25 Greatest Science Books

1.The Voyage of the Beagle (1845) by mesos Charles Darwin
2.The Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin

One of the most delightful, witty, and beautifully written of all natural histories, The Voyage of the Beagle recounts the young Darwin's 1831 to 1836 trip to South America, the Galápagos Islands, Australia, and back again to England, a journey that transformed his understanding of biology and fed the development of his ideas about evolution. Fossils spring to life on the page as Darwin describes his adventures, which include encounters with "savages" in Tierra del Fuego, an accidental meal of a rare bird in Patagonia (which was then named in Darwin's honor), and wobbly attempts to ride Galápagos tortoises.

Yet Darwin's masterwork is, undeniably, The Origin of Species, in which he introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection. Prior to its publication, the prevailing view was that each species had existed in its current form since the moment of divine creation and that humans were a privileged form of life, above and apart from nature. Darwin's theory knocked us from that pedestal. Wary of a religious backlash, he kept his ideas secret for almost two decades while bolstering them with additional observations and experiments. The result is an avalanche of detail—there seems to be no species he did not contemplate—thankfully delivered in accessible, conversational prose. A century and a half later, Darwin's paean to evolution still begs to be heard: "There is grandeur in this view of life," he wrote, that "from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

"The most important science book of all time. Darwin revolutionized our understanding of life, the relationship of humanity to all creatures in the world, and the mythological foundation of all religions." —geneticist Lee M. Silver, Princeton University

3. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) by Isaac Newton (1687) [Download PDF]

Dramatic is an unlikely word for a book that devotes half its pages to deconstructions of ellipses, parabolas, and tangents. Yet the cognitive power on display here can trigger chills.

Courtesy of Andrew Dunn
Principia marks the dawn of modern physics, beginning with the familiar three laws of motion ("To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction" is the third). Later Newton explains the eccentric paths of comets, notes the similarity between sound waves and ripples on a pond, and makes his famous case that gravity guides the orbit of the moon as surely as it defines the arc of a tossed pebble. The text is dry but accessible to anyone with a high school education—an opportunity to commune with perhaps the top genius in the history of science.

"You don't have to be a Newton junkie like me to really find it gripping. I mean how amazing is it that this guy was able to figure out that the same force that lets a bird poop on your head governs the motions of planets in the heavens? That is towering genius, no?" —psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman, Cornell University

4. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei (1632)

Courtesy of the University of Chicago
Pope Urban VIII sanctioned Galileo to write a neutral treatise on Copernicus's new, sun-centered view of the solar system. Galileo responded with this cheeky conversation between three characters: a supporter of Copernicus, an educated layman, and an old-fashioned follower of Aristotle. This last one—a dull thinker named Simplicio—represented the church position, and Galileo was soon standing before the Inquisition. Galileo comes across as a masterful raconteur; his discussions of recent astronomical findings in particular evoke an electrifying sense of discovery. The last section, in which he erroneously argues that ocean tides prove Earth is in motion, is fascinatingly shoddy by comparison. Galileo, trying to deliver a fatal blow to the church's Aristotelian thinking, got tripped up by his own faith in an idea he was sure was true but couldn't prove.

"It's not only one of the most influential books in the history of the world but a wonderful read. Clear, entertaining, moving, and often hilarious, it showed early on how science writing needn't be stuffy." —cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, Harvard University

5. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres) by Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)

Copernicus waited until he was on his deathbed to publish this volume, then prefaced it with a ring-kissing letter to Pope Paul III explaining why the work wasn't really heresy. No furor actually ensued until long after Copernicus's death, when Galileo's run-in with the church landed De Revolutionibus on the Inquisition's index of forbidden books (see #4, above). Copernicus, by arguing that Earth and the other planets move around the sun (rather than everything revolving around Earth), sparked a revolution in which scientific thought first dared to depart from religious dogma. While no longer forbidden, De Revolutionibus is hardly user-friendly. The book's title page gives fair warning: "Let no one untrained in geometry enter here."

6. Physica (Physics) by Aristotle (circa 330 B.C.)

By contrast, Aristotle placed Earth firmly at the center of the cosmos, and viewed the universe as a neat set of nested spheres. He also mistakenly concluded that things move differently on Earth and in the heavens. Nevertheless, Physica, Aristotle's treatise on the nature of motion, change, and time, stands out because in it he presented a systematic way of studying the natural world—one that held sway for two millennia and led to modern scientific method.

"Aristotle opened the door to the empirical sciences, in contrast to Platonism's love of pure reason. You cannot overestimate his influence on the West and the world." —bioethicist Arthur Caplan, University of Pennsylvania

7. De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543)

In 1543, the same year that Copernicus's De Revolutionibus appeared, anatomist Andreas Vesalius published the world's first comprehensive illustrated anatomy textbook. For centuries, anatomists had dissected the human body according to instructions spelled out by ancient Greek texts. Vesalius dispensed with that dusty methodology and conducted his own dissections, reporting findings that departed from the ancients' on numerous points of anatomy. The hundreds of illustrations, many rendered in meticulous detail by students of Titian's studio, are ravishing.
(Available on CD-ROM.)

8. Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein (1916)

Albert Einstein's theories overturned long-held notions about bodies in motion. Time and space, he showed, are not absolutes. A moving yardstick shrinks in flight; a clock mounted on that yardstick runs slow. Relativity, written for those not acquainted with the underlying math, reveals Einstein as a skillful popularizer of his ideas. To explain the special theory of relativity, Einstein invites us on board a train filled with rulers and clocks; for the more complex general theory, we career in a cosmic elevator through empty space. As Einstein wow gold warns in his preface, however, the book does demand "a fair amount of patience and force of will on the part of the reader."

9. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976)

In this enduring popularization of evolutionary biology, Dawkins argues that our genes do not exist to perpetuate us; instead, we are useful machines that serve to perpetuate them. This unexpected shift in perspective, a "gene's-eye view of nature," is an enjoyable --brainteaser for the uninitiated. So is a related notion: that altruistic behavior in animals does not evolve for "the good of the species" but is really selfishness in disguise. "Like successful Chicago gangsters," Dawkins writes, "our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world."

10. One Two Three . . . Infinity by George Gamow (1947)

Illustrating these tales with his own charming sketches, renowned Russian-born physicist Gamow covers the gamut of science from the Big Bang to the curvature of space and the amount of mysterious genetic material in our bodies (DNA had not yet been described). No one can read this book and conclude that science is dull. Who but a physicist would analyze the atomic constituents of genetic material and calculate how much all that material, if extracted from every cell in your body, would weigh? (The answer is less than two ounces.)

"Influenced my decision to become a physicist and is part of the reason I write books for the public today." —theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, Case Western Reserve University

11. The Double Helix by James D. Watson (1968)

James Watson's frank, and often frankly rude, account of his role in discovering the structure of DNA infuriated nearly everyone whose name appeared in it, but it nonetheless ranks as a first-rate piece of science writing. The Double Helix takes us inside a pell-mell race whose winners were almost guaranteed fame and a Nobel Prize. Most poignant are Watson's disparaging descriptions of his encounters with DNA researcher Rosalind Franklin. Her X-ray crystallography images showed the molecule to be a helix, crucial data that Watson and his collaborator Francis Crick "borrowed" to construct their DNA model. Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958, losing out on the 1962 Nobel Prize for the discovery. Perhaps to atone, Watson noted her key contribution in the epilogue to his book.

"The telenovela of my generation of geneticists." —geneticist Mary-Claire King, University of Washington

12. What Is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger (1944)

Long a classic among biologists, this volume describes, from the perspective of a Nobel Prize–winning physicist, how living organisms differ from inanimate objects like crystals. Schr?dinger carefully outlines how the two groups obey different laws and puzzles over what the "paragon of orderliness" of living things may signify. Some editions include an autobiographical sketch, in which Schr?dinger describes the conflict over teaching Darwin that raged when he was in school, as well as his own fascination with evolution.

"What Is Life? is what got Francis Crick and the other pioneers of molecular biology in the 1950s interested in the problem in the first place." —cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, Harvard University

13. The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973)

At a time when NASA was reeling from the end of the Apollo program, Sagan reacquainted both the public and his colleagues with the majesty of the universe, starting with the oft-overlooked worlds of our own solar system. He also championed the search for extraterrestrial life and argued for the likelihood of planets around other stars two decades before they were discovered. The TV series Cosmos brought Sagan to the masses, but the adventure began here.

14. The Insect Societies by Edward O. Wilson (1971)

The patriarch of modern evolutionary biology explores the lives of everyone's favorite creepy crawlies—ants, termites, bees, and wasps—in this 500-page treatise unmatched in scope and detail by any other work on the topic (with the possible exception of his own 1990 volume, The Ants). It also lays the groundwork for his 1975 classic, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, which explores the then-controversial idea that the social behavior of animals, including humans, has a deep biological basis. The book is a labor of love, infused with the author's boundless fascination for his tiny subjects. Wilson openly acknowledges the quirkiness of his obsession; the dedication reads, "For my wife Irene, who understands."

15. The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg (1977) [Download PDF]

When Weinberg was a student, "the study of the early universe was widely regarded as not the sort of thing to which a respectable scientist would devote his time." But after World War II, radar researchers turned their instruments to the sky and helped bring creation stories out of the realm of myth and into the realm of science. Weinberg, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, offered the first authoritative, popular account of the resulting Big Bang scenario in The First Three Minutes. A 1993 afterword discusses more recent advances. Amazingly, only the description of the first fraction of a second of cosmic history has changed significantly.

16. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) [Download PDF]

When Silent Spring was first published, a chorus of critics called Carson "hysterical" and "extremist." Yet the marine biologist's meticulously documented indictment of DDT led both to a U.S. ban on the insecticide and to the birth of the modern environmental movement. Carson argues that DDT not only indiscriminately kills insects, including beneficial species like bees, but also accumulates in the fat of birds and mammals high on the food chain, thinning eggshells and causing reproductive problems. Her chilling vision of a birdless America is still haunting. "Over increasingly large areas of the United States," she writes, "spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of birdsong."

17. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (1981) [Download PDF]

In this witty critique of bad science, Harvard scholar Stephen Jay Gould sets out to eviscerate the notion of biological determinism. For hundreds of years, Gould argues, questionable measurements of human intelligence, like skull size or IQ, have been used to justify racism, sexism, and class stratification. According to Gould, even respected sociologists and psychologists have used falsified or shaky data to support the belief that Westerners are genetically predisposed to rule the world. The book drew political and scientific criticism, especially from social scientists furious that Gould had oversimplified or demonized their work.

18. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks (1985)

In these profiles of patients with unusual neurological disorders, Sacks revolutionizes the centuries-old literary tradition of presenting clinical case studies. Far from dryly reporting each case, the eminent British-born New York City neurologist writes in lively prose with the gentle affection of a country doctor on house call and a contagious sense of wonder. To him, the man with Tourette's syndrome and the woman who cannot sense her own body position are the heroes of the stories. Legions of neuroscientists now probing the mysteries of the human brain cite this book as their greatest inspiration.

19. The Journals of Lewis and Clark by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (1814)

One of history's most famous tales of exploration began on May 14, 1804, when William Clark and his Corps of Discovery set off from the mouth of the Missouri River, beginning an epic 28-month journey west to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. (Meriwether Lewis joined the group two days later.) The Journals, a meticulous chronicle of their expedition, offer an unprecedented glimpse at unexplored, undeveloped America west of the Mississippi. Lewis, the group's naturalist and astronomer, and Clark, the surveyor, documented new species of wildlife (coyotes, jackrabbits, mule deer, and others), unfamiliar geology, and interactions with native peoples. A complete copy of the Journals and their companion material is heavy reading (the definitive Nebraska edition has 13 volumes), but an abridged version captures all the adventure in a palatably sized package.

20. The Feynman Lectures on Physics by* Richard P. Feynman, Robert B. Leighton, and Matthew Sands (1963)

Not only did physicist Richard Feynman win the 1965 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics, he once played bongos for a San Francisco ballet. The beloved book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! recounts his raucous adventures, but these undergraduate physics lectures, presented over two years at Caltech in the 1960s, are Feynman's true gift to students at all levels. The first 94 lectures cover a wide swath of basic physics, from Newtonian mechanics to electromagnetism, while the final 21 venture into quantum mechanics. Feynman's characteristic humor and peerless explanations elevate these classroom lessons to enduring classics.

"Feynman, the prankster-genius, appeals no matter what field you're in. It helps to know some basic physics to approach his lectures, but he has such a luminous mind and is so good with metaphor that you can grasp a fair amount about what's going on in modern physics buy wow gold without formal understanding of complex math, up to a point." —psychiatrist Richard A. Friedman, Cornell University

21. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male by Alfred C. Kinsey et al. (1948)

The first of two books known collectively as the Kinsey Report, this treatise became an improbable best seller. With raw, technical descriptions of sexual acts, distilled from thousands of interviews, it documented for the first time what people really do behind closed doors. Many researchers consider the book flawed because of its sampling bias: Most of the men interviewed were young, white, and eager to participate. Nevertheless, the work remains an outstanding model of scientific bravery in the 20th century, with its insistence that sexual acts be described as healthy functions of the human body and that cultural taboos not stand in the way of science.

22. Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey (1983)

In a richly hued portrait of the lives and behavior of African mountain gorillas, Fossey documents her 13 years dwelling in a remote rain forest amid these enigmatic animals. One of a trio of protégés picked by famed anthropologist Louis Leakey to conduct field studies of great apes, Fossey was determined, devoted, and often angry—over the apes' diminishing habitat and especially over the danger they faced from poachers (who may have been responsible for Fossey's 1985 murder). In Gorillas she leaves behind a scientific treasure, one rendered more poignant by her death in the service of these peaceful, intelligent beasts.

23. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews (1943)

Roy Chapman Andrews made scientific history during the 1920s by leading five motorized expeditions into unexplored reaches of the Gobi desert. He emerged with the equivalent of paleontological gold: more than 350 new species (including the dinosaurs Protoceratops and Velociraptor), the first fossils of Cretaceous mammals, and the first nests of dinosaur eggs. He packed out plenty of wild tales, too, which are woven into this engaging autobiography. Rumors persist that the fedora-wearing, snake-hating, death-defying explorer may have served as the inspiration for Hollywood's Indiana Jones.

