Link Round-up 10th February

Here's a quick look at of some of the things I found note worthy and interesting over the last week.

1. Michael Mosley Infests Himself with Parasites
   Michael is a TV doctor known for doing the extreme.  I believe some of his previous escapades have involved sleep deprivation and trying sodium thiopental (the truth drug), so he is definitely an extreme science broadcaster. But for me this is something else. The fact that the results will help medicine is fantastic, but will the actual program be real science or all shock factor? We will wait and see.
2. Disk Detective 
   Two Friday's ago citizen science supremos zooniverse launched their newest project, Disc Detective. This time the task is to locate regions of dust around stars similar to an asteroid field to help identify currently forming or recently formed planets. If you're not familiar with citizen science projects they're all about using lots of people to do data ID tasks we can't leave computers to do, and they give everyone the change to do some cutting edge science from the comfort of their own home.
3.  Nature and Sexism
   Ok so rather than one link, this is a number of links. Nature is one of the biggest and most respected research journals in the world. If science makes the news there is a good chance it was published in Nature. However, Nature has been embroiled in some controversy over its handling of the response to a very interesting article it published on its own stats for female author and reviewership, which declared that it must do better to get more women published and involved in the publishing process. Which is good, right? They acknowledge the problem and pledge to do something. But that was not the end. Things really kicked off when they published an inflammatory letter saying that, in short, research quality is king and that a male dominated reviewing panel is not a problem, followed by a hasty retraction of the publication of the letter. Which all leaves a question hanging in the air. Why did someone not recognise the rubbish they were about to print and stop it in the first place? What does the fact the letter ended up in nature say about the views of some of their staff? The organisation as a whole may be working to try to even out gender bias, but is everyone really on board with that? These are all questions that bother me. I know some people don't want to see the wood for the trees when it comes to under representation of women in science. However, it starts to become worrying when someone at such a big organisation rubber stamps that view. Reader comments are comments and don't reflect the views of an organisation, but I find it concerning none the less. Here is a fantastic blog post by Kelly Hills giving her view on the situation in much more depth and clarity than I have, which you should definitely check out.

And finally... Patrick Stewart Does Sesame Street
Benedict Cumberbatch's Sesame Street Spot may be the top Sesame Street celebrity appearance of the moment, but it will never beat Patrick Stewart's for me!