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It is that time of year, when it is hard to get a productive meeting or interdisciplinary project or anything done … it is vacation time! People seem to either be in a panicked ‘nesting mode’ getting ready to go or exhausted to the point of uselessness after returning. Or, they spread their vacation around so liberally that they never seem fully engaged all summer long. Yet once we go on vacation it seems we all go through the same thought process – I was laughing about it with a colleague this morning, and then saw this comic at Neatorama….

There has been tons of analysis and debate about whether the cultural move to everyone getting a trophy, ribbon, award, and so on for every event makes sense and has the intended effect of removing negative feelings associated with not winning (as opposed to the obvious impact of removing the positive feelings for actually excelling at something). But what happens when it happens to grades … particularly at the collegiate level? Last month I was sitting at a college graduation for my alma mater watching my nephew graduate, and found that the number of people receiving Cum Laude and higher…

Actress Kaley Cuoco is best known for her role on Big Bang Theory, but has had loads of memorable parts including being ‘the teenage daughter’ on John Ritter’s comedy “8 Simple Rules… for Dating My Teenage Daughter”. Part of her appeal is that her impeccable comic timing and charm allow her to simultaneously be ‘the hot chick’ on the show while also endearing and fitting in with a group of asocial nerds. As such she has a tremendous following and high regard from those who identify with the Big Bang Theory characters. She has now stepped up on behalf of…

We have seen novelty telescope attachments for smartphones in the past, but how about a different kind of attachment – one that works as a microscope and serves as a research and education tool to allow the viewing of the Malaria virus when there is no laboratory available. According to Smartplanet: After smearing a drop of blood from a small finger prick on the microscope lens, the app magnifies and analyzes the sample – taking a photo of it, detecting malarial parasites and ruptured blood cells, conducting blood cell counts for anemia, and quantifying how infected the sample is. “It…