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The Professor as Open Book
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM, The New York Times, March 20, 2008
IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor on the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.
Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.
( Wait a minute, you have a life? )
Debate Over ‘Little People’ Intensifies After Recent Island Discovery
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD,The New York Times, March 18, 2008
The dispute over the “little people” of Flores continues, unabated.
The bones and a single skull of these “little people” are believed to be remains of a separate species of the human family that lived about 18,000 years ago on an island in Indonesia, as the scientists who made the sensational discovery concluded in 2004.
But persistent skeptics have contended in a recent flurry of scientific reports that they were nothing more than modern humans with unusually small bodies possibly malformed by genetic or pathological disorders.
Neither side is backing off in this sometimes bitter row, which intensified last week with the announcement of the discovery that in Palau, in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia, other abnormally small-bodied people had lived long ago. Their bones were found in two caves and described in the online journal PloS One.
( Microcephalics or new species? )
The Tropics: Why a Genetic Blood Disorder Seems to Protect Against Malaria
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, March 18, 2008
Researchers believe they have figured out why a genetic blood disorder found in the tropics protects against death from malaria.
The disease, alpha thalassemia, causes children to produce abnormally small red blood cells, often rendering them listless from mild anemia — a much smaller threat than malaria, which kills an estimated one million children a year.
( A simple explanation? )
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM, The New York Times, March 20, 2008
IT is not necessary for a student studying multivariable calculus, medieval literature or Roman archaeology to know that the professor on the podium shoots pool, has donned a bunny costume or can’t get enough of Chaka Khan.
Yet professors of all ranks and disciplines are revealing such information on public, national platforms: blogs, Web pages, social networking sites, even campus television.
( Wait a minute, you have a life? )
Debate Over ‘Little People’ Intensifies After Recent Island Discovery
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD,The New York Times, March 18, 2008
The dispute over the “little people” of Flores continues, unabated.
The bones and a single skull of these “little people” are believed to be remains of a separate species of the human family that lived about 18,000 years ago on an island in Indonesia, as the scientists who made the sensational discovery concluded in 2004.
But persistent skeptics have contended in a recent flurry of scientific reports that they were nothing more than modern humans with unusually small bodies possibly malformed by genetic or pathological disorders.
Neither side is backing off in this sometimes bitter row, which intensified last week with the announcement of the discovery that in Palau, in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia, other abnormally small-bodied people had lived long ago. Their bones were found in two caves and described in the online journal PloS One.
( Microcephalics or new species? )
The Tropics: Why a Genetic Blood Disorder Seems to Protect Against Malaria
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, March 18, 2008
Researchers believe they have figured out why a genetic blood disorder found in the tropics protects against death from malaria.
The disease, alpha thalassemia, causes children to produce abnormally small red blood cells, often rendering them listless from mild anemia — a much smaller threat than malaria, which kills an estimated one million children a year.
( A simple explanation? )
