Sunshine list 2014

Report: student debt and low-wage faculty labor are rising faster at state universities with the highest-paid presidents (US)

Key Findings:

• The student debt crisis is worse at state schools with the highest-paid presidents. The sharpest rise in student debt at the top 25 occurred when executive compensation soared the highest.
• As students went deeper in debt, administrative spending outstripped scholarship spending by more than 2 to 1 at state schools with the highest-paid presidents.
• At state schools with the highest-paid presidents, part-time adjunct faculty increased 22 percent faster than the national average at all universities.
• At state schools with the highest-paid presidents, permanent faculty declined dramatically as a percentage of all faculty. By fall 2009, part-time and contingent faculty at the top 25 outnumbered permanent faculty for the first time.
• Average executive pay at the top 25 rose to nearly $1 million by 2012 — increasing more than twice as fast as the national average at public research universities.

One of the last cartoons by Charlie Hebdo...

Physics behind swimming well explained by people at the Race Club.

All you need to do is to put the science into practice

Seasonal Greetings from Wester Creative Office

France finally supports a possible military action by the US. Time to rename freedom fries back to French fries?

Another crazy bird story

Here's another crazy bird story: a robin has setup a nest on our front door:

Not to stress out the poor mother-to-be we're forced to use the garage door.

But every time someone uses the front door, the robin has to flee her nest. Then one can see 4 cute blue eggs:

Most anti-science Canadian government?

Harper's government may well be remembered as the most anti-science Canadian government in the history of the country. Here's a chronology of the Conservative government's campaign against science since 2006 from the blog of John Dupuis. The results of such policies are already quite visible: according to the latest report of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, Canada has dropped in rank from 16th to 23rd in overall expenditures on research and development relative to GDP compared to other economically developed countries.