Drive by blogging

Well, It's been awhile since I've blogged about anything.  This is mainly because I've been quite busy and never seem to have the time to sit down and write a full-on post.  So I'm going to try something new this year.  I will only write what I can write in 10 minutes.  Hopefully this will lead to more posts and less lengthy reads.  If I feel like I really want to go in depth on something I might, but I won't put it off until I find the hour to do it.  Instead I'll do the 10 minute version.  This has been inspired by my friend who just started her first blog.  She is attempting to walk more miles then she drives her car this year and is only going to commit 5 minutes a day to any particular blog post about the experience.  (As a side note: I might join her in this venture, or at the very least keep track of how much I bike/walk in comparison to how much I drive this year).

So in the spirit of my new drive-by blogging style here is the list of things I wanted to blog about in the last few months but didn't because I never really felt I'd give them justice.

1) The GQ "rock stars of science": many, many, many, many people have many things to say about this campaign.  I for one applaud the effort but am mighty offended that GQ and Geoffrey Beene seem to think science = medicine. Let's clarify that:  Medicine is a subset of science. If we want to encourage young people to enter science we should show them that.  Let's face it, there's never a shortage of people who want to become doctors and make money.  But finding those who want to save the climate, clean the air we breathe and the water we drink, learn how people relate to each other, grow our food better....or about a billion other issues that area really relevant to society to day...we have a severe shortage of candidates for those jobs.  Science is bigger than the medical fields. WAY bigger. And all of it is just as important and saves just as many lives, although in a less tangible way.  Where are those rock stars?

2) This guy.  I could rant for way more than 10 minutes about this.  Since the average american doesn't even understand what science is (as evidenced by #1 above), how about we just leave the peer-review process to the actual scientists.  NSF is really respected and has one of the most rigorous review processes around.  Actual scientists regard it as some of the hardest funding to get.  Ugh, just Ugh America.

Times up for now, but man I really had some stuff to say about those science cheerleaders too...