STEM Education for Tomorrow

Over the past several weeks I’ve had more than one person ask me, “What is your view on the future of STEM (1) Education?” Sometimes they have gone on to ask further about how I feel about the future of science in general. This much repeated question has been triggered by many things. On...

A scientific mind is a terrible thing to waste

I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately. I generally just make the excuses, “I’ve been busy” or say “I don’t make money on my blog and need to focus on paid jobs.” These are just excuses though. I can always find time to write. The truth is, I just can’t...

An academic life punctuated by bullets, part 2

There are some titles that should never be reused. This is part 2 of this post I wrote in 2007. This older post is better than this one. Please read the older post here. Earlier this evening I got an IM from a friend alerting me that this afternoon there had been a shooting at the University of Alabama...

You must have Power to Stop Discrimination

This is a piece on gender inequity and sexual discrimination (not sexual harassment, which is a different and emotionally more devastating thing). I´m writing this at this time not because of any one thing that´s happened, but because of a culmination of things. Sometimes it just seems like a topic is in...

Spoofing 3am Commercial

This is from PhD Comics. Normally I wouldn’t throw the whole thing in my blog, but . . . If you don’t already subscribe, hit up their RSS Feed over...

T’was the Astronomer’s Sys Admin’s Night Before Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and clouds filled the sky Not an object was twinkling, not even Iota Tri; The telescope was parked in its dome with great care, In hopes of spying a star on which it could stare; My students were nested all snug in their beds While visions of data danced in their...