BogelBits Update

My Favorite Bit this week was about coming up with the “next Bechdel Test” to evaluate representation of women in movies. The Bechdel-Wallace test assesses whether a film includes named women who are given a personality beyond their romantic relationship with men, but there are many more aspects to accurately representing women on film and […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about how a $19 loan allowed rice farmers in Bangladeshi villages to travel to the capital and work during seasonal famines. This loan paid for a round trip bus ticket and a few days of food, providing a level of security to villagers who had never been to Dhaka […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about how spies cultivate assets in foreign countries and the ways known contact between representatives of the Russian government and the Trump campaign reflect those spy strategies. One of the starkest lines that divides American society is the growing wealth gap between the highest and lowest earners and the […]

Greetings and happy new year! We start off 2018 with a recap of the posts from the final two weeks of 2017. My Favorite Bit was about a family in Maryland who donated $100 bills to the congregants at their church with the condition that they find a charitable way to spend the money. Participants […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about how eggs have the ability to control which sperm is used for fertilization. The idea of random fertilization is a key premise underlying Mendel’s laws of genetics, but a new study has demonstrated how sperm with specific genes fertilized eggs with a lower frequency than predicted. This calls […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about key phrases that Montessori teachers use when talking to children and why parents should use them as well. The Montessori method emphasizes a child-centered approach to education where children are asked and expected to guide their own learning. Through the use of declarative language and guiding questions you […]

My Favorite Bit this week was a guide to understanding the difference between millions, billions, and trillions. The human mind is not well suited to understanding and comparing large numbers which can make it difficult to understand and compare government expenditures, large businesses, and global corruption. One trick to help understand the relative size of […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about Mozak, an online game that helps researchers map the brain. The game provides players with images of 3-D neurons which they trace from the pictures to make it easier for scientists to classify and study them. These players from around the world have accelerated the rate of neuron […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about the world’s first “negative emissions” plant. Located in Iceland, the power plant uses the naturally occurring heat from volcanic activity to pump water past turbines and generate electricity. The power plant then pumps the carbon dioxide underground allowing it to be absorbed by the water before mixing with […]

My Favorite Bit this week was about why some words are reserved for specific groups of people. To explain why white people should not use the n-word, Ta-Nehisi Coates notes that it is widely accepted in society that certain words are for certain people and situations; he points to the fact that while his wife […]