Rhinoplasty is one of the most common operations in facial plastic surgery. Every year, half a million people seek consultation for enhancement of the appearance of their nose. A successful rhinoplasty operation generally improves the health related quality of life and the self-esteem. Nevertheless most of the time a decision about changing our nose is not easily made. […] … learn more→

The Supreme Court recently decided that Trinity Lutheran Church should be eligible for a Missouri state grant covering the cost of recycled playground surfaces. Though the state originally rejected the church’s application on grounds of separation of church and state, the Supreme Court ruled that this rejection was, in fact, religious discrimination. The case’s impact […] … learn more→

Our leaders of higher education have an amazing fetish for growth of institutions. They’ve sacrificed every standard, every form of reason to pull in more, more, more, students. I have, of course, criticized all these decisions, particularly the decision to attract violent ideologues instead of scholars, but one group I’ve only mentioned a little is […] … learn more→

It is a steamy intellectual moment when a conference presentation concludes and that taut, expectant silence descends. “Yes, I’ll take questions,” you reply – breathlessly – surveying the array of bored, bemused, envious and angry expressions. For ingénue PhD students and early career researchers, such raw, inescapable exposure to the merciless probing of academia’s numerous […] … learn more→

This week I was at a sociology of education summer school. As you might expect, I was there to talk about academic writing and publishing. In this context, I wanted to situate my usual topic in a wider context, and not simply offer strategies and advice. Here’s the abstract I wrote for the ‘lecture’: Educational […] … learn more→

There’s no shortage of dire warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence these days. Modern prophets, such as physicist Stephen Hawking and investor Elon Musk, foretell the imminent decline of humanity. With the advent of artificial general intelligence and self-designed intelligent programs, new and more intelligent AI will appear, rapidly creating ever smarter machines that […] … learn more→

There is a growing crisis within children’s mental health, and this is not a term used lightly – between 2010 and 2015 there was a 50% increase in hospital admissions because of children self-harming. And in 2016 Childline reported the highest ever number of callers expressing suicidal thoughts. This is a figure that has doubled […] … learn more→

Most parents view their children’s playing of electronic games as potentially problematic – or even dangerous. Yet many children are engaging with electronic games more frequently than ever. Concerns about electronic gaming do not stack up against the research. So, how much gaming is too much for young children? Electronic games (also called computer or […] … learn more→

Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale has remained popular since its publication in 1985. It has been translated into dozens of languages, made into a film in 1990, and even became a ballet and an opera. It is read in schools the world over. Most recently, there has been a new wave of interest in […] … learn more→

Staring at my overdrawn bank account, I laid my head on my kitchen counter and sobbed in actual despair. That was the fall of 2013. ‘I would never be a real professor,’ I thought. ‘What the hell was I going to do?’. That time seems far away now. Six months later, I had a contract […] … learn more→