Scientists Are The New Rockstars: 2012 Edition

It should be obvious that I love science, but I understand and respect that everyone doesn't.  Still, people that excel in their craft should be recognized the same way that entertainment stars are.  I'm not saying that we should have a "Real Housewives of Science" reality show or have a Kardashian scientist stumbling around labs, but it wouldn't hurt to share in some of that publicity.

To that end, let's check out some of the top scientists of 2012, as reported by the scientific journal Nature. Here is an excerpt that was news to me:

While it's no surprise that women are underrepresented in science, pinning that to discrimination, rather than gender differences in aptitude or interest, has been tricky. But when Yale University microbiologist Jo Handelsman showed that researchers offer fictitious female job applicants about $4,000 less in salary and rate them as less competent and worthy of mentorship than male counterparts, she produced strong evidence for sexual bias. Handelsman says she hasn't personally experienced strong bias, but became motivated to speak out about it when other women scientists described their experiences with sex discrimination.

It's common news that job applicants with ethnic sounding names (hello Shareef Jackson!) get called less for interviews, but it is extremely worrisome that this applies within the science field. Gender discrimination is real and it exists.

To see the full list, check out the entire article on the Mother Nature Network.

The Nile As Seen From Space

From NASA's Google+ page:

The Nile glows bright at night in this sparkling image from our Suomi NPP satellite

The city lights resemble a giant calla lily, just one with a kink in its stem near the city of Luxor. Some of the brightest lights occur around Cairo, but lights are abundant along the length of the river. Bright city lights also occur along the Suez Canal and around Tel Aviv.

Away from the lights, however, land and water appear uniformly black. This image was acquired near the time of the new Moon, and little moonlight was available to brighten land and water surfaces.

More of NASA's Year of Awesome: Goddard Flight Center

The photo of the "Mickey Mouse" crater on Mercury. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

I previously posted an NASA infographic celebrating its 2012 accomplishments.  The NASA Goddard Flight Center decided that that wasn't enough, and they've posted their own collection of photos and videos. Unfortunately they can't be embedded as a set, but a link to the Flickr album can be found by clicking here.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Goddard Center in Greenbelt, MD this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Landsat system.  My coverage can be found here.  

Merry PiXmas!

Happy holidays! Yes, this is a Christmas stocking in the shape of the math symbol Pi. I got it from ThinkGeek.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson & the GZA

I grew up on hip hop and science, so I was thrilled to see The GZA appear on an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's Star Talk. It's fun to watch because they are both fans of each other.  The genuine interest and respect for one another's work is incredibly apparent. My favorite part is around 16 minutes, when they talk about how current hip hop isn't "literate" and how many artists nowadays don't have a muse. A little later, during a great conversation about violence in hip hop , Tyson compares the artful use of lyrics to one of the film masters, as "Hitchcock forces you to fill in the blanks". Check it out below! 

If you can't see the video below, click here.