The Sciences
Survival, On the Roller Derby and Tenure Tracks
I’m having the conversation I always have with my fellow jammer after she does something amazing. “What exactly are you doing when you get through that wall?
Stories by Kate Clancy
New iPhone App Helps Parents Get the Right Vaccine Information
When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2007/2008, the anti-vaccine movement was strong and hadn’t been fully debunked. My daily – hourly – thoughts revolved around the fear of a C-section...
New iPhone App Helps Parents Get the Right Vaccine Information
When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2007/2008, the anti-vaccine movement was strong and hadn’t been fully debunked. My daily – hourly – thoughts revolved around the fear of a C-section...
Dana’s Super-Awesome Mount St. Helens Field Trip Guide I: Hoffstadt or Bust
Something has been sitting in my craw for a while since reading that clickbait “manifesto” on how people who put their kids in private school are bad people.
Motherhood Won and Lost: One Woman’s Story of Miscarriage
The following is a guest post from “Grace,” a fellow tenure-track professor. She wished to share her story of miscarriage, because reading the stories of others comforted and guided her as she experienced her own...
Research Realities II: Another Door Open, Then Shut
(Click here for the introduction to the Research Realities series, and here for part I) Back when we were first scoping out locations for our integrated research and education project, my collaborator had mentioned that some colleagues she knew had good luck working with libraries, and that they were sometimes easier to work with than [...]..
Mysteries at the Beach!
Well folks, it appears all is well at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the Nature Research Center (go here and here for the backstory).
The Sciences
Research Realities I: Issues With School-based Research
Last fall was a waste. At least, that’s how it felt on the late November day I received an email from the school principal essentially kicking me out of her school.
The Sciences
Research Realities: New Blog Mini-Series
I just finished the first recruitment for a local, integrated research and education project with adolescent girls. It was a fantastic experience, but the process of getting there… let’s just say there were challenges...
Evolution
Ladybusiness Anthropologist Throws Up Hands, Concedes Men Are the Reason for Everything Interesting in Human Evolution
Like most modern anthropologists, I have challenged the idea that human evolution is entirely motivated by men’s desires, interests, behaviors and strategies.
The Sciences
Canopy Meg: Fancy Title, But Does She Still Have Authority?
A quick update on the Nature Research Center "reassignment" of Dr. Meg Lowman, AKA Canopy Meg. Jonathan Pishney, NRC Museum Communications Director, wrote me this morning: Hello Kate, After reading your Scientific American blog post Why Has Canopy Meg Been Ousted?...
The Sciences
Why Has Canopy Meg Been Ousted?
Something smells fishy. A few weeks ago, the Raleigh News Observer reported that Dr. Margaret Lowman, known to many in the science communication field as Canopy Meg, was going to be “shifted” out of her position as Director of the Nature Research Center...
The Sciences
No One Is Immune. I Am Not Immune.
TRIGGER WARNING. Describes unwanted contact, may be triggering to survivors of harassment or assault. * * * No woman is immune. * * * “Don’t I know you from the gym?” A trim, older man is smiling in line in front of me at the allergist’s office...
Health
Feedback Loops: The Biology and Culture of Premenstrual Experience
I think my umbilical hernia is getting bigger. I’ve had it since my pregnancy over five years ago, the result of diastasis, a situation where the abdominal muscles pull apart from the baby taking up so much darn room...
The Sciences
Ladybusiness Link Love
A new post coming shortly, but in the meantime read these other posts. A rather specific set of links this time, because there has been some pretty good ladybusiness writing in the last month...
Evolution
Your Lady Parts Don t Like It When You Get Sick: Relationships Between Immune Health and Reproductive Hormones
Life history trade-offs are the bread and butter of biological anthropology. The way we understand the importance of certain traits and life events is in how they vary in response to selection pressures like energy availability or climate, but also cultural beliefs and practices.That’s why it matters to us when you got your first period, or what your birth weight was, or how closely you decided to space your children, or if you had them at all...
The Sciences
Link Love: Pedagogy, Higher Ed, Ladies and Neat Stuff
I’ve been reading some good stuff the last few weeks, thought I’d share it here. Pedagogy Cheating to Learn. A great way to engage students is put them in charge of the conditions for their exam...
The Sciences
Defensive Scholarly Writing and Science Communication
Jammer Hurrycane Jackie shows her defensive stance at a Twin City Derby Girls intraleague bout. Photo by Tom Schaefges, used with permission. A few weeks ago I was reading over page proofs for a now-published manuscript, and I must have had my science writer brain on...
The Sciences
I had no power to say that s not okay: Reports of harassment and abuse in the field
It was getting late, the student center all but deserted. My old friend and I had a table to ourselves, awkwardly wedged among the chairs that had been set in a circle for an invited talk I had just given to some undergraduates about issues for women in science.My friend alluded to having a challenging field site...
Evolution
Bringing a Little Evolutionary Medicine Into the Blogosphere: Student Blogs
Earlier this semester I talked about a few new kinds of assignments I was trying out in my evolutionary medicine class. I’ve got my students posting on the readings every week at the group blog, and there have been several great interactions...
