Rotundus.com

Why academics annoy people

"... I think it’s important for academics to interact regularly with those outside their field. We need to be familiar with the 'average person' (as if there is such a creature) so we can work to connect our research with their needs and interests. Instead, we routinely imply that they’re not very smart simply because they don’t happen to be experts in our particular fields of interest."

Those Hyper-Politicized Evangelicals!

"I don’t have figures for Muslims, but the only religious group that definitely had a lower percentage of sermons on political/social issues [than evangelical Christians] was, interestingly, the Mormons."

The Certainty of Memory Has Its Day in Court

"For scientists, memory has been on trial for decades, and courts and public opinion are only now catching up with the verdict. It has come as little surprise to researchers that about 75 percent of DNA-based exonerations have come in cases where witnesses got it wrong."

Icy sidewalks snowball as Calgary’s top bylaw complaint

Sometimes I wonder just how effective some of the snow clearing is. Scrape off a layer of ice, and as the temperature rises above zero for portions of a day, some of the snow melts trickling water over the sidewalk and then refreezing at night. That sort of things seems to lead to much more treacherous sidewalks than the snow falling directly on then. Do they need to come up with gutters for sidewalks?

(Source)

Matt Milliner:

But even the most basic effort at understanding will quickly discern that complaints about contemporary art being absurd have long been sounded, quite convincingly, from within the world of contemporary art itself – making Christian “pronouncements” on that score redundant. Did I mention this makes Christian pronouncements redundant? At the very least we should follow the rule that every paragraph of complaint about contemporary art should be backed up with an hour of walking the galleries.

(HT: JT)

A Closer Look at Teeth May Mean More Fillings

"With increasingly sophisticated detection technology, dentists are finding — and treating — tooth abnormalities that may or may not develop into cavities. While some describe their efforts as a proactive strategy to protect patients from harm, critics say the procedures are unnecessary and painful, and are driving up the costs of care."

The Afghan women jailed for being victims of rape

I tend to be cynical about a lot of stories of rape, given the low levels of evidence often available (excepting instances involving beatings), but the list bit of a quote from this article seems to go the other way - even if proven to be forced there's no escape clause - "Colonel Ghulam Ali, a high-ranking regional security officer, explained sternly that he supported the authorities' right to convict victims of rape. 'In Afghanistan whether it is forced or not forced it is a crime because the Islamic rules say that it is'" (This isn't the only Islamic view out there, although the first instance listed involves a confession on the part of the perpetrator).

The Power Politics of Water Struggles

A somewhat unusual story, yet kind of interesting: "In 1999, his life took an interesting turn when he met Chris Giannou, a fellow Canadian with decades of experience as a war surgeon. Dr. Giannou told Dr. Zeitoun that water engineers were needed in conflict zones and encouraged him to join the International Committee of the Red Cross. 'I can only operate on one person at a time,' Dr. Giannou said in an interview. 'But a water engineer can provide clean water for hundreds of thousands of people.'"

Lawsuit vs. school cites masturbation assignment

The sort of valuable things that US colleges are teaching these days. "Ghan said that after reviewing course outlines for similar college classes across the country, he concluded that Kubistant's assignments are not unusual."