Interesting Links for 06-09-2013

[andrewducker]

• How Carnegie Mellon Increased the Proportion of Women in Computer Science From 7% to 42%
  (tags: computers education usa women )
• Legal Aid for children in prison. A disastrous day for liberal values (not just Children)
  (tags: law uk prison children )
• Down syndrome reversed in newborn mice with single injection
  (tags: genetics mice )
• Someone you

Comments

Labour call for state funding of political parties (and about time too)

[cartesiandaemon]

I wonder if there's some compromise where union contributions are reduced, as is a maximum cap on individual donations, so neither party feels hard done by. And hope that any effects antithetical to the main parties are sufficiently far in the future current MPs will risk voting for it...

[artkouros]

I love the dubstep guy - if he was only cute.

[bart_calendar]

Must suck to be a 15 year old girl in Spain right now.

[andrewducker]

Well, you're fine so long as your partner is about the same age as you.

If you were boffing a 30-year-old, not so much.

[woodpijn]

"The goal should not be to fit women into computer science but rather to change computer science." - Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher
I find this troubling.
I think the article overall is good, and their methods sound good: outreach, admissions criteria that focus on potential rather than experience, mentoring. But this quote is problematic. We shouldn't change an academic discipline just to make it more palatable to any demographic.
Maybe they don't mean to change computer science itself but its external trappings and the way it's presented, which is more sensible, but if so then the quote is very unclear.

[ajr]

I give the benefit of doubt and read the statement as meaning "Computer science should change to be more welcoming to women, rather than remain as it is and force women to adopt 'masculine' identities in order to fit in."

I have to agree with you that the quote as given is unclear, but despite that I do find it strongly unlikely they mean to change the science itself.

Not that clarification wouldn't go amiss, in any case.

[momentsmusicaux]

The article on bacteria is interesting.

But it doesn't answer (or indeed seem to question) what role the bacteria actually play. Are my bacteria eating part of my food?! What do they do with it? How is this different from tapeworm?!!!

[andrewducker]

Oh, Bacteria are a vital part of the body's ecosystem. Without our gut flora we'd have problems with a wide variety of enzyme production and food digestion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome#Gut_flora

[momentsmusicaux]

I know about that in general. But how do bacteria keep some people slimmer? What do they do that's different?

(Also, who wants to buy my poo?!)

[andrewducker]

I don't think anyone really knows yet. There's a bunch of known correlations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_flora#Obesity

and some theories about inflammation:
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1969807,00.html

but they're still dpoing lots of research.