From the HuffPost:
Iran's War on Women Students May Backfire
Iran's woeful deception and hypocrisy on women's human rights is
particularly prominent this week while Tehran hosts the 16th Non-Aligned
Movement
summit to "eliminate international problems" and assumes the NAM's presidency for the next three years.
The summit follows the recent announcement of a ban on female students in Iranian universities.
In the coming academic year, 36 universities will
implement exclusion
of women from 77 fields of study, including chemistry, computer
science, nuclear physics, engineering, business management, education
and English.
Gholamrez Rashed, the head of the University of Petroleum Technology, declared:
"We do not need female students at all."
Science Minister
Kamran Daneshjoo
claimed that sexual segregation was of the utmost priority in order to
uphold moral standards and effect greater balance in gender enrolment.
About 70 percent of
science graduates are female.
Other concerns include an
unemployment
rate of more than 20 percent for people under 30 and about 28 percent
for women, and the trend for more traditional families to seek education
for daughters, allowing them unsupervised boarding in cities.
The rise of female education is associated with declining rates of
marriage and birth. Fertility has dropped from about six children a
family at the time of the Iranian revolution to fewer than two.
Educated women are more likely to marry later and less likely to marry uneducated men.
Educated and unemployed women who know their rights are a danger to a
male-dominated culture that relegates them to second-class status, and
to religio-political authorities that derive legitimacy from patriarchy,
supremacism and claims to exclusive knowledge of the divine.
The latest bans continue the Islamic Republic's policy of oppressing
and disempowering women through sexual segregation, enforced Islamic
dress codes, polygyny, early marriage, court testimony worth half that
of a man's, leniency for honor killings, stoning sentences, blocking
reformist websites and so on.
Activists involved with the
One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws have been persecuted and imprisoned since 2005.
Unlike in most other Muslim countries, political dissent in
post-revolutionary Iran has been expressed in universities rather than
mosques, which has led the regime to fear these institutions as
incubators of subversion. Feminist student groups are regarded as the
most seditious.
Noble Laureate
Shirin Ebadi
has declared that the new educational restrictions are designed to
undermine the feminist movement by reducing the numbers of female
students from 65 percent at present to 50 percent, and has made a formal
complaint to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
U.N. protection for Iranian women would seem unlikely, as the
organisation has not offered much support to reformers in the past.
Iran also enjoys prominent positions in major U.N. voting blocs such
as the NAM, which comprises two-thirds of U.N. members, and the
Organisation of Islamic Co-operation with 56 member countries.
During the recent meeting of the OIC, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was pointedly
placed next to the Saudi monarch.
Nevertheless, in March last year, 52 nations, including many members
of the U.N. not on the 47-member Human Rights Council, co-sponsored a
resolution calling for a special investigator to monitor Iran's compliance with international human rights standards.
The decision followed reports of persecution of minority groups
including the Baha'is, who have suffered a long-term ban on university
attendance.
Women fought hard against educational sanctions and other
restrictions imposed by the Islamic Republic. By 1991, they had won the
right to quotas within certain academic fields, and during a period of
limited freedom of assembly and association under reformist president
Mohammad Khatami, activists established more than 600 non-government
organisations that
advanced women's rights.
Restriction of freedom was intensified under Ahmadinejad, who introduced gender-based policies to
decrease female quotas and increase male quotas in some university fields.
Activists who organised university sit-ins for women's rights and
street demonstrations have risked beatings and detention, and many still
languish in prison.
Women marched in the forefront of the protests following Ahmadinejad's disputed
re-election in 2009, and were arguably the vanguard for the uprisings of the Arab Spring.
The government, which has distanced itself from the recent education bans introduced by universities, risks a backlash.
The women's movement emerged in part to oppose the regime's policy of
limiting admittance
of female students to universities and women activists have shown
remarkable courage in challenging the authoritarian theocracy.
Reformers will see through the current hypocrisy and blame the government for the latest round.
Iranian feminists still retain potent reserves of energy and
determination for confrontation with their turbaned inquisitors. And in
truth they have little left to lose.
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
Get the faculty leaders of
Iowa State's work with the ATLAS detector in a conference room and it's
clear they're proud of the research described in that paper. After all,
few expected a Higgs-like particle to be detected within three years of
the collider's restart in November 2009.
But, they're also quick to say any future discoveries at the collider
near Geneva, Switzerland, that's operated by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) could be even more exciting.
"The most disappointing outcome, which is still quite exciting, would be
if we find the Higgs and nothing else – we really do hope that we will
find something beyond the Standard Model," said Jim Cochran, a professor
of physics and astronomy. "That would be an absolutely monumental
discovery."
Soeren Prell, a professor of physics and astronomy, said the Standard
Model of particle physics already tells physicists a lot about the
Higgs, a subatomic particle theorized to be an excitation of a field
that interacts with other particles, giving them their mass. The
standard model of particles and their interactions, however, doesn't
tell physicists the mass of the Higgs boson.
The ATLAS physics paper explains that a particle with a mass of about
126 billion electron volts has been discovered at the Large Hadron
Collider. The paper says the particle is "compatible with the production
and decay of the Standard Model Higgs boson."
Prell said there will be many more studies to determine just what the
physicists have found. If it is the Higgs