Quickies: Scientists Against Sexism, Body Shaming Black Female Athletes, and Cystic Fibrosis Drug Price Controversy

• Hundreds sign letter criticizing Science for reinforcing “damaging stereotypes” – “After an advice columnist for Science Careers suggested a postdoc ‘put up with’ an adviser’s wandering gaze in June, and an author of a piece in Science partly credited his success to his wife (a Ph.D. scientist) who assumed ‘the bulk of the domestic responsibilities’ in July, some readers have gotten fed up.”
• A Sociology of the Reddit Revolt – Sociological Images breaks down the latest implosion of reddit. Get some popcorn.
• How Vandalism And Fear Ended Abortion In Northwest Montana – “According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2008 about a third of American women seeking access to abortion services traveled more than 25 miles to get them. Today, a woman in Kalispell has to drive 120 miles — each way — to Missoula to get an abortion.”
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Body Shaming Black Female Athletes Is Not Just About Race – “The bigger issue here is the public pressure regarding femininity, especially among our athletes. It’s a misogynist idea that is detrimental to professional women athletes and to all the young girls who look up to these women as role models because it can stifle their drive to excellence, not only on the playing field, but in other aspects of life.” From mrmisconception.
• The Kindness Cure – “Mindfulness meditation is best known for its positive effects on practitioners’ brains and bodies. My research suggests it may also encourage compassion toward others.”
• Women’s Brains Appear More Vulnerable To Alzheimer’s Than Men’s – “The research on women with mild cognitive impairment was part of a large ongoing study called the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Researchers studied up to eight years of records on about 400 men and women in that study who had mild cognitive impairment, a condition that often leads to Alzheimer’s.”
• Doctors challenge Vertex over high price of cystic fibrosis drug – “Now, nearly three weeks after Vertex won US approval for a two-drug therapy called Orkambi that eventually could treat roughly half of the 30,000 Americans with cystic fibrosis, Quinton and his medical colleagues are going public with their objection to the company’s decision to price the drug at $259,000 per patient annually.”
• How Slavery Built Charleston – “Two historians are trying to memorialize locations in the city where slaves were openly sold and auctioned. And they’re everywhere.” Not so much hiding in plain sight as white people just ignoring or glorifying the past. 

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