Haha, I was GREAT at English and LOVED it (when I didn't have a teacher that forced an objective answer for a subjective question) and I still ended up in STEM. I knew English wasn't going to pay shit and I wasn't down with that.

What about Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs? LOVED those.

Congrats on your PhD! Very exciting.

Congrats on your PhD! I defended 4 weeks ago today! Not in STEM but I am all for ladies taking that path.

Congrats on defending!

Can I also recommend Snap Circuits? They're kind of pricey (good deals sometimes at Fry's), but our sets have gone through two kids of both genders from ages 6-16. We just got the 13-year-old the programmable set (which unfortunately is a different voltage than the other sets and not mixable).

As a woman in STEM, here are the things from my childhood that got me interested in science:

The one my niece and nephew had was called Marble Raceway! We would play with that thing for hours, it is still fun.

All of this! Marble run was amazing. Also, there was one robot-type one with lots of clear plastic pieces with gears in them that was the bomb.

I gave them to a 7 year old with a 2 year old brother over Christmas and included a note that said IF YOU LOSE THESE MARBLES YOUR PARENTS WILL KILL ME SO KEEP THEM AWAY FROM BENJY AND I WILL BE ALLOWED TO COME HELP YOU BUILD A MARBLE MAZE!! So far, so good.

you mean this? Because that's what did it for me. I buy them for every kid in my life so I can play with them

In July of 2012, I was enjoying my summer vacation (I'm a teacher) and was scouring the Internet for ways to indulge my healthy obsession with "The Hunger Games" book series. One evening, I stumbled upon a HG podcast and listened as voices chatted and joked about casting rumors for the second film, "Catching Fire." As…

It's actually right next to the student center, meaning that it's almost impossible to avoid.

I'm 5'11" but I love all those dresses. What I'm saying is get ready to see my pussy, America!

I thought I was the only one who felt this way. Thank you.

Right?! No one told me about that whole bowel movement thing until after I was pregnant. I was like uh, what the hell?! Birthing, if you're doped up enough (epidural before contractions, please!), really just feels like taking a massive poop. Nothing about that is glamorous.

I take full responsibility for putting the last nail in the coffin, having gotten engaged at sunrise on the 29th of December to my amazing trans* partner.

How could you forget Mark Harmon?

Quite a few mouse studies are used just to rule out approaches that don't work, more than to prove what does. If something DOESN'T work in mice it's unlikely to be found to work in a primate.

Other people below have already addressed the 'why mice' part of your question, but I'd like to address the issue of why they're horribly inbred. The more differences you have genetically in your population of mice, the more you are confounding the likelihood that the changes you see between your experimental and…