Social science sites of the week

In the news this week: sad death of David Bowie

Our recent blog posting linked to some materials on his branding and celebrity status

New Alcohol guidelines.
Get the facts and access to some background scientific data on our research blog.
See if the policies are evidence based in this review from the Alliance for Useful Evidence
Find out how much you really drink - how many units and calories you consume (what they equal in burgers and exercise!) by using the Drink aware app (Note this may still have the older guidelines for men). It can help you set goals with rewards.

Do extroverts earn more?
Interesting report released this week by the Sutton Trust which examines the link between personality, aspirations, career prospects and socioeconomic status. It finds that people with extrovert personalities are more likely to earn more. They are also less likely to come from poorer backgrounds. Read the full text and find out what methodology it used from the website.


Feminism in the School curriculum.
This week MPs discussed the proposal for feminism to be dropped from the A Level politics curriculum. See the draft curriculum from 2015.
Read the discussion in parliament held on 11th January from the official Hansard. In the debate the government minister admitted: We recognise that the work of female political thinkers was not given due weight in the draft content. The final content will set out clearly those female political thinkers whose work should be studied.
Reaction from TUC
The petition from June Eric-Udorie
Womens Equality Party reaction
Fawcett society reaction.
Jacqueline Guderley – cofounder of @stemettes inspiring girls in STENM careers

Also on our scoop.it page this week
Is History written by men about men?
Interesting survey by Slate Magazine. They surveyed 614 books published in 2014 by 80 publishing houses (USA) and found that 75.8% had male authors

State of the Union 2016
Read the full transcript of President Obama’s State of the Union speech on the White House website
Politico has a video of the address and main responses.

The American Presidency Project has an archive of past speeches. It also has facts and figures on the length and number of words in each of the speeches.6016 in 2016! Atlantic magazine mapped the frequency of words in all speeches prior to 2015 giving insight into changing political rhetoric.

US National Archives has some historic images of speeches

Recent presidential speeches, drafts and recordings have also been made available online via
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum .
Go directly to the audio recordings 1920-1945 they include state of the union addresses, fireside chats and discussions of the New deal

Technical Platform on the Measurement and Reduction of Food Loss and Waste (FAO)
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the CGIAR research program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) launched in December a new information-sharing and coordination network involving diverse stakeholders where partners will work together to enhance the measurement of food loss and waste, exchange knowledge and information, and share best practices to tackle the global challenges of food loss and waste.It provides free access to news and international resources topics includes statistics and resources on measuring food waste.
Wrap provides free access to the latest statistics on household and retail waste in the Uk. It also maintains a food waste resources portal

World Internet Report 2015 published.
The Center for the Digital Future has issued the latest annual edition of the World Internet Project Report
20 nations are covered: Australia, Bahrain, Chile, China, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Uruguay. Findings cover 10 broad subject areas:
Internet Users and Non-users
Information Seeking Online
Access to Online Services
The Internet and Social Connections
Politics and the Internet
Media Use, Reliability, and Importance
User-generated Content and Social Media
Online Entertainment
Online Purchasing and Personal Privacy
Online Communication
All reports from 2000 onwards can be downloaded from the website. More reports on Internet usage in the UK can be obtained from Ofcom and the Oxford Internet studies.

 
Finally.
Because of the wintry weather. A fabulous historic image of snow flakes from the magnificent Royal Society picture library. Fourteen studies of snowflakes by Robert Hooke, from a paper submitted to the Royal Society. 1662