Month: October 2016

Though women earn almost half of the PhDs in geoscience, they only hold 10 percent of the tenured faculty positions in this field. A recent paper published in Nature Geoscience takes a look at the career pipeline that feeds researchers into these positions, finding that women receive fewer excellent recommendation letters than their male colleagues. This is likely to be one of the factors holding women back at this critical time in their careers.

Under-representation of women in STEM disciplines is well documented, and the disparity tends to increase in the years between postdoctoral positions and faculty positions. Previous research on this phenomenon has focused on everything from implicit bias to historical, social, and institutional factors.

This most recent study focused on the role of recommendation letters, which are an important part of academic advancement. They often help labs and institutions determine if the “fit” is right for an applicant. Previous studies have shown that there is evidence of qualitative differences in recommendation letters for men versus women, but this new study focuses specifically on the issue of overall “tone” in the recommendations.

If you bought an original "fat" PlayStation 3 before April of 2010, you can now claim some cash from Sony as part of the settlement of a long-litigated case over the removal of the system's "Other OS" feature.

Using an online claim form, all early PS3 owners in the United States can receive $9 from Sony (with proof of purchase or evidence of a PSN sign-in from the system). Users that can provide evidence that they actually used the "Other OS" feature to install Linux on their PS3 can receive $55. Claims are due by December 7, and payments should be sent out early next year pending final approval of the settlement.

The opening of claims comes after a long legal saga that began in March of 2010, when Sony announced it would be removing the "Other OS" feature from the PS3. Sony claimed it was a security concern, but many class-action lawsuits filed in 2010 alleged the company was more worried about software piracy.

Enlarge / In some cases, stray methane is burned to limit how much escapes into the atmosphere. (credit: Lawrence Berkeley Lab)

Two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, contribute the most to global warming. If we're going to control them, we need to understand where they come from and how they end up in our atmosphere. That has been relatively easy for carbon dioxide, but we still lack a solid understanding of the global atmospheric methane budget.

Recently, a team of researchers has undertaken a new investigation into the global atmospheric methane budget. The researchers found that, contrary to expectations, emissions of methane from fossil fuel production appear to be dropping. But the overall flux of methane is much larger than we'd thought.

Main methane contributors

Until now, the global fossil fuel industry has been thought to contribute 15 to 22 percent of the total methane emissions. This industry includes both the production and use of energy sources including natural gas, oil, and coal. Atmospheric methane also comes from natural sources, both biological and geological. Unfortunately, natural and human-driven sources are often located in the same geographic areas. This presents a problem for anyone trying to piece together the global atmospheric methane budget.

Enlarge / A Galaxy Note 7 that burned a little girl in Minnesota. (credit: KSTP.com)

Samsung is giving former owners of the Galaxy Note 7 a little money for their trouble, but you'll get a lot more money if you decide to exchange your potentially explosive device for another Samsung phone. As announced in a press release today, Samsung will give customers $25 in credit if they want a full refund or to exchange their Note 7 for a phone from another manufacturer, and "up to" $100 in credit if they exchange it for "any Samsung smartphone."

Samsung's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge (which, as the company is currently reminding users, have not been recalled) are its next most recent flagships and are probably the best choice for people who want a replacement and don't want to switch brands. Last year's Galaxy Note 5 is also still for sale from many carriers and retailers, and while it's a step down in many ways, it still has the same size screen and S Pen support.

Samsung has significantly lowered its profit forecast for the quarter thanks to recall costs and lost sales of the Note 7—down to about $4.6 billion from about $6.8 billion. This looks like just a small drop in the bucket next to the company's $70 billion pile of cash, but the damage done to its reputation may be harder to deal with.

This image, provided by publisher Devolver Digital, is a slightly sweetened shot of in-game action, but it pretty well represents the kind of chainsaw fun you'll have in Shadow Warrior 2. (credit: Devolver Digital)

Shadow Warrior: You either remember it as "another one of those Duke Nukem-y games from the '90s," or you worship at its altar thanks to memories of it being one of your earliest first-person shooter experiences. That memory probably wasn't swayed much by the series' 2013 reboot from Polish game developer Flying Wild Hog—a solid, budget-priced reimagining that neither reinvented the FPS wheel nor proved delightfully faithful to the original. It felt simultaneously too new and too old—a nostalgic rehash, not a nostalgic delight.

What a difference three years makes. Any surprise that the so-so reboot got a sequel will vanish as soon as you lay eyes on Shadow Warrior 2—the kind of game that the 2013 edition should have been in the first place. The baddies are bigger; the guns, swords, and launchers are more plentiful; the customization, loot, and crafting systems are hookier; and the giant battles take place in more colorful, wild levels that shine particularly well in co-op—especially if you help friends play through levels you've already beaten.

Party tricks, blood-and-guts style