Hell, even their parents make fun of them sometimes. My friend was nicknamed Lardo by his parents as a baby.

I love Mac!

Veronica, Mac, and Wallace. Sure, with her genius brain and PI training it's a little weird to call Veronica an underdog, but they were all socially ostracized middle-class kids in a sea of filthy rich assholes.

This is the scariest comic I've ever read: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

Not me, but it would have been a cool coincidence!

Nope, do I sound familiar?

Annie Bananas, hands down! I can think of logical explanations for ghost stories, but something (apparently) real-life like that is downright terrifying.

To be fair the Slate article was about sea otters, and this looks like a river otter. I'm telling myself they're probably TOTALLY different.

I haven't had time to do more than skim any of these (and I can't access the second) but as far as I can tell they suffer from common EP fallacies: they ascribe speculative evolutionary causes to currently observed patterns, and they ignore potential social and cultural influences. Also, I'm a bit suspicious that the…

Well, one problem with that "theory" (it's actually a hypothesis in the scientific sense) is that there's little to no evidence to back it up.

From the above article: "There is virtually no sex difference in indirect aggression. By the time you get to adulthood, particularly in work situations, men use this too."

You know what else has been on the rise since the 1950s? Hamburger size. HAMBURGERS ARE MAKING WOMEN SAD, DOWN WITH HAMBURGERS!

...and then you're expected to go home and do most of the housework and childcare.

I have a vague memory of some study showing that women have been getting less happy since the 50's, which has been (baselessly) blamed on the rise of feminism.

Fine, if you can let your cat poop in my yard, stalk my chickens, and kill the songbirds at my feeder, I get to let my dog into your place to poop in your yard, dig up your flowerbeds, and chase your cats.

I wish I could star this comment a hundred times. There's a huge amount of research on the ecological impacts of domesticated cats, but most people want to rely on their own anecdotes instead of becoming informed.

I am a scientist. I go to sites about science to read about science. Issues regarding pay in the sciences (and the increasing trend of expecting scientists to work for free) as well as the way female and minority researchers are treated are PART of science, and important issues worth discussing.

Yep, though I admittedly skimmed the last book. I don't know, I guess sometimes characters just rub you the wrong way!

I really wanted to like this series but got fed up with how catty and shallow I perceived the three/four main characters to be, especially towards each other. Was that just me?

Have you been to the Forever Young Adult blog? I think one of the writers there used to be a commenter here, and I really enjoy their book reviews.