A quick update on the Nature Research Center “reassignment” of Dr. Meg Lowman, AKA Canopy Meg. Jonathan Pishney, NRC Communications Director, wrote me this morning: Hello Kate, After reading your Scientific American blog post Why Has Canopy Meg Been Ousted? I thought I should offer you some updated information that was not available when the [...]

Something smells fishy. A few weeks ago, the Raleigh News Observer reported that Dr. Margaret Lowman, known to many in the science communication field as Canopy Meg, was going to be “shifted” out of her position as Director of the Nature Research Center. Her new position as “ambassador” appears to carry no significant responsibilities, and [...]

TRIGGER WARNING. Describes unwanted contact, may be triggering to survivors of harassment or assault. *     *     * No woman is immune. *     *     * “Don’t I know you from the gym?” A trim, older man is smiling in line in front of me at the allergist’s office. [...]

I think my umbilical hernia is getting bigger. I’ve had it since my pregnancy over five years ago, the result of diastasis, a situation where the abdominal muscles pull apart from the baby taking up so much darn room. I’ve consulted with a surgeon, and the hernia is tiny, not worth fixing until I’m done [...]

A new post coming shortly, but in the meantime read these other posts. A rather specific set of links this time, because there has been some pretty good ladybusiness writing in the last month. “Why do women try to get ahead by pulling men down?” On escalators, elevators, and running as hard as you can. [...]

I’ve been reading some good stuff the last few weeks, thought I’d share it here. Pedagogy Cheating to Learn. A great way to engage students is put them in charge of the conditions for their exam. These students “cheated” by working together on an animal behavior final. Math teacher explains math anxiety. Math and science anxiety [...]

It was getting late, the student center all but deserted. My old friend and I had a table to ourselves, awkwardly wedged among the chairs that had been set in a circle for an invited talk I had just given to some undergraduates about issues for women in science. My friend alluded to having a [...]

Field experiences are often what help an undergraduate decide whether or not to pursue biological anthropology, they determine the course of a graduate student’s dissertation, and they provide the data needed to launch grants and make tenure cases for faculty. Yet, because field experiences often occur in remote places, far from our universities, entirely different [...]

(Alternate, Twitter-sourced titles: “5 Ways to Prove Darwin Wasn’t Crazy,” “Shut the Eff Up and Science Already,” “5 Ways Psychology Needs to Evolve.”) Evolutionary psychology, the study of human psychological adaptations, does not have a popular or scientific reputation for being rigorous, even though there are rigorous, thoughtful scientists in the field. The field is [...]

Just wanted to give a quick heads up to those of you who follow on the blog but not on Twitter or Facebook (personal, blog) that Chris Chambers and I have a piece in the Guardian today responding to the recent pseudoscience on why more girls don’t pursue science in places like the US and [...]