The blogs of the scientists who lived on fake Mars for a year in Hawaii make it clear how important food is for astronaut's mental health as well as physical nutritional needs: https://walking-on-red-dust.com/2016/06/18/domemade-food/
A couple of years ago I listened to a talk by a plant scientist from Florida. They had some experiments, seedlings growing in the International Space Station. Every day one of the astronauts took photos of the seedlings, to document growth. He said that it was more or less everyone's favorite task in the space station. "Today I get to look at the plants", the astronauts would say.
The results of that study do not surprise me at all. At my company, there are no rules about clutter, but the cleaners wipe down everyone's desk every day as best they can. I'm a clutter-free type of person: my desk has nothing but my monitor/keyboard, phone, lamp, a notepad, and a small potted plant. When I come in and everything's been moved a few inches (like the plant all the way to the edge of the desk or phone right up against the monitor) it drives me insane. And then I feel bad, because someone cleans my fucking desk everyday and I just get annoyed about it.
Maybe Velcro everything that you don't want moved, or put little tape outlines or stick paper shapes under them, so they know where to move it back to when they're done.
I'm an embedded engineer, and we have those "do not clean" stickers we put on our desks. I'd rather wipe my own desk on my own schedule than have a cleaner accidentally disturb some RF equipment or spill SMD components.
Probably it's just to provide a clean-feeling workspace. It's nice to start a day and the coffee machine is clean and the trash bins are empty - especially the latter is important, given that food waste etc. can quickly develop a nasty smell.
I agree but couldn't the employees themselves take care of such stuff?
We share such minor duties in the office (and food waste goes to the bio waste bin if suitable or gets packed in small bags). Maybe we're simply not spoiled enough! ;)
Studies have shown a major factor in young people's likeliness of going into science is whether their families think highly of science and science careers (regardless of parents' education levels). I'd imagine the ivory-tower nature of science can contribute a class divides in this respect as well.
At least that kind of thing doesn't happen today. Take this study that says eating lots of pasta doesn't make you fat. Oh wait. (Note the two funding sources in the right-hand column)
I'm curious. Does this apply to just French journals? Or just French scientists? How would that work with journals based in other countries? Or multi-national research collaborations?
The word "accident" is really indicative of the culture. Words shape how we think about things. As someone who's lived and cycled in both the US and Western Europe, I can say that the level of personal responsibility W. European drivers seemed to feel for not killing me was much higher. US drivers will zip past me at high speeds with a foot of clearance. It makes you feel like they think hitting you would be similar running over a squirrel. Of course most drivers who hit cyclists feel absolutely distraught after it happens--they're not monsters. But it baffles me how many Americans seemed surprised that could happen until it does.
Daunting as this list seems, of these points and fixes are of course interrelated. Even small tweaking can bring big improvements. Take open science. Improvements to funding are needed to promote long-term projects, but in absence of those kinds of grants, open science is all the more important. Sharing partial results and details of studies that might not make it into publications leaves a baton for others to pick up and make the most of their limited funding time.
And speaking of open science, making research public as it's happening (not even results, just what you're studying) can help prevent redundant concurrent studies in multiple labs and facilitate collaboration, also making the most of the limited funding scientists have.
Yes, I think the general public sees science as an unstoppable, infallible force. Most scientists I know already know and talk about these problems (though I agree this is the most comprehensive, coherent presentation of them I've seen). I hope articles like this help non-scientists realize the that the institution of science is fragile, and must be fostered through innovation, funded, and actively protected.
"And they may face discrimination based on race, class or other factors."
In urban areas, where access to transportation and availability of jobs is better, this is really the crux of the issue. Employers (often unfairly) view middle class kids as more reliable. So even if they think working class kids will work harder (another common view in my experience), they see the middle class teenagers as less of a risk.
Isn't middle class also a working class? I was brought up as middle class, not especially wealthy would even classify it towards the lower end, but highly educated as both parents were academics.
I worked every summer since I was 13, and 16ish to 18 also during the school year now and then (17/18 was fairly lucky early it was really early 2000's and I mastered PHP rather well so made actually decent money building websites when web2.0, CMS and dynamic content were still meaningful buzzwords).
In the academic, Marxist sense, yes. But I was using the term "working class" rather as a synonym for minimum wage, blue collar workers, or in this case teenagers whose parents have those jobs. The point really is that middle class kids (like you were) can get jobs (like you did), whereas poor kids often can't.
Well no. The working class is the bottom end of the middle class (historically factory workers, currently teachers and clerking jobs). The upper end of the middle-class are people making 150k+ a year. The middle-end have jobs within the 80k to 100k range.
Middle class kids are unreliable because they don't "need" the work. They want it to buy things for themselves or to feel a sense of independence, but anything 'more important' that comes up will cut infront of work. If they need to go to school, or camp, or have a family event...they'll do that instead of work because work isn't a necessity.
The poor on the otherhand will go to work over all else, and they'll never have their parents give them a choice between going to work next month or going on vacation in Hawaii.
This is absolutely true. People, especially people in the position to be hiring others have some truly classist concepts of "values." Many think poor people are dishonest, likely to steal, lazy. Total rubbish.
No, it is not absolutely true. I came from a middle class family, but from the time I started working summer jobs, that was it for the family vacation. The employer got two weeks notice at the end of the summer--I didn't always get two weeks notice from an employer.
Yeah, meant the bit about poor teenagers being reliable, because they need the jobs. Didn't mean to agree with the sentiment that middle-class kids are unreliable. Most probably aren't. Though I myself once flaked on a job in college to spend the summer in the city my boyfriend lived in. So guess I'm anecdotal evidence they can be. I found another job in the other city, but likely wouldn't have given up a sure-thing to take that risk if I hadn't had a safety net.
I'm not saying that middle-class children are flakey, but you have to consider how most low-paying employers treat their employees.
They offer X hours per week, and constantly juggle the scheduling to suit themselves so workers don't neccesarily know when they will be called in. They do things like require long hours on one day (e.g. a 12 hour day), then cut short the hours on the next day to avoid the worker being classified as full-time or overtime pay.
It's these kind of annoyances that a middle-class kid will just ignore. They have other obligations and can get away with leaving money on the table if necessary. They don't really care if they work 25 hours a week or 20 hours. To a poor worker though those 5 hours can make or break the budget, so they'll come work a 12 hour shift if the boss requires it instead of dropping the whole day and thus getting less hours per week.
You're absolutely right about the dichotomy with respect to perception.
In my original comment, I was going to post "perception is reality" because perception, default thinking, and other heuristics underpin so much of what constitutes discrimination.
This is, of course, absolutely unfair, but most of us at least have a chance to shape how others perceive us. In the end, it's surprising how much the "little, superficial" things matter in that respect.
For regular, consistent productivity (not just the occasional project over a day or two) I have to change my physical environment. This means having an office I go to (or library when I was a student) that--and this is key--is far away enough from my home that it's not convenient to just leave and go home when I'm sick of working. It has to be more of a hassle to go home than to just do another half hour of work (and then another, and another, and so on).
