I’m not a big fan of Valentine’s day, but I love the ads. They are so utterly, transparently awful that they cross the line from crassly offensive into entertaining. Business Insider just did a brilliant roundup of the worst offenders of all time. They have a certain evolutionary-psychology simplicity to them — if you present […]
Behavior
Young Indian feminists have begun calling her “Damini.” We don’t know her real name, but most of us have read about the terrible way she died. Damini was the 23-year-old woman attacked and gang-raped in New Delhi on December 16 while returning home at night on a bus with a male friend. She died 13 […]
I have an assignment from a magazine to write a profile of a woman astronomer. I am delighted about this: the magazine is excellent, the editors are superb, and the woman astronomer is impressive. I did notice that the assignment came just before the magazine announced publicly it needs to redress its problem with a […]
This morning I awoke to the kind of day that offers an easy excuse to skip the walk. The temperature gauge read -3F (-19C) when I crawled out of bed, and by the time I’d finished the tea and hot porridge my husband had prepared, it was still only -1F. But the dogs were eager, the […]
My husband and I have been in the same apartment for more than four years. It’s a truly lovely place — spacious (for New York) with high ceilings, stained glass, and parquet wood floors. Each room has the appropriate furniture and many of the walls have been painted a color of my own choosing. We […]
I have this theory. It’s not rocket science (which, by the way, rocket scientists tell me ain’t exactly brain surgery) and it’s not brain surgery (which brain surgeons tell me ain’t exactly rocket science). It goes like this: décor in your office is a reflection of your inner science nerd. You see, far more than […]