Khalil's Picks (25 May 2012)

Today, we have some awesome writings from seven (a factor of 42) equally awesome young or early-career science writers. Read about the science of oppressive urban environments, open science, the worlds first stem cell drug and more All here.

Rachel Nuwer, freelance science journalist, writes about a new research which aims to curtail oppressive urban environments in big cities, in Txchnologist. Oh, trees help.

Researchers Seek to Measure the Oppressiveness of Streetscapes

In the urban canyons, pedestrians shuffle in shadowed gullies carved between skyscrapers. Enclosed by hundreds of stories of steel and concrete, the hapless passersby feel the buildings loom over them like dark sentries. It may sound like a scene from Blade Runner, but some researchers are concerned that mega-cities like New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong darken more than pedestrian walkways. The built environment, some believe, may be an additional source of anxiety in an urbanites day-to-day life, as much as pressure from work and relationships.

Brett Szmajda, an editorial intern at Cosmos, writes about a speech-analysis software that can assess your stress levels for Cosmos Online.

Software to monitor your working memory

A nifty piece of software can now monitor workers and pick up on subtle cues about when they are not coping. The BrainGauge software, announced by Australian scientists at the CeBIT information and technology conference in Sydney, detects stress levels from vocal tones, and may improve worker retention rates in intense work environments such as air-traffic control, emergency services and call centres.

Victoria Charlton, at Imperial College London, UK, has a new blog post in her impressive I, Science blog, Science Means Business. This time, Victoria takes a look at open science. Her post starts with this sentence: Giving the public access to the research that they fund is about much more than eliminating journal pay-walls. A lede which will get you to read the whole post, Im sure.

Access Denied

Open access is a hot topic right now. For months, academics have been taking an uncharacteristic interest in the detailed financials of the publishing world, and, for many scientists, the fight for our right to party no, sorry, to access largely incomprehensible journal articles has taken on a revolutionary tone. Rumour has it, the mathematicians are revolting. (Against Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier, that is.) Now dont get me wrong, Im not against open access. Quite the opposite, actually. But, heretical though this may sound coming from a tax-paying science graduate and bona-fide member of the public, I do think were in danger of losing sight of the bigger picture on this one. Please, hear me out.

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Khalil's Picks (25 May 2012)