Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• Even on mute, TV can perpetuate racial bias

– “The fact that our own racial bias can be swayed by the physical actions of people we see on TV is even more alarming because we’re largely unaware of it.”

• See what you made me do – On secular ‘honour’ killings

– “there is a darker question – has the focus on Muslim honour killings actually taken the heat off tackling secular femicide? Has it served to disrupt any notion that these killings are highly patterned and ritualised, and could thus be lessened?

In the UK for example there are about 200 murders of women a year, 95% of them by men (or men and women together – though in such cases the man is usually the leading partner). About 10-15 of them are Muslim ‘honour’ killings. Yet while there is no distinct femicide police unit in the UK, there is one dedicated to Muslim ‘honour’ killings, withe funds for community education, outreach etc.”

• Titanic iceberg headed for Australia

– 25 KILOmetres wide

• Octopus carries around coconut shells as suits of armour

– brillopads

• One gene stops ovaries from turning into testes

– fascinating

• Child obesity gene discovery may cut fat-related child protection cases

– some myth-busting

• Who Am I? Identity in the Post-Branding Era

– “People are lauding this exercise of creating a personal brand as the secret sauce to their success. I can’t speak for them, but I know when I told a friend the other night that I was working on a book called ‘Happiness as Your Business Model‘ and he responded to that by saying:

“Well, it’s definitely on brand for you.”

I cringed. It made me want to throw it out and write something like, “Taking Advantage of Your Customers for Big Bucks”. I recoiled at the consistency of who I’ve become. Am I a broken record? Please, God, let me be more than a personal brand!”

Categories: linkfest

Tags: blogging, Read-ems