24. Micrographia by Robert Hooke (1665)

A revelation in its time, Micrographia exposed the previously hidden microscopic world. Hooke, an early developer of the compound microscope, used his device to peer at the eyes of flies, the stinger on a bee, hairs, bristles, sand particles, seeds, and more, noting every detail with both words and masterful illustrations. The original book is a hefty three pounds, so the digital versions now available are more convenient, but there is something to be said for flipping through a printed copy and discovering, like a hidden treasure, each drawing in its beautiful intricacy. (Available on CD-ROM.)

25. Gaia by James Lovelock (1979)

As an inventor of scientific instruments, James Lovelock may seem an unlikely figure to have launched a New Age, earth-mother environmental movement. Yet that's exactly what he accomplished with Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. In it Lovelock laid out his daring idea that our planet is a single, self-regulating system, dubbed Gaia, wherein "the entire range of living matter on Earth, from whales to viruses, and from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs." Lovelock has since refined the hypothesis, which many scientists criticized as quasi cheap wow gold mystical, and notes that he never implied that Gaia was a sentient being.

Eminem leads U.S. album and singles charts

Eminem's "Recovery" led the U.S. pop album mesos chart for a fourth week on Wednesday, thanks to his latest hit single.
The album sold 195,000 copies during the week ended July 18, taking its total to 1.5 million. He becomes the first artist to log a four-week stretch at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since Susan Boyle began a six-week stint in November.
No doubt "Recovery's" continued success is aided by its hit single "Love The Way You Lie" (featuring Rihanna), which will take the No. 1 spot when the Hot 100 is published Thursday.
It will mark the first back-to-back Hot 100 chart-toppers of his career. The album's first single, "Not Afraid," went to No. 1 in May. In all, Eminem has topped the Hot 100 four times.
The highest debut on the Billboard 200 -- and first of six entries in the top 10 -- came from Korn's "Korn III - Remember Who You Are," which started at No. 2 with 63,000. The rock band's last album, 2007's "Untitled," debuted and peaked at No. 2 with 123,000 sold in its first week.
Newsboys notched its wow gold best showing on the Billboard 200 as "Born Again" bowed at No. 4 with 45,000 -- the Christian act's highest sales week since SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. The act has never risen higher than No. 28 with "In the Hands of Good" in 2009.
Pop veteran Sting debuted at No. 6 with "Symphonicities," an album's worth of Sting and Police songs classically reinvented by noted composers and performed with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. The set sold 36,000 copies.
Country newcomer Jerrod Niemann came in at No. 7 with "Judge Jerrod & the Hung Jury," selling 34,000 in its opening week. The album was sale-tagged for less than $7 at both Best Buy and Wal-Mart.
Rock super group Hellyeah charged in at No. 8 after selling 28,000 copies buy wow gold of its second album "Stampede." The act consists of Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett (both of Mudvayne), Vinnie Paul (Pantera), Tom Maxwell (Knives Out! and Nothingface) and Bob Zilla (Damageplan).
The final arrival in the top 10 came from M.I.A.'s "Maya," starting at No. 9 with 28,000. Her last set, 2007's "Kala," started at No. 18 with 29,000 copies.
As for the rest of the top 10, Drake's "Thank Me Later" slipped one to No. 3 (50,000), Justin Bieber's "My World 2.0" held at No. 5 (41,000) and the soundtrack to "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" slid six to No. 10 (28,000).
Overall album sales totaled 5.21 million units, down less than 1% compared to the previous week, and down 23% compared to the comparable sales week of 2009. Year to date album sales stand at 164.4 million, down 12% compared to the same cheap wow gold total at this point last year.

