Fabiola Gianotti, the Italian physicist who first revealed to the world that the Higgs boson exists, will be the next director general of CERN, the laboratory where the elementary particle was discovered.

Gianotti will be the sixteenth person — and the first woman — to lead the European physics powerhouse, which is based at the Swiss-French border outside Geneva and recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. She was the spokesperson for ATLAS, one of two experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that discovered the Higgs boson, thus completing the standard model of particle physics.

“Fabiola is a superb scientist, led ATLAS to a great discovery and is respected and well-known around the world,” says Nigel Lockyer, the director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. “She fully understands that high-energy physics is a global enterprise, and CERN is at the centre.”

“Congratulations to Fabiola — and also congratulations to CERN, because I think CERN will be in very good hands,” said the current director general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer at a 4 November press conference in Geneva announcing the appointment. Gianotti will take over from Heuer on 1 January 2016

Dr. Simons and the school have their defenders: As word spread last week about The Times’s queries, two women on the faculty at the research center contacted The Times to say that he had been an outstanding leader who had promoted women, and that the accusations had been blown out of proportion.

Since the reduced suspension of Dr. Simons was announced last November, senior women on the faculty and, separately, junior women in the cardiology department had taken their concerns about his expected return in June 2015 to Dr. Salovey, the university president.

In a follow-up letter to the president, the senior women said the climate for women at the medical school had “substantially deteriorated under the current leadership.”

“We expressed concern about the lack of transparency or honesty in the communication announcing Dr. Simons’s leave, and particularly the absence of any suggestion that there had been wrongdoing,” the letter said, referring to their meeting. “The communication could easily have been interpreted as Dr. Simons being awarded a special academic leave relative to some important work.”

This makes me sad, but not for the reason you might think. There’s nothing wrong with sex and there’s nothing wrong with being interested in it. For me, this is not a moral question. I’m upset because I think watching porn has the potential to affect your own sexual experiences in a really negative way. And it’s not just me. This is a proven fact. Men who watch a lot of porn have trouble enjoying real sex with real women. And I don’t want you to be that guy – not for yourself and not for your partners.
I truly wish you and your generation could have been free to embark on your sex lives free from all the hardcore, soulless, sexist imagery of porn. I wish you could all have had the chance to explore it organically, with all the surprises, the thrills and even the spills. Without expectations or preconceptions. That’s the way it used to be, back in ye olden days. For us, sex was a wonderful, sometimes awkward experience of discovery. Lots of fumbling and bumbling and working it out as you went along.
Today though, by the time you and your friends have sex, you’ll almost certainly have seen hundreds of hours of porn stars going at it in many, many different ways. This will be the visual wallpaper in your mind as you explore your own sexuality and that’s truly unfortunate.
porn is not sex A letter to my son about porn.
Porn is not real sex
I understand that the porn genie can’t be put back in the bottle. Your generation is a product of our time and you’re all in the same boat. So I guess you’ll all figure it out.

Read more at http://www.mamamia.com.au/parenting/talking-to-kids-about-porn/#J6XhWkZyGAjTjDiK.99

As Canadians and CBC listeners struggle to come to terms with the Jian Ghomeshi allegations, many are troubled or angry that his accusers didn't report their claims to the police for investigation. Unquestionably and unjustly, Mr Ghomeshi has been deprived of due process and the opportunity to face his accusers and make full answer and defence.

And Canadians have been deprived of an orderly resolution to a crisis of confidence in a beloved public figure.

And yet, as a former Crown prosecutor who's run many sexual assault trials, I'm not at all surprised that none of these young women reported their experiences (if they are true). Most members of the public, until they're in the situation themselves, don't understand the reluctance of women to report, and what they'll face if they do.

Trigger warning: This article contains information about violence which may be triggering to survivors.

A few days ago, news broke that Jian Ghomeshi, longtime host of CBC Radio's culture magazine Q (for which I was once interviewed), would be taking an indefinite leave of absence for "personal reasons." At that point, there was no reason for Americans—except perhaps fans of Q on Public Radio International—to give a damn about a Canadian demi-celebrity who sounded like he was probably just headed to rehab.

Those were happier times.

On Sunday, news broke that the CBC had decisively cut ties with Ghomeshi, rather than leaving things open for him to return. Also, Ghomeshi was suing the CBC for $50 million, for "breach of confidence and bad faith." And then, after consulting with his lawyers and Canada's answer to Olivia Pope and Associates, Ghomeshi published a 1,600-word Facebook post telling his side of the story—which is that he was fired for his personal sexual proclivities, which include BDSM.

His version of events is that he broke up with a woman with whom he'd had consensual kinky sex, and she was so furious about the rejection, she initiated "a campaign of harassment, vengeance, and demonization" that would come to involve multiple women. Even though Ghomeshi assured us that a major newspaper had looked into the women's claims and decided they weren't even worth covering, he apparently still had a strong suspicion that shit was about to go down, and it would look a little like this:

In the coming days you will prospectively hear about how I engage in all kinds of unsavoury aggressive acts in the bedroom. And the implication may be made that this happens non-consensually. And that will be a lie. But it will be salacious gossip in a world driven by a hunger for "scandal". And there will be those who choose to believe it and to hate me or to laugh at me. And there will be an attempt to pile on. And there will be the claim that there are a few women involved (those who colluded with my ex) in an attempt to show a "pattern of behaviour". And it will be based in lies but damage will be done.

As the writer Rebecca Makkai said on Facebook, "This is a little like when my 7-year-old runs out of my 4-year-old's room going 'I didn't hit her with a plastic tomato!'"

- See more at: http://www.damemagazine.com/2014/10/28/hey-jian-ghomeshi-i-call-bs#sthash.kPKW8tzh.WSEVu06X.dpuf

Maybe you think that goes without saying—that everybody knows threatening to aggressively sodomize a total stranger is not the coolest thing on Earth to do. But hey: It doesn’t go without saying for everybody, because literal thousands of somebodies are currently out there on the Internet right this minute terrorizing people with the promise of sexual violence of all kinds.

Those somebodies have brothers and dads and uncles and nephews and bosses and coworkers and yoga teachers and friends and fellow fantasy-footballers and dudes they always say hi to at the bodega and professors and grandfathers and mechanics and favorite bartenders and ARE ANY SINGLE ONE OF YOU TALKING TO YOUR BROS ABOUT HOW IT’S FUCKED UP IN THE EXTREME TO THREATEN TO RAPE PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET?

When’s the last time you heard a dude making a rape joke or saw your buddy harassing a woman on the street, and you actually fucking said something to him about how gross that is? When’s the last time you shared a Facebook post about enthusiastic consent? When’s the last time you tweeted or Tumbled an infographic about the prevalence of domestic violence?

Have you ever actually said out loud, in front of a bunch of dudes, that you don’t think abuse is a punchline, or that you wouldn’t stay friends with a guy who assaulted someone, or that you’d never put up with a dude who sent a woman anonymous emails full of bloody fetus pictures telling her to abort herself? (Shout-out to that guy! Don’t worry, bro, I got your message!)

Street harassment is a real occurrence that affects real women on a daily basis. It is characterized by a variety of behaviors — whistles, winks, “hey babys,” “bless you mamas,” stares that last too long. It is uncomfortable for many people, and overwhelmingly happens without invitation and despite efforts to dismiss it. In case you don’t believe any of the things I’ve just written, here’s some substantiating evidence.

Hollaback, an organization dedicated to eliminating street harassment, partnered with creative director Rob Bliss to produce a PSA about the realities of catcalling. Shoshana B. Roberts, a New York-based actress, volunteered to walk around Manhattan for 10 hours while Bliss walked in front of her with a GoPro camera attached to his backpack to capture her trip. Roberts carried a microphone in each of her hands, recording the seemingly infinite comments men made to her while she walked silently around the city.
The clip is just under two minutes long, but the number of comments is astonishing. Hollaback estimates Roberts received more than 100 unsolicited advances over the course of the walk. At one point, a man comes up next to her and walks close by her side for five straight minutes. She presses on, and it is clear from the look of discomfort on Roberts’ face that she is not acting.

Watch the PSA, via Hollback, below:

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/28/woman_walks_around_new_york_for_a_day_is_catcalled_more_than_100_times/