Posted by LN Gibson on February 28, 2015 at 2:02pm
Since rumors and reports first revealed that director Josh Trank was looking at a non-white actor to play Johnny Storm a.k.a. Human Torch in Twentieth Century Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four, the project – which already had a stiff uphill climb against expectations – has unavoidably been a subject of controversy. It didn’t help skeptical fans that the FF marketing campaign didn’t begin until a few weeks ago (with good reason though – see why here).
Josh Trank began early Fantastic Four development even before his first feature Chronicle (which got him the FF director’s chair) opened in theaters, and his original ideas for a modern take on the FF and casting remain largely intact. The plan was always to reboot the franchise by using the Ultimate Fantastic Four comics as a source of inspiration, especially when it comes to the younger team dynamic and science fiction aspects of it. The other part of the plan was to cast Miles Teller andMichael B. Jordan as Mr. Fantastic and Human Torch, respectively.
Posted by LN Gibson on February 28, 2015 at 1:42pm
More than 99% of all the species that have ever lived on our planet are now extinct, and while the majority of these die-offs can be attributed to competition or failure to adapt, many perished during dramatic cataclysmic events. The fossil record shows us that these mass extinctions seem to occur periodically in cycles of approximately 26 to 30 million years—which, interestingly, is similar to the amount of time it takes our sun to bob up and down through the galactic disc and cross the center line of the Milky Way.
This region, known as the galactic plane, is crowded with clouds of dust and gas which could disturb space debris within our solar system and send some hurtling towards our planet, which would fit in with some of the mass extinctions. However, according to new research, there could be something else at play: dark matter.
Topics: #BlackLivesMatter, Denouement, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Women in Science
...or, women for that matter!
To the point: it is quite obvious by expectation, (some) low educator motivation that many of us are subtly "herded" into what was once challenged vocations - sports, for example - and away from science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. Such puts one in the position to literally "lift themselves [by their own academic] bootstraps" out of poverty, into prosperity, self-worth, and yes: power. "Knowledge IS power," and thus you are not encouraged to take Advanced Placement classes - though anyone can request them - you're stressed out over ACT/SAT/Standardized ________ to graduate from high school. Dr. Lani Guinier's article should be a breath of fresh air and an eye-opener. Such hurdles can be prepared for, and overcome (links below).
Personal note: I have worked in the semiconductor industry since 1989. In 1974, my middle school science teacher - upon my asking him a question on linear expansion - called me a "dummy." My parents asked him to explain himself, which he did in sweaty apology in front of the principal to save his job. In 1979, my high school counselor was pretty adamant that I should "graduate early" and go into the military; that I did not have the academic preparation to major in engineering in college, as it seems she advised most of my African American classmates (only). I visited my high school in 1983 a college AFROTC junior and an alumni Air Force JROTC graduate. I had been a cadet colonel and Brigade Commander of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school district, a position in my high school freshman year in 1976, the BC then said: "your kind will never get to this rank!" (I was also personally threatened by the Klan via passed crude letter: first, for "getting to the rank," then with showing up for the citywide Brigade Review parade, my last function as cadet commander. This was of considerable concern as I wasn't too far in time or mileage from their infamous shootout in Greensboro.) Upon seeing her, I reminded my counselor of our conversation: that she suggested I graduate early; that I wasn't prepared to be an engineering student. I told her I was a in my junior year in Engineering Physics at North Carolina A&T State University, and that I was going to be a commissioned officer. She quickly found something else to do, and like the Neanderthal my freshman year, found herself quite wrong and at a loss for words. How many have been discouraged by words of ignorant and unqualified judges to jettison their dreams? Don't let ANYONE steal your dreams from you.
I have spoken hopefully, to the young and given them pride, a sense of history and accomplishment. I have hopefully spoken to their appreciation of diversity, as many have friends outside of their culture without the overt impediments of previous generations (we could all follow your example).