15 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Career

Most career advice you receive focuses mesos on the big picture: how to get ahead, how to “win,” and such things that are on a much larger scale than the daily grind that most of us face. In fact, it is that day to day grind that pulls down many of us – we go to work, come home exhausted, and often feel as though we’re just spinning our wheels.
If you want to get ahead in your career and in your life, you need to start small and look at the immediate things you can do to help out your situation. If you’re sitting out there at your desk, tiredly wondering if there’s something better that you can be doing with your life, start with these fifteen tips that you can start executing immediately that will lead you down a path towards a better career.
Make a list of all of the things you did today/this week/this month to help your organization, and file them away.
Whenever you have a few spare moments, make a list of all of the things you are actually doing at work. Date them and provide specific examples. When you’ve made this list, drop it in a folder and let it sit there until your next performance review – or the next time you ask for a raise or a promotion. I do this regularly, which has allowed me to build up extensive positive documentation about my career.
Send a thank-you note
If you’ve recently been assisted in your career or personal development by someone, spend a few moments and send that person a handwritten thank you note. The respect, kindness, and personal touch of a handwritten thank you creates an indelible positive mark in your favor in the recipient’s mind, which can do nothing but help you out in the long run.
Work on your writing skills
For me, The Simple Dollar is actually an active part of improving my own writing. Starting a blog related to a work-related topic that interests you is a good way to practice your skills. Don’t be lazy with it, though; focus on writing strong material that will engage others, because without it, you’re not really improving your skills at all, merely regurgitating facts.
Design some classy business cards for you
I have a small pile of business cards that are just for me (actually, they’re for The Simple Dollar), not for any firm I represent or work for or anything else. I drop these regularly, as envelope enclosures and in face-to-face opportunities. These cards are a reflection of me and what I wish to wow gold represent to people, and by getting quality ones, I create a positive impression on the recipients. Don’t go for the office store perforated ones, either; get them professionally done and in a high quality.
Send a quick contact email
Got any professional contacts that you haven’t touched base with recently? Send them an email letting them know what you’re up to – and ask them what they’re up to. By this, I don’t mean clients – I mean professional acquaintances in the same field as you (contacting clients should be a regular part of your workflow). A quick email to the people you met at conferences last year can be a very good thing, as you never know if they might have a great opportunity available that could really help you out.
Suggest a solution to a persistent workplace problem
This is especially true for smaller things, not necessarily big enterprise-wide issues. Are people always complaining about the printers? Spec out an additional printer and ship a proposal for a new printer by your boss. Workplace tensions between two people? Figure out how to most discreetly move them far apart from each other, write it up, and ship it off. The key is to make the solution as complete as possible, so that the boss can tell you saw a problem, looked into how to solve it, and came up with a solution on your own.
Pick up the phone and make a call
Keep in touch with what’s going on in the organization as a whole so you can be more informed when meetings occur. Pick up the phone and give someone else a call to see what you can learn, or take a stroll through different parts of the workplace to find out what others are up to. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself, but be aware of what is going on, how it can affect you, and how you might be able to leverage that to get ahead.
Work on your language skills
Are you a non-native speaker of the language in your workplace? Spend your spare time working on the finer points. I find that listening to audiobooks and podcasts is an incredible way to pick up on the nuances of a language given that you already know the basics. If you don’t know the basics, seek out some audio courses on that language buy wow gold and get started. For myself, I’ve found that a great way to pick up a foreign language is to read a translation of a work I’m already very familiar with, such as Harry Potter.
Make yourself more presentable
It always helps to have a clean, fresh impression. I keep a few hygiene products in my traveling bag at all times: underarm deodorant, toothpaste, a toothbrush, some mouthwash, some facial cleanser, a comb, and some cologne. I make sure to clean myself up at least once a day, and often twice a day, when I have a few free moments. That way, I look freshly scrubbed at the 3:30 PM meeting – and having just washed my face vigorously, I feel more awake.
Polish your resume
There’s never a bad time to give your resume a bit of a touch up. Make sure it has plenty of action words and documents specific results that you’ve produced. In fact, your personal work documentation is a great way to look for ideas to spiff up your resume.
Read something on topics you plan to be facing in the future in your career
Don’t waste your time reading PerezHilton (unless you work for People magazine or something); instead, find resources that are related to your job and focus on those. If you spend your spare time at work browsing the web, at least spend that time browsing items that can potentially further your career.
Prepare some comments in advance for your next meeting
Got a meeting later? Instead of dreading it, look at it as an opportunity to shine. Look at what the meeting agenda is and prepare some notes and thoughts that you can present during them. If you’re going to sit through someone’s presentation, find out what it’s going to be about and do some preparatory legwork in advance so you can ask a few astute questions.
Work on your public speaking skills
This seems like it would be difficult to do right now, but it’s not. Merely listen to the work of great public speakers on the internet, burn yourself a CD or two of speeches that really inspire you, then play them in your car on the way home and practice speaking along with them. You’ll learn a great deal about how to enunciate words to get your points across and influence others.
Clean your work area
Not only will this create a better impression of you in the eyes of others, you may also come across important materials that you thought were missing or lost. It’s also good to start (or enhance) a document filing system when you do this, so you can quickly find materials.
Figure out where you want to be in five years – and create a plan for getting there
Spend some time visualizing where you want to be, then think about what it’s going to take to get there. From there, keep breaking down each piece in the process until the pieces are things you can do quickly – and start doing them. Every mountain climb is cheap wow gold just a series of steps, after all.

