Horrible Science Annual 2016

The Horrible Science Annual 2015 is crammed full of suffering scientists, amazing activities, explosive experiments and slimy games. Learn all the mind-blowing facts about bloody biology, frightful physics, chaotic chemistry from the award-winning series. It's the annual with the squishy bits left in!

The social sector provides services to a wide range of people throughout the world with the aim of creating social value. While doing good is great, doing it well is even better. These organizations, whether nonprofit, for-profit, or public, increasingly need to demonstrate that their efforts are making a positive impact on the world, especially as competition for funding and other scarce resources increases. This heightened focus on impact is positive: learning whether we are making a difference enhances our ability to address pressing social problems effectively and is critical to wise stewardship of resources. Yet demonstrating efficacy remains a big hurdle for most organizations. The Goldilocks Challenge provides a parsimonious framework for measuring the strategies and impact of social sector organizations. A good data strategy starts first with a sound theory of change that helps organizations decide what elements they should monitor and measure. With a theory of change providing solid underpinning, the Goldilocks framework then puts forward four key principles, the CART principles: Credible data that are high quality and analyzed appropriately, Actionable data will actually influence future decisions; Responsible data create more benefits than costs; and Transportable data build knowledge that can be used in the future and by others. Mary Kay Gugerty and Dean Karlan combine their extensive experience working with nonprofits, for-profits and government with their understanding of measuring effectiveness in this insightful guide to thinking about and implementing evidence-based change. This book is an invaluable asset for nonprofit, social enterprise and government leaders, managers, and funders-including anyone considering making a charitable contribution to a nonprofit-to ensure that these organizations get it "just right" by knowing what data to collect, how to collect it, how it can be analyzed, and drawing implications from the analysis. Everyone who wants to make positive change should focus on the top priority: using data to learn, innovate, and improve program implementation over time. Gugerty and Karlan show how.

Women in Behavior Science is a unique text that showcases the perspectives, stories, and lessons of notable female behavior scientists at all stages of their careers, with relevance for the field’s many women pursuing careers in academia today. With the insights of esteemed female behavior scientists from diverse backgrounds, the book brings together their challenges and successes to include their own distinct perspectives on their professional and personal development. The book includes three sections that span the different phases of the academic lifespan from graduate school to retirement and post-retirement. Each section covers a wide range of topics such as expanding one’s work in new and diverse areas; deciding when and how to make transitions; making something out of nothing or very little; navigating relationships with family, children, and life partners both inside and outside of academy; values-based living; how to thrive in competitive environments; and building values-consistent repertoires in settings that may be gender-marginalizing. Presenting a behind-the-scenes view of academia, the authors also provide open and vulnerable narratives about their psychological and socio-cultural experiences, their stories of marginalization, their difficulties with mental and physical health challenges, grief and loss, and caring for others with chronic health conditions. Reframing the cultural-level recognition of female behavior scientists today, this book is essential reading for graduate and postgraduate students of Behavioral Science, especially for those focusing on diversity and cultural issues. It is also a must-read for professionals interested in understanding the experiences of diverse groups in this field.

This timely book examines the interaction of health research and regulation with law through empirical analysis and the application of key anthropological concepts to reveal the inner workings of human health research. Through ground-breaking empirical inquiry, Regulatory Stewardship of Health Research explores how research ethics committees (RECs) work in practice to both protect research participants and promote ethical research. This thought-provoking book provides a new perspective on the regulation of health research by demonstrating how RECs and other regulatory actors seek to fulfil these two functions by performing a role of ‘regulatory stewardship’.

Current inquiries into the political economy of financial policymaking in Malaysia tend to focus on the high-level drama of crisis politics or simply point to the limited impact of post-crisis financial reforms, given that politico-business relations have remained close. In so doing, pundits ignore a number of intriguing questions: what is the relationship between financial development and financialisation and how has it played out in the Malaysian context? And more generally: how can a country like Malaysia become significantly more financially developed, yet fail to emancipate the financial system from political control; a core element of the financial development discourse? To unravel the complexities of this puzzle, this book subjects the history and contemporary practices of financial policymaking in Malaysia to scrutiny. It argues that to understand financial development in Malaysia, its progress and reversals, it is important to conceptualise it as a political, rather than a merely technical process. In so doing, the book echoes a more profound concern in the political economy literature, namely the evolving relationship between states and markets, and the supposed retreat or reassertion of the state at a time of increasing (financial) globalisation. The book can generate further insights into the evolving role of the state with regard to broader processes of development and marketisation, as they relate specifically to finance.

From the best-selling author of Why We Get Fat, a groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé that makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick. Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. With his signature command of both science and straight talk, Gary Taubes delves into Americans' history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss; and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society.

From the content: Introduction Mathematical modelling Measurement Scientific explanation Context of discovery Context of justification Uncertainty of scientific knowledge Morality and moral philosophy System ofvalues associated with science General principles of moral decision-making Researchethics Methodological and ethical issues related to experimentation Methodological and ethical issues to researchinformation Methodological and ethical issuesrelated to legal protection of intellectual property

This volume challenges the prima facie that conspiracy theories are irrational beliefs, and presents fresh perspectives from the philosophical community on what is becoming an issue of increasing relevance in our time.