaaaaanyway.

That is basically the same argument I have seen used to argue that cooperative breeding = eusociality. The thing is, I think that distinction is bullshit; for me, the cutoff between eusociality and cooperative breeding is that individuals forfeit the ability to breed for their entire lives as a condition of remaining part of the social group. It’s easy enough to explain juveniles and young adults sticking around to help raise siblings rather than going off to reproduce right now, if they don’t have much of a shot of reproducing successfully on their own for a while and they can help their siblings survive significantly in the meantime. It’s similarly easy enough to explain menopause and surviving past reproductive years in a variety of ways that boil down to “helping my previous offspring reproduce is more likely to work than continuing to have my own”.

But it is really hard to explain situations in which individuals never reproduce over the course of their entire lives, because from an evolutionary point of view those individuals are dead. Systems in which permanently non-reproducing individuals exist—true eusocial systems—are really rare, and trying to explain how that even happens is really hard and really interesting. In mole rats, although some individuals become reproductive who were previously nonreproductive, it is comparatively unlikely that any given individual will ever manage to reproduce, especially those who don’t disperse and help to form new colonies. From an evolutionary point of view, never reproducing is the ultimate act of altruism, the equivalent of committing suicide to help your friend. It’s hard to justify how that works, and that’s what makes eusociality so interesting. (A few years ago I wrote a paper essentially reviewing the necessary conditions for eusociality to evolve—it’s a really cool topic.)

And in humans, that doesn’t really happen on a wide-ranging scale. While humans are clearly cooperative breeders—that is, siblings and kin cooperate to help raise children, even if they’re not the parents of those children—it is comparatively rare in most cultures for people to delay reproduction forever. Most humans in most cultures do eventually go on to have their own children, and so you don’t have that difficult problem of evolutionary suicide to figure out—you just have to figure out whether the humans who take X strategy have more surviving kin and children than the humans who take Y strategy. It take the entire thing that makes eusociality fascinating out of the equation, and moreover it destroys the distinction between cooperative breeding (much more common in nature and also much less costly) and eusociality proper. We already have a perfectly good term for what humans do; let’s not muddy the waters by trying to make eusociality synonymous for cooperative breeding when that perfectly good term already exists.

kingedmundsroyalmurder: Semi-convincing arguments for eusociality in humans=a suitable connection...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 20:12:14 -0400

kingedmundsroyalmurder:

Semi-convincing arguments for eusociality in humans=a suitable connection to class material.

(To clarify, the semi-convincing arguments aren’t mine, they’re just ones that I will be examining in order to justify talking about insect social structures in a class about hominin paleoecology.)

*stares* Mind sharing? Because I’ve seen people make claims that cooperative breeding == eusociality before in other social species, and I gotta say I remain seriously unconvinced—all that does is muddy the terminology for no good reason. I don’t think you can even make convincing arguments that humans are evolving towards eusociality.

Seriously, I’m highly interested to see what exactly they’re going for here. It… might not be very good for your paper—although I admit it, eusociality is awesome, I’d probably try to write about it too—but for personal curiosity, can I see?

Index of Asexual Student Groups?

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:02:37 -0400

nextstepcake:

After a recent conversation about ace student groups, I realized that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comprehensive list - but I would like to start one!

So far I know of groups at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Western Washington University; and I think I remember hearing about one in florida but can’t remember any details.

Anyway, does anyone else know of any College or University Ace groups?

Pretty sure minato-rise-up organized one at the Savannah College of Art & Design a while back, and I remember someone (hawkelf?) talking about one at Kansas University or possibly Kansas State. The map of ace groups indicates that there is one at U Chicago, too.

My ace group is not exactly a student group, but it’s run by a graduate student in a university town at UT Austin.

blackdogrunning: There’s a thing going round my facebook feed thing now, and it really fucking...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:17:45 -0400

blackdogrunning:

There’s a thing going round my facebook feed thing now, and it really fucking pisses me off? Like, it’s about shelters, and all the “If your dog is black/a ‘bullie breed’ it’s pretty much dead as soon as it walk in the door” and the “The whole trip to the euthinasia room is terrible and sad and euthinasia for all the dogs is aweful and gorey and gross and they are in pain and it’s terrible and then you have no idea what happens to the corpses!!1!” and the “KENNELS ARE TERRIBAD ALWAYS AND FOREVER (except please adopt a dog from one, because otherwise YOU ARE DOOMING ALL OF THEM TO DEATH)” shtick it’s got going on is fucking awful

like. yes, some shelters are horrible and/or underfunded and/or understaffed and it’s fucking awful that people ditch dogs because they get “too big” (not puppy) or christmas/holiday/birthday pets etc

but… that will not be fixed by guilt tripping people into things? Also I am not actually an expert on shelters or animal welfare and am pretty sure this sort of thing is meant to play on people who don’t understand and have all the media images of “Sad dogs in shelters”

also the weird and classist as fuck “Where are you moving you can’t have dogs?!?”/ “Why did you even get a dog if you can’t now afford it!?!”/”/I/ can take care of my 6 dogs despite working a full time job, why the fuck can’t you” is really skeevy

#any of the people who know about shelters and such - you got any imput? #are they all really that bad? #am I being a dickward about this or am I justifiably skeeved out?

The short answer is that it depends on a lot of things, especially how your local shelter is run. (Note: here we’re talking about animal controls and public shelters, not private rescue groups which are generally better funded and their own kettle of fish.)

For example, the animal control I adopted my dog from guarantees strays only seven days of time to find an owner before they come up on the euthanasia list, and owner surrenders are, yes, at immediate risk of euthanization. They have limited runs and funds and they can’t hold dogs indefinitely. However, because of a network of volunteers to advertise dogs and maintain a local, constantly updated website as well as good relations with local private rescues, the shelter euthanizes dogs relatively rarely. Most are either adopted out or signed over to rescues, which may adopt them out in the area or may transport them over fairly long distances to get adopted. And this is from a shelter with an intake of dogs that are about 70% pit bulls or pit mixes at any given point, which are generally harder to adopt out.*

On the other hand, there are some animal controls that don’t allocate resources well or don’t have good track records of working with volunteers and other groups. It is honestly really dependent on how the shelter in your county is run.

There is a definite regional skew across the US in terms of how well funded a county shelter is likely to be and how much priority is placed on adopting dogs out. There are more dogs in shelters that need homes in Southeastern and rural areas and more demand for them in northern and urban areas, for example. This difference is so pronounced that northern rescue groups often organize volunteer convoys to drive dogs from local shelters north to rescues far away who can take them in. Team Unruly has a great post from a person who routinely takes slots in these convoys.

All of that aside, I am HUGELY not in favor of guilt-based campaigns to induce people to adopt dogs without thinking over what sort of dog would suit their lifestyle best ahead of time. That’s a recipe for a mismatch between dogs and people and dogs getting returned to rescue because they were adopted more or less on a whim. Get a dog from a rescue because dogs from rescue are awesome! Don’t do it because the dog is SAD for five minutes. If you and the dog aren’t a good fit for each other, you’ll just make each other unhappy for longer for no good reason. Going out and adopting a dog based on the fit between you and the dog is a much better recipe for success, and will also keep dogs OUT of shelters far more effectively.

*(This is the case for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it is fucking hard to rent with a pit or pit mix across the US, and that this shelter is located in a university town with a ton of students. My dog is a mixed breed who can pass as a pit mix but who might as easily be a Boston Terrier cross, and I live in fear of my apartment complex deciding to crack down on its no-pits policy. I’ve always been very careful to make sure that she’s down as a Boston mix on all of her documentation, but there are always horror stories about anti-pit policies and legislation cracking down on any dog with a shortish face and a short coat.)

Graduate school, asexily

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 12:13:13 -0400

queenieofaces:

This post has been cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda.

Since so many of the writers on The Asexual Agenda are graduate students, a while back we were talking about writing about what it’s like to be an ace in graduate school. Since grad school has been taking over my life recently, I figured now was as good a time as any.

It should be noted that these are my experiences, and almost certainly cannot be generalized, because my department is weird.

Read More

Oh look, I have massive feelings about this topic. BRB, leaving lengthy comment…

Nietzsche's Gramophone Record: Ok so this asexuality documentary is pretty goodbut the only thing I...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:28:49 -0400

Nietzsche's Gramophone Record: Ok so this asexuality documentary is pretty goodbut the only thing I...:

swankivy:

neondarling:

Ok so this asexuality documentary is pretty good

but the only thing I have an issue with is that they don’t actually interview any cute aces. It’s pretty good with the core info but it doesn’t exactly aid in getting rid of the stereotype that aces are fat, weird, lonely people who can’t get it…

Sorry, I must’ve left my “pretty” face in my other pants the day we were filming.

Seriously, though, complaining that people who aren’t hot enough are ruining asexuality’s chance to be seen as a legitimate orientation is really crap. There is no truly “unassailable” asexual.

Are you fucking kidding me? Wow, that’s insulting. Sorry that popped up on your dash, Swankivy.

I find this especially ridiculous given the frankly fairly creepy way that visibility articles talk about David Jay in particular—they often spend at least some time talking about his hotness or bemoaning the fact that his attractiveness is “wasted” on being asexual, to the point that it comes up in satirical pieces about visibility articles.

facingthenorthwind: thestruttingdead: gardenburger: gardenburger: hey everyone, lets talk about...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:39:14 -0400

facingthenorthwind:

thestruttingdead:

gardenburger:

gardenburger:

hey everyone, lets talk about how syphilis didnt appear in Europe till after Christopher Columbus came back from America but didnt exist in people from the Americas either until then. lets talk about how the only animals syphilis was found in before then were llamas.

no im not kidding we need to talk about this

#are you implying what i think you are

ACTUALLY I have interesting input here that no one will read: Mary Beard presented a doco in which they MIGHT have found two people suffering from syphilis IN POMPEII. As in, in the first century AD. In Italy. (source.)

Pretty sure there’s better evidence for syphilis as a transition to sexual transmission from a related disease called yaws than there is for syphilis as the one nasty disease that originated in the Americas, actually. Which would be totally consistent with the Pompeii finding!

Source. Source.

Thanks for changing the Cthulhu post. I appreciate it.

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:46:47 -0400

No problem!

Hi Sciatrix, Just saw your post about our Cthulhu paper, thanks for writing about it. Do you mind changing "endosymbiontic bacteria" to "symbiotic protists"? The two new genera are microbial eukaryotes living within the guts of termites. Some of these eukaryotic symbionts do indeed have endosymbiotic bacteria, in fact Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque may have them as well, we just haven't found them yet! Thanks

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 22:08:45 -0400

No problem! Sorry, I admit, I just skimmed the abstract before posting—I was too delighted by the concept to read in depth. :) Fixed! Thanks for letting me know.