There is much more to do in astronautics, astrophysics, architectural and civil engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, industrial engineering energy independence, food consumption, medicine, ophthalmology, physics, robotics and nanotechnology. We need your minds; we need your brilliance, we need your energy: we need your confidence. Think of the barriers you've seen over the month surmounted during times when we couldn't even drink at a decent drinking fountain, or voting could get you killed. Look at the archives of previous February postings. Think of your own recent history: Trayvon Martin; Jordan Davis; Renisha McBride; Eric Garner; Michael Brown. Marching and now, posting to social media is a kind of activism that temporarily makes you feel good: the other is to tackle the books. As Richard Feynman and his fellow students did, quiz one other on your understanding of all your subjects, science and math definitely. "Outsourcing" should be a last resort in a global economy, and you don't want to make it easy to do so by not being prepared to compete.
Register to vote when you turn 18, vote in midterm and presidential elections and don't let anyone stand in the way of your well-fought for, blood-spilled for right of citizenship, or tell you "it's not worth it"; "it doesn't matter"; "the election is already decided." Active democracies should have elections decided by mere hundreds of votes in close elections; elected officials should not be cowed by 5:1 lobbyists with wheelbarrows of cash, or violent mobs with torches and pitchforks, but with voter registration cards constituents are willing to use to hold them accountable. It stops mattering when you allow the moneyed few to dictate the direction of the nation, and the dreams of the many: on a personal level, a lot "dreams deferred"* may sadly, (indefinitely) be yours and this nation's. Spend less time on social media and million player games and master science, technology, engineering, mathematics and above all: critical thinking to question those in authority. You can do it! This country needs you: the WORLD needs you...to straighten your backs, and step out into the light.
Ending the month how we began it:
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr - and, a seldom-quoted riff (embed) below...
*What happens to a dream differed?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or, fester like a sore, and then run?
Does it stink like rotted meat,
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load...
...or does it explode? Langston Hughes
Don't explode: ascend, and give light to your dreams!
Now, we have web sites that celebrate black nerds. There's even a word for it now: blerds. Not so in the 60's. You were then just weird, oddball, outcast, different: the "other."
Despite the demonstrably miraculous technologies your fictional century had mastered, there was still an obvious prejudice even between space faring species Gene Roddenberry and the scriptwriters couldn't ignore. Part of the attraction and charm of Star Trek (especially for Dr. King) is we might just learn to get along with one another and survive as a species; that we might tolerate differences especially when it is solidly in our faces with bowled haircut; arched eyebrows; pointed ears and green-tinged skin. You played a half-human: Vulcan and Earth coursed in your copper veins; your character balanced and respected two cultures because of the parents Spock loved (though logic wouldn't let him admit it). You were "diversity" before the word was re-purposed in the lexicon.
You will be lauded, celebrated and missed by Star Trek fans worldwide. I know the totality of your body of work is far beyond the franchise as poet, director; writer, song writer and more. It's not uncommon nor unfair for actors to not wish to be typecast, i.e. known for only one role. However sir, this role was significant to straightening the backs of many: you were the "other," a man artistically crafted between two worlds to struggle with what than meant, and we struggled with you. You allowed those of us that felt "different" to feel that it's OK to be that way. That our nerd culture was beyond Melanin or for many, sexual orientation: all our values, our histories, ourselves have purpose and meaning for our brief time as blades of grass in the light. We thoroughly enjoyed your time and your talents in it with all of us.
As you attain escape velocity, and warp to meet Gene, Majel Barrett and James Doohan, know that "I have been, and will always be"...your fan.
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To support wireless communications at higher frequencies offering more channel capacity, NIST engineer Kate Remley led development of this new 94 gigahertz calibrated signal source for testing receivers and other devices. Credit: NIST
Topics: Electrical Engineering, 5G Cellular, Wireless Technology, Women in Science
Smartphones and tablets are everywhere, which is great for communications but a growing burden on wireless channels. Forecasted huge increases in mobile data traffic call for exponentially more channel capacity. Boosting bandwidth and capacity could speed downloads, improve service quality, and enable new applications like the Internet of Things connecting a multitude of devices.
To help solve the wireless crowding conundrum and support the next generation of mobile technology—5G cellular—researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are developing measurement tools for channels that are new for mobile communications and that could offer more than 1,000 times the bandwidth of today’s cell phone systems.
