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Comment Re:Color me shocked (Score 4, Interesting) 209

by KernelMuncher (#45871409) Attached to: Headhunters Can't Tell Anything From Facebook Profiles
I've got to disagree about your belief that young people can not be effective managers. The military routinely turns young college graduates into officers and gives them leadership responsibilities. That system has been successful in the United States for more than two hundred years.

The main difference between the military and the private sector is in the preparation. The military has a specialized training program (OCS) specifically tailored for leadership principles that all applicants must pass before becoming officers. That lasts for several months. And, for young officers, there's a great support system of experienced officers and NCO's who can give them advice.

Private corporations generally don't offer training and mentorship programs any more due to cost cutting measures. It's common to have people promoted to management positions with no training whatsoever. And the closest civilian equivalent, an MBA, seems to breed arrogance.

Submission + - FDA Not Convinced Antibacterial Soaps Stop the Spread of Germs (washingtonpost.com) 5

Submitted by barlevg
barlevg writes: It's long been a concern that the widespread use of antibacterials soaps is contributing towards the evolution of drug-resistant "superbugs," but as the Washington Post reports, the Food and Drug Administration also does not believe that there is any evidence to support that the antibacterial agents in soaps are any more effective at killing germs than simply washing with soap and water. Under the terms of a proposal under consideration, the FDA will require that manufacturers making such claims will have to show proof. If they fail to do so, they will be required to change their marketing or even stop selling the products altogether.

The Washington Post cites concerns that triclosan interferes with hormone production, but it should be noted that is is based on animal studies, and that at least one human study has shown no effect on hormone levels in adults using toothpaste containing triclosan.

Submission + - Two supermassive black holes about to embrace (earthsky.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: NASA's WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) satellite was looking at a distant galaxy, some 3.8 billion light-years away, and saw something rather unusual.

At first they thought that they saw a galaxy was forming new stars at a furious rate, but upon closer checking, they found that they were seeing two super-massive black holes spiraling closer and closer to each others.

The dance of these black hole duos starts out slowly, with the objects circling each other at a distance of about a few thousand light-years.

As the black holes continue to spiral in toward each other, they get closer, separated by just a few light-years.

Supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies typically shoot out pencil-straight jets, but, in this case, the jet showed a zigzag pattern. According to the scientists, a second massive black hole could, in essence, be pushing its weight around to change the shape of the other black hole’s jet.

Visible-light spectral data from the Gemini South telescope in Chile showed similar signs of abnormalities, thought to be the result of one black hole causing disk material surrounding the other black hole to clump. Together, these and other signs point to what is probably a fairly close-knit set of circling black holes, though the scientists can’t say for sure how much distance separates them.

For merging black holes, please see http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/news/pulsar20131106.html

Article at http://earthsky.org/science-wire/two-supermassive-black-holes-in-death-spiral

Submission + - Why Competing for Tenure is Like Trying to Become a Drug Lord 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Scott Jaschik writes in Inside Higher Education that the academic job market is structured in many respects like a drug gang, with an expanding mass of outsiders and a shrinking core of insiders and with income distribution within gangs extremely skewed in favor of those at the top, while the rank-and-file street sellers earned even less than employees in legitimate low-skilled activities. According to Alexandre Afonso, academic systems rely at least to some extent on the existence of a supply of “outsiders” ready to forgo wages and employment security in exchange for the prospect of prestige, freedom and reasonably high salaries that tenured positions entail. "What you have is an increasing number of brilliant PhD graduates arriving every year into the market hoping to secure a permanent position as a professor and enjoying freedom and high salaries, a bit like the rank-and-file drug dealer hoping to become a drug lord," says Afonso. "To achieve that, they are ready to forgo the income and security that they could have in other areas of employment by accepting insecure working conditions in the hope of securing jobs that are not expanding at the same rate." The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on adjunct lecturers who rely on food stamps to make ends meet. Afonso adds that he is not trying to discourage everyone from pursuing Ph.D.s but that prospective graduate students need to go in with a full awareness of the job market.

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