May 21, 2013
May 10, 2013
Spectacled flying fox baby, at the Tolga Bat Hospital
In a more contemporary analysis, researchers at the University of Hawaii studied patterns of pornography consumed in the United States, Norway and Japan, as a way to try to get at links between gender equality and sexual relations. The study looked at those countries in part because they fall on different points along a gender-equality spectrum that is tabulated by the United Nations and known as the Gender Empowerment Measure. (The measure “examines the extent to which women and men are able to actively participate in economic and political life and take part in decision-making,” according to the U.N.)
At the time the study was conducted, Norway ranked first in the world in terms of gender equality, the United States ranked 15 and Japan ranked 54, according to the measure. The researchers found that Norwegian pornography was more likely than Japanese pornography to show women in empowered roles, with U.S. pornography falling in the middle.
What Does ‘Sexual Coercion’ Say About A Society? : NPRMay 6, 2013
May 4, 2013
May 2, 2013
What Your American Girl Doll Says About the Rest of Your Life
- Molly McIntire:
- If you had Molly, you probably wanted Samantha instead, but contented yourself with Molly because you too wore glasses, liked books, were bad at math, and would concoct various schemes to get attention. (Oh, Molly.) If you were a Molly, and had a Molly (as opposed to being a Molly and aspirationally owning a Felicity), you were imbued, then and now, with an immutable sense of self. At least Molly could tap dance, which is frankly more talent than any of the other girls exhibited.
- As an adult, you’ve developed a carefully honed aptitude for sarcasm. You've gotten contacts, and a slightly edgy haircut. You still sort of want attention, but you deny it. You’ve thought back on your American Girl Doll, and tried not to be too resentful towards the person who gave her to you, who so obviously associated you with the descriptor “mousy.” Kirsten Larson:
May 1, 2013
April 28, 2013
April 27, 2013
“This exhibition was, like all our public work, a live experiment, in this case an experiment into how bees – and by extension humans – learn to see colour (in the setting of a gallery). Bumblebees lived in a Plexiglas cube called the ‘Bee Matrix’, where were set the task to learn a concept. The concept was the ‘bluest’, which is a complicated task requiring the bees to learn the relationships between objects, rather than their absolute qualities.
During the experiment, the flight of the bee was tracked in three dimensions with an accuracy of 1mm. The flight path of the same bee was then etched into large crystal glass blocks, and the blocks staked into five 2-metre towers that were illuminated from below. Each tower 2 minutes in the learning history of the same bee, which means what viewers were really seeing is the process by which we all learn to behave: First our behaviours are random, following a process of trial-by-error; then we become accurate but tentative; finally our confidence grows in what we believe and thus our behaviour more directed. And yet we can never know what is really there; only what was useful to know before.” Via.