How Looks Affect Your Work, Your Career, Your Life

In today’s economy mesos, looking good is no longer something we can dismiss as frivolous or vain. How beauty can affect your job, your career, your life.
Most of us have heard the story of Debrahlee Lorenzana, the 33-year-old Queens, N.Y., woman who sued Citibank last month, claiming that, in pencil skirts, turtlenecks, and peep-toe stilettos, she was fired from her desk job for being “too hot.” We’ve also watched Lorenzana’s credibility come into question, as vintage clips of her appearance on a reality-TV show about plastic surgery portray a rambling, attention-obsessed twit, stuffed to the brim with implants and collagen. (“I love plastic surgery,” she coos. “I think it’s the best thing that ever happened.”) Creepy, yes. But for all the talk about this woman’s motives—and whether or not she was indeed fired for her looks—there’s one question nobody seems to want to ask: isn’t it possible Lorenzana’s looks got her the job in the first place?
Not all employers are that shallow—but it’s no secret we are a culture consumed by image. Economists have long recognized what’s been dubbed the “beauty premium”—the idea that pretty people, whatever their aspirations, tend to do better in, well, almost everything. Handsome men earn, on average, 5 percent more than their less-attractive counterparts (good-looking women earn 4 percent more); pretty people get more attention from teachers, bosses, and mentors; even babies stare longer at good-looking faces (and we stare longer at good-looking babies). A couple of decades ago, when the economy was thriving—and it was a makeup-less Kate Moss, not a plastic-surgery-plumped Paris Hilton, who was considered the beauty ideal—we might have brushed off those statistics as superficial. But in 2010, when Heidi Montag’s bloated lips plaster every magazine in town, when little girls lust after an airbrushed, unattainable body ideal, there’s a growing bundle of research to show that our bias against the unattractive—our “beauty bias,” as a new book calls it—is more pervasive than ever. And when it comes to the workplace, it’s looks, not merit, that all too often rule.
Consider the following: over his career, a good-looking man will make some $250,000 more than his least-attractive counterpart, according to economist Daniel Hamermesh; 13 percent of women, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (and 10 percent of men, according to a new NEWSWEEK survey), say they’d consider cosmetic surgery if it made them more competitive at work. Both points are disturbing, certainly. But in the current economy, when employers have more hiring options than ever, looks, it seems, aren’t just important; they’re wow gold critical. NEWSWEEK surveyed 202 corporate hiring managers, from human-resources staff to senior-level vice presidents, as well as 964 members of the public, only to confirm what no qualified (or unqualified) employee wants to admit: from hiring to office politics to promotions, even, looking good is no longer something we can dismiss as frivolous or vain.
Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers told NEWSWEEK that qualified but unattractive candidates are likely to have a harder time landing a job, while more than half advised spending as much time and money on “making sure they look attractive” as on perfecting a résumé. When it comes to women, apparently, flaunting our assets works: 61 percent of managers (the majority of them men) said it would be an advantage for a woman to wear clothing showing off her figure at work. (Ouch.) Asked to rank employee attributes in order of importance, meanwhile, managers placed looks above education: of nine character traits, it came in third, below experience (No. 1) and confidence (No. 2) but above “where a candidate went to school” (No. 4). Does that mean you should drop out of Harvard and invest in a nose job? Probably not. But a state school might be just as marketable. “This is the new reality of the job market,” says one New York recruiter, who asked to have her name withheld because she advises job candidates for a living. “It’s better to be average and good- looking than brilliant and unattractive.”
Remember the story about the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate? It goes to show our beauty bias is nothing novel. At the time, radio listeners thought Nixon had won, but those watching Kennedy’s tanned, chiseled face on TV, next to a worn-down, 5 o’clock-shadowed Nixon, were sure it was the junior senator. There are various explanations for some of this. Plato wrote of the “golden proportions,” which dubbed the width of an ideal face an exact two thirds its length, a nose no longer than the distance between the eyes. Biologically speaking, humans are attracted to symmetrical faces and curvy women for a reason: it’s those shapes that are believed to produce the healthiest offspring. As the thinking goes, symmetrical faces are then deemed beautiful; beauty is linked to confidence; and it’s a combination of looks and confidence that we often equate with smarts. Perhaps there’s some evidence to that: if handsome kids get more attention from teachers, then, sure, maybe they do better in school and, ultimately, at work. But the more likely scenario is what scientists dub the “halo effect”—that, like a pack of untrained puppies, we are mesmerized by beauty, blindly ascribing intelligent traits to go along with it.
There are various forces to blame for much of this, from an economy that allows pickiness to a plastic-surgery industry that encourages superficial notions of beauty. In reality, it’s a confluence of cultural forces that has left us clutching, desperately, to an ever-evolving beauty ideal. Today’s young workers were reared on the kind of reality TV and pop culture that screams, again and again, that everything is a candidate for upgrade. We’ve watched bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover, faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face. We compare ourselves with the airbrushed images in advertisements and magazines, and read surveys—like this one—that confirm our worst fears. We are a culture more sexualized than ever (Mad Men notwithstanding), with technology that’s made it easier than ever to “better” ourselves, warping our standards for what’s normal. Plastic surgery used to be for the rich and famous; today we’ve leveled the playing field with cheap boob jobs, tummy tucks, and outpatient procedures you can get on your lunch break. Where that leads us is running to stand still: taught that good looks are no longer a gift but a ceaseless pursuit.
Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor and author of The Beauty Bias, is herself an interesting case study. During her term as chair of the American Bar Association’s commission on working women, she was struck by how often the nation’s most powerful females were stranded in cab lines and late for meetings because, in heels, walking any distance was out of the question. These were working, powerful, leading women, she writes. Why did they insist on wearing heels? Sure, some women just like heels (and still others probably know their bosses like them). But there is also the reality that however hard men have it—and, from an economic perspective, their “beauty premium” is higher, say economists—women will always face a double bind, expected to conform to the beauty standards of the day, yet simultaneously condemned for doing so. Recruiters may think women like Lorenzana can get ahead for showing off their looks, but 47 percent also believe it’s possible for a woman to be penalized for being “too good-looking.” Whether or not any of it pays off, there’s something terribly wrong when 6-year-olds are using makeup, while buy wow gold their mothers spend the equivalent of a college education just keeping their faces intact. “All of this is happening against a backdrop of more women in the workplace, in all kinds of jobs, striving toward wage equality,” says Harvard psychologist Nancy Etcoff. “So we’re surprised—but we shouldn’t be—how this [beauty curse] continues to haunt us.”
Forty years ago, when feminists threw their bras into the “Freedom Trash Can” outside the 1968 Miss America pageant (no, they didn’t really burn them!), it was to protest the idea that women had become “enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards,” as the organizers put it. At the time, women still made up just a fraction of the workforce, and yet they were rejecting the notion that, in work or play, they had to be confined to the role of busty secretary—a mere office toy. A decade later, as women entered the workforce in droves, it was boxy suits, not bustiers, that defined their dress. But today’s working women have achieved “equality” (or so we’re led to believe): they dominate the workforce, they are household breadwinners, and so they balk at having to subvert their sexuality, whether in the boardroom or on the beach. Yet while the outside-work milieu might accept the empowered yet feminine ideal, the workplace surely doesn’t. Studies show that unattractive women remain at a disadvantage in low-level positions like secretary, while in upper-level fields that are historically male-dominated, good-looking women can suffer a so-called bimbo effect. They are viewed as too feminine, less intelligent, and, ultimately, less competent—not only by men but also by their female peers.
To add an extra layer of complexity, there’s the conundrum of aging in a culture where younger workers are more tech-savvy, cheaper, and, well, nicer on the eyes. Eighty-four percent of managers told NEWSWEEK they believe a qualified but visibly older candidate would make some employers hesitate, and while ageism affects men, too, it’s particularly tough for women. As Rhode puts it, silver hair and furrowed brows may make aging men look “distinguished,” but aging women risk marginalization or ridicule for their efforts to pass as young. “This double standard,” Rhode writes, “leaves women not only perpetually worried about their appearance—but also worried about worrying.”
The quest for beauty may be a centuries-old obsession, but in the present day the reality is ugly. Beauty has more influence than ever—not just over who we cheap wow gold work with, but whether we work at all.

Giants stun Dodgers in heated game

The Los Angeles Dodgers had two mesos players and two coaches ejected in a 7-5 defeat to fierce rivals San Francisco on Tuesday.
Pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Jonathan Broxton were forced out of the game, as were manager Joe Torre and bench coach Bob Schaefer. Kershaw may face disciplinary action for throwing at an opposing batter.
The game boiled over in the bottom of the fifth inning, with the Giants' Tim Lincecum throwing a pitch inside to Matt Kemp, then hitting him in the ribs with the next.
Both players took a step toward each other before home plate umpire Adrian Johnson ushered Kemp to first base.
Both benches were then warned by Johnson.
After the Giants had pulled to 5-4 at the top of the sixth, reliever Denny Bautista wow gold threw twice at Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, sparking a heated reaction from the LA bench.
Bench coach Bob Schaefer argued for Bautista to be ejected from the game but was himself thrown out by the umpire.
Kershaw joined him in the locker room after hitting Aaron Rowand in the hip with his first pitch of the seventh inning. Team manager Joe Torre was automatically thrown out as well, which left hitting coach Don Mattingly in charge.
"It's the craziest win we've had all season," Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt said. "I'm sure we'll put our heads on our pillows and smile."
Leading 5-4 in the top of buy wow gold the ninth, the Dodgers loaded the bases with closer Broxton on the mound. Mattingly walked out to talk to Broxton and first baseman James Loney, turned to leave, and then was called back by Loney.
Mattingly's turn and response to a question constituted a second visit to the mound and under one of baseball's more obscure rules the pitcher, Broxton, had to be taken out of the game.
Replacement pitchers George Sherrill and Travis Schlichting conceded three runs as the Giants fought back for a cheap wow gold 7-5 win.

Paris Hilton's blasts 'perv' paparazzi

Paris Hilton is furious with paparazzi for mesos photographing her in a bikini.
The socialite is currently relaxing in Sardinia, Italy, with friends and her sister Nicky but is fuming with photographers who managed to snap her while she was sunbathing in a tiny swimsuit onboard a luxury yacht.
She tweeted: "Note to Self - Beware. You never know when some perv paparazzi may be lurking and hiding on a fishing boat in the middle of the ocean. (sic)"
Although she is unimpressed by the amount of snappers trying to get her picture, Paris wow gold has been enjoying her trip away from the waves - especially when she has been checking out the designer boutiques.
She added in another twitter post: "Just finished shopping in town at Prada, Versacce, Roberto Cavalli and some really cute little boutiques. Back to the yacht later for movie night! (sic)"
Paris admits the yacht she and Nicky have been staying on is like "heaven on water".
She added in a series of other buy wow gold posts: "Our yacht is incredible! Has its own pool, hot tub, movie theatre, recording studio, spa/massage room, gym, arcade room, helicopter pad and the most beautiful bedrooms and decor. I'm in Heaven on the water. Definitely the biggest and best yacht everywhere we go. Loves it! Huge... Another beautiful day in paradise! What more could a girl ask for? (sic)"
The 29-year-old hotel heiress travelled to Sardinia from France.
On Friday (16.07.10), she was reportedly stopped by police officers as she landed on the French island of Corsica by private jet and was found to be in possession of less than a gram of marijuana.
Paris is believed to have been released without charge, but she denies being stopped cheap wow gold and has branded the allegation "completely false".

Top cities for new college grads

The most promising region in the U.S. for job mesos hunting by newly minted college graduates is the South, and the city with the best mix of job openings, pay, and affordability is Houston, according to Businessweek.com.
In a ranking by the magazine of 30 cities, the top five are Houston, Washington, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin, Tex. The winners prevailed mostly because employers in those places posted the greatest number of jobs for new graduates. Employers listing openings on AfterCollege, a website featuring entry-level positions, totaled 90 in Washington, second only to New York's 108.
A private-sector push in Houston has created 31,000 positions since January, including 10,800 in May, said Jeff Moseley, president of the Greater Houston Partnership, an advocacy group for the business community. Houston is the largest city in Texas. A startup culture is taking hold there, in contrast to other parts of the U.S., Moseley said.
"In some parts, it's, 'Who's your daddy?' and 'Where'd you go to school?' " Moseley said in an interview. "Here it's, 'What's your idea, and how can we make money?' "
The ranking was based on the AfterCollege postings, city unemployment rates, and the average annual pay for all occupations as reported by the U.S. Labor Dept. Wages were adjusted for cost of living, using data from the Council for Community & Economic Research, in Arlington, Va. Salaries rose 2.5 percent, to an average of $44,525, for the 30 cities in the 2010 ranking.
A similar ranking was made a year ago. This time, 13 cities were new to wow gold the selection of 30, and seven of the newcomers are Southern cities, including five from Texas.
Several cities near the top of last year's list didn't make the ranking this year, including last year's No. 1, Indianapolis, and last year's No. 7, Chicago.
Those cities saw a drop in the number of employers posting jobs for new college graduates, said Roberto Angulo, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based AfterCollege Inc., publisher of the website.
One reason behind the shakeup in the list was deterioration in the job market, Angulo said. Even in cities that fared well, the number of employers posting jobs fell. Phoenix was ranked No. 2 in 2009, with 190 employers posting jobs on AfterCollege. This year, Phoenix is No. 19, after just 31 employers listed openings.
In an AfterCollege survey this year, 86 percent of respondents, up from 78 percent in 2009, said they were having a hard time finding a job.
"The classes of 2009 and 2010 are now competing for the same jobs," Angulo said. "Internships are going to graduates instead of those who are still in school."
William McMullen, a 2008 graduate of Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., returned to Houston after a stint in New York, attracted by the growing energy and health-care sectors in Texas, he said.
McMullen, an associate at Boston-based Denham Capital Management LP, a private-equity firm with an energy focus, said low rent and the lack of a state income tax were bonuses.
"Having lived in Boston and New York, the cost of living played a factor in the decision as well," McMullen said.
In Washington, the federal government's expansion has created both public- and private-sector jobs, said Mark Gaswirth, regional buy wow gold sales manager of DCJobs.com.
From 2000 to 2009, the region added almost 300,000 jobs, according to the Greater Washington Board of Trade, a promotional group. A diverse and well-educated population, reflecting the presence of the State Dept., embassies, and universities, is also appealing to new college graduates, said Jim Dinegar, president of the board.
The U.S. banking crisis that began in 2008 helped give Washington its jobs boost, said Barbara B. Lang, president of the DC Chamber of Commerce. Opportunities for lawyers, accountants, and other professionals are growing along with government oversight of finance, she said.
"Wall Street has moved to K Street," Lang said, "K Street" being shorthand for the locus of lobbyists, policy researchers, and the like.
The number of employers posting jobs and the adjusted pay contributed 40 percent each to the Businessweek.com ranking this year. Unemployment accounted for 20 percent.
The methodology changed. Last year, employers counted for 40 percent, while unadjusted pay, cost of living, and unemployment were weighted at 20 percent each.The 30 cities on the list this year were culled from an initial pool of 3,580 municipalities where employers posted at least one job on the AfterCollege website. The cities with the most listings were cheap wow gold used for the ranking.