Yale University didn't wait for federal civil rights officials to determine whether the presence of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity was contributing to a hostile sexual environment. The University has banned George W. Bush's old frat from the campus for five years.
In October, members of DKE and pledges gathered at night, near the women's freshman dorms and chanted "No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal!" and "My name is Jack, I'm a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women and fill them with my semen."
This was one of a series of incidents involving frats using misogynistic rituals in their initiation rites. A group of Yale students and alumni alleged in a confidential report to the Department of Education that these and the university's failure to address complaints about sexual violence on campus constituted a hostile sexual environment. The investigation is ongoing.
[Photo credit: Yale art and architecture building, no particular relation to the DKE debacle, but a very cool image of the Yale campus. Lauren Manning, Creative Commons.]
'Upstreamism': Your zip code affects your health as much as genetics
Upstreamism advocate Rishi Manchanda calls us to understand health not as a "personal responsibility" but a "common good."
- Upstreamism tasks health care professionals to combat unhealthy social and cultural influences that exist outside — or upstream — of medical facilities.
- Patients from low-income neighborhoods are most at risk of negative health impacts.
- Thankfully, health care professionals are not alone. Upstreamism is increasingly part of our cultural consciousness.
Cornell engineers create artificial material with 3 key traits of life
An innovation may lead to lifelike self-reproducing and evolving machines.
- Scientists at Cornell University devise a material with 3 key traits of life.
- The goal for the researchers is not to create life but lifelike machines.
- The researchers were able to program metabolism into the material's DNA.
After death, you’re aware that you’ve died, say scientists
Some evidence attributes a certain neurological phenomenon to a near death experience.
Time of death is considered when a person has gone into cardiac arrest. This is the cessation of the electrical impulse that drive the heartbeat. As a result, the heart locks up. The moment the heart stops is considered time of death. But does death overtake our mind immediately afterward or does it slowly creep in?
- A huge segment of America's population — the Baby Boom generation — is aging and will live longer than any American generation in history.
- The story we read about in the news? Their drain on social services like Social Security and Medicare.
- But increased longevity is a cause for celebration, says Ashton Applewhite, not doom and gloom.
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