Like pioneers who found land by going west, telecom researchers can find open spectrum by going up—to higher frequencies. Mobile devices such as cell phones, consumer WiFi devices and public safety radios mostly operate below 3 gigahertz (GHz) (see infographic). But some devices are starting to use fast silicon-germanium radio chips operating at millimeter (mm) wavelengths above 10 GHz. Researchers at NIST and elsewhere are eyeing channels up to 100 GHz and even beyond.
Topics: Dark Matter, Diaspora, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Women in Science and Speculative Fiction
Song of Blood & Stone: Earthsinger Chronicles Book 1 By Leslye Penelope
Orphaned and alone, Jasminda is an outcast in her homeland of Elsira, where she is feared for both the shade of her skin and her magical abilities. When ruthless soldiers seek refuge in her isolated cabin, they bring with them a captive – an injured spy who steals her heart.
Dark matter: the nonluminous matter, not yet detected, that nonetheless has detectable gravitational effects on the universe.
Dark matter: the Afro-American presence and influences unseen or unacknowledged by Euro-American culture.
Dark Matter: the first anthology to illuminate the presence and influence of black writers in speculative fiction, with 25 stories, three novel excerpts, and five essays.
* * * * *
Though Black women's literature spans every genre imaginable, the visibility of Black women in speculative fiction is often low. These women create work that not only speaks to their experiences but imagines new worlds and possibilities. Their stories take us on journeys. And while though the work may offer temporary moments of escape, when we return we're better able to interpret our own place in the world. If you're interested in taking the trip, you'll want to check out these Black women science fiction writers.For Harriet
Hughes and Damas #1953511 Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library. The writers of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, who lived in France in order to escape American racism and segregation, influenced the founders of the Négritude movement. Many years later, Léon-Gontran Damas, cofounder of Négritude, and Langston Hughes share a moment. Image 1 of 17
Topics: African Heritage, Civil Rights, Négritude Movement, Star Trek
Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum –Lehman College
Négritude is a cultural movement launched in 1930s Paris by French-speaking black graduate students from France's colonies in Africa and the Caribbean territories. These black intellectuals converged around issues of race identity and black internationalist initiatives to combat French imperialism. They found solidarity in their common ideal of affirming pride in their shared black identity and African heritage, and reclaiming African self-determination, self–reliance, and self–respect. The Négritude movement signaled an awakening of race consciousness for blacks in Africa and the African Diaspora. This new race consciousness, rooted in a (re)discovery of the authentic self, sparked a collective condemnation of Western domination, anti-black racism, enslavement, and colonization of black people. It sought to dispel denigrating myths and stereotypes linked to black people, by acknowledging their culture, history, and achievements, as well as reclaiming their contributions to the world and restoring their rightful place within the global community.
Dr. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University alongside illustrations of a black hole and an event horizon with Hawking Radiation. He continues to engage his grey matter to uncover the secrets of the Universe while others attempt to confirm his existing theories. Credit: Photo: BBC, Illus.: T.Reyes
Topics: Big Bang, Black Holes, Einstein, DSR, Gravity, Spacetime, Special Relativity
We've come a long way in 13.8 billion years; but despite our impressively extensive understanding of the Universe, there are still a few strings left untied. For one, there is the oft-cited disconnect between general relativity, the physics of the very large, and quantum mechanics, the physics of the very small. Then there is problematic fate of a particle's intrinsic information after it falls into a black hole. Now, a new interpretation of fundamental physics attempts to solve both of these conundrums by making a daring claim: at certain scales, space and time simply do not exist.
Let's start with something that is not in question. Thanks to Einstein's theory of special relativity, we can all agree that the speed of light is constant for all observers. We can also agree that, if you're not a photon, approaching light speed comes with some pretty funky rules – namely, anyone watching you will see your length compress and your watch slow down.
But the slowing of time also occurs near gravitationally potent objects, which are described by general relativity. So if you happen to be sight-seeing in the center of the Milky Way and you make the regrettable decision to get too close to our supermassive black hole's event horizon (more sinisterly known as its point-of-no-return), anyone observing you will also see your watch slow down. In fact, he or she will witness your motion toward the event horizon slow dramatically over an infinite amount of time; that is, from your now-traumatized friend's perspective, you never actually cross the event horizon. You, however, will feel no difference in the progression of time as you fall past this invisible barrier, soon to be spaghettified by the black hole's immense gravity.
So, who is "correct"? Relativity dictates that each observer's point of view is equally valid; but in this situation, you can't both be right. Do you face your demise in the heart of a black hole, or don't you? (Note: This isn't strictly a paradox, but intuitively, it feels a little sticky.)
And there is an additional, bigger problem. A black hole's event horizon is thought to give rise to Hawking radiation, a kind of escaping energy that will eventually lead to both the evaporation of the black hole and the destruction of all of the matter and energy that was once held inside of it. This concept has black hole physicists scratching their heads. Because according to the laws of physics, all of the intrinsic information about a particle or system (namely, the quantum wavefunction) must be conserved. It cannot just disappear.
Why all of these bizarre paradoxes? Because black holes exist in the nebulous space where a singularity meets general relativity – fertile, yet untapped ground for the elusive theory of everything.
Enter two interesting, yet controversial concepts: doubly special relativity and gravity's rainbow.
Topics: Diaspora, Space Exploration, Speculative Fiction
Conception, Volume Two of the Darkside Trilogy by William Hayashi
Conception, Volume Two of the Darkside Trilogy tells the story of the extraordinary people who built their lunar secret habitat (chronicled in Discovery: Volume 1 of the Darkside Trilogy) and how they came together. These people, exclusively Black, conceive of, design and construct technological marvels that the collective scientific minds of the entire world cannot duplicate. And how, one might ask, did they manage to do what no one had ever done before, over and over and over again in so many disciplines, and in so many ways?
Topics: FTL, Space Exploration, Spacetime, Star Trek, Wormholes
Since the 1994 paper by Miguel Alcubierre (and the physics caveats to attaining it), there has been some interest in this area just because of the vastness of interstellar space and the limitations since the Mercury Space Program of Newtonian Space Travel.
Also, it is unlikely we will come in contact with 5-dimensional hyper-humans that want to see to their ancestors' survival by popping up a wormhole next to Saturn (note: not a spoiler to "Interstellar" by now).
The problem being addressed is species survival - dinosaurs were animals with small brains that had a really BAD day 65 million years ago. We homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man") are not. With our demand for energy and resources going unabated, and the fact that our neighboring planets are so far uninhabitable, we are reduced to several options:
1. Conservation and resource restrictions: This has proven untenable as our economy at this point in history has been based on scarcity and charging a premium for that scarcity.
2. Plus, we'd have to forgo our Victorian compunctions regarding birth control, and stop encouraging both large families and early teen motherhood by ignorance of the same.
3. Terra-forming other planets: Which, I guess is the attraction to Mars and the four presumed volunteers to a one-way mission to the Red Planet (good luck). Mars has no breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; it is roughly 1/3 g, so bones would lose calcium and muscles would atrophy; temperatures can dip below -87 degrees Celsius (or, -124.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Getting there would take 150-300 days unless the VASIMR plasma rocket is available by 2020.
4. Conversion to non-fossil fuels based energy infrastructure: see #1.
Alpha Centauri is 4.367 light years away, that's if we had a craft that could attain 99.9999% of c, the speed of light. It sounds ideal until you take into account the affects of time dilation: that would be roughly 3,088 years for any twins our astronauts had back on Earth. The "right stuff" would be similar to those embarking on Mars One - not just the vastness of space, but of time itself as a gulf.
That's also if there's a habitable but largely uninhabited planet around its twin or triple star system. It would take our Newtonian conventional rockets 165,000 years to reach it (75,000 by Dr. White's comparison to Voyager), enough time and 6,600 generations in the first case for our descendants to forget WHY they were sent there in the first place. If they survive at all, humanity would be decidedly different than the breed that left the cradle of Sol and Earth Millennium ago. What is now us, would be a distant or forgotten memory.
Whether eventually warp or non-causality impacting relativistic speeds, humanity will have to decide it wants to travel to another world, and try not to replicate the mistakes we've made on this one on the next.
Topics: Biology, Breast Cancer, Microbiology, Research, STEM
Microbiologist Agnes A. Day was born on July 20, 1952 in Plains, Georgia to Annie Lee Laster and David Laster. The youngest of thirteen children, Day was raised by her third-grade teacher, Reverend Mrs. Rose Marie Bryon. Day’s interest in science began when she and her older brother would walk through the woods catching insects and animals. After graduating from Mainland Sr. High School, Day attended Bethune-Cookman College in Florida where she received her B.S. degree in biology. Day then attended Howard University, graduating with her Ph.D. degree in microbiology in 1984.
After obtaining her graduate degree, Day became a research fellow in the Bone Research Branch at the National Institute of Dental Research, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She left in 1988 to join the faculty at Howard University as an assistant professor. Since 1992, Day has served as a tenured associate professor of microbiology in the College of Medicine at Howard University. She also has held the position of chair of the department of microbiology. In addition to instructing students in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and coordinating graduate courses, Day is known for her research on drug-resistant fungi and breast cancer health disparities. She serves as a Scientific Reviewer for research grants submitted to the National Institutes of Health, The National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense Cancer Research Initiatives. Day is in demand as a science expert, having been interviewed as part of a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) special and TheGrio’s Black History series. In addition, she has served on numerous panels as a scientific expert in microbiology and breast cancer research.
Topics: Earth, Inner Core, Geology, Geophysics, Research
There appears to be more to Earth's inner core than previously thought. Researchers at the University of Illinois and Nanjing University in China have determined that there is a mystery material at our planet's inner core. The researchers say they founded a distinct inner-inner core in the Earth using seismic waves.
Xiaodong Song, a professor of geology at the University of Illinois, says in a statement, "Even though the inner core is small - smaller than the moon - it has some really interesting features. It may tell us about how our planet formed, its history, and other dynamic processes of the Earth. It shapes our understanding of what's going on deep inside the Earth."
An interview of Abyssinia Media Group CEO, Carles "CJ" Juzang with GENESIS RADIO with host William Hayashi. Recorded Friday February 20, 2015. A BLACK SCIENCE FICTION SOCIETY Production.
Twenty-eight year Emmy Hughes has never quite fit in---she's six feet tall, dark-skinned, and daydreams of being Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. But when she is badly injured in a car accident that kills her mother, Emmy does not dream of fantastical worlds anymore---she just wants her shattered life to be normal again. Unfortunately, normalcy is the last thing in store for her once she meets Lake George's newest arrival, Dr. Gilead Knightly. Granted immortality from a line of people whose Great Ancestor marched into the Garden of Eden and ate from the Tree of Life, Gilead has been alive for centuries and has met everyone from Nubian kings to Napoleon.
Topics: Economy, Education, Politics, STEM, NASA, Space Exploration
This has always fascinated me in the intensity, and frankly the audience it comes from. I saw this cover in the grocery store and bought the magazine. I got the image above from the NatGeo site, and provide the link below. The title of the post came from the magazine cover. As a "hook," it did its job.
I got into an exchange twice individually with two younger men (I presume don't still) believe the moon landing occurred, i.e. it was faked. Even my testimony as a living eyewitness was not enough to dismay or sway their confidence in the Oracle of You Tube. They are in their thirties, and showed considerable sophistication in accessing and using technology otherwise.
The democratization of information has diminished what used to be the arbiters of what is true: The Encyclopedia Britannica; Colleges and Universities; Clergy; Civics; Congress; Engineering; Global Knowledge; Mathematics; Public Discourse; The Public Library, The Military; Professors; Science; Teachers; Technology and NASA. We now confuse "armchair quarterbacks" with actual trained professionals; conspiracy theorists with theoreticians; "millions-of-hits" online with peer review.
We are in the throws of hunted-for confirmation bias and willful (or, willed) ignorance. There is a disdain for deep expertise in any subject area, as if the "University of Google" - with noted "graduate" Jenny McCarthy - equips one fully for any rigorous endeavor. (Experiment: Use the same credentials on a mother giving birth, and see how far that gets you!) We now have Measles in Disneyland, a resurgence ofWhooping Cough and Meningitis at Princeton. As we advance technologically, regressive minds in the U.S. and the world over reach back for the "good old days" whose date they can never quite pin down, nor explain with clarity why backwards time travel - a violation of causality and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics - is a rational path to pursue. To quote a part of the article:
In this bewildering world we have to decide what to believe and how to act on that. In principle that’s what science is for. “Science is not a body of facts,” says geophysicist Marcia McNutt, who once headed the U.S. Geological Survey and is now editor of Science, the prestigious journal. “Science is a method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not.” But that method doesn’t come naturally to most of us. And so we run into trouble, again and again.
* * * * *
"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge."
"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense."
Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Meteorology, Nobel Prize
Following the rousing opening luncheon at the 2011 NOBCChE National Meeting, Dr. Warren M. Washington, a renowned climate-change scientist who received a National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama in 2010 and who was one of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winners, gave the Henry A. Hill Lecture, entitled, “Present and Future Climate Change: Grand Challenges for the Science, Engineering, and Society.” The Henry A. Hill Lecture honors the first black president of the American Chemical Society, and was co-sponsored by the ACS Northeast Section and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Chemistry Department.
Dr. Washington is a senior scientist and Chief Scientist of the DOE/UCAR Cooperative Agreement at National Center for Atmospheric Research in the Climate Change Research Section of the center's Climate and Global Dynamics Division. The Climate Change Research Section (CCR) is part of the Climate and Global Dynamics (CGD) Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Washington became one of the first developers of groundbreaking atmospheric computer models in collaboration with Akira Kasahara when he joined NCAR in the early 1960s. These models, which use fundamental laws of physics to predict future states of the atmosphere, have helped scientists understand climate change. As his research developed, Dr. Washington worked to incorporate the oceans and sea ice into climate models. Such models now include components that depict surface hydrology and vegetation as well as the atmosphere, oceans, and sea ice. His current research involves using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to study the impacts of climate change in the 21st century. His models were used extensively in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, for which NCAR scientists, including Washington, and colleagues around the world shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. *
As the second African-American to earn a doctorate in the atmospheric sciences, Washington has served as a role model for generations of young researchers from many backgrounds. He has mentored dozens of graduate students, as well as undergraduates in the UCAR-based SOARS program (Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science).
National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE): Dr. Warren M. Washington
* Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"
Topics: Diversity, Diversity in Science, Education, STEM, Women in Science
Related: The Columbia Law School and African American Policy Forum just published - "Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected." The young "sassy" African American female in school is typically on track to become the "angry black woman," or the favorite racial dog whistle of Ronald Reagan: "welfare queens," lamenting they are not "pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps" and irresponsibly pregnant as teens when we are making education a privilege of the elite and a burden to the poor; preferring "abstinence only" as sex education in many municipalities - like Texas - with exploding teen pregnancy rates. The ability to control when and what time one can and wants to get pregnant is the first stage of empowerment in women, regardless of culture; the second is an education that is affordable, meaningful and doesn't put the young in crushing debt. I lament the sex education we got in the 1970's that I used to laugh at - is far in advance of what happens now. My undergraduate degree was paid by my parents until an AFROTC scholarship picked up the rest and I served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. We will no longer be Winthrop's "shining city on a hill" making it difficult for women in general to be more independent, and African American women in particular. This is cutting off our noses to spite our faces to our own national peril. This is the way you create a third world country.
At a time when organizations urgently need workers with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math, new research suggests that women, and especially women of color, might be leaving STEM fields thanks to pervasive gender and racial bias.
Organizations today face a dilemma: Thanks to the growth in technology, they urgently need workers with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), but the number of qualified individuals with these skills isn’t keeping pace. What’s worse, it’s possible the growth in supply is actually being hampered by destructive workplace conditions.
That’s because women, and especially women of color, might be exiting the STEM fields thanks to pervasive gender and racial bias at work, according to a report by Joan C. Williams of the University of California, Hastings College of Law; Katherine Phillips of Columbia Business School; and Erika Hall of Emory University’s Gouizueta Business School.
This comic-book stars Jemir Johnson’s seminal character Jay Nova, a tough female Private Investigator who has a secret power to read minds. And while you’d think that would be an extremely useful ability in that line of work, it also has the unfortunate side-effect of causing her massive pain, therefor she only tries to use it as a last resort. There are 4 short stories in this book, the first three illustrated by Luis Sierra and the fourth and final story is illustrated by Winston Blakely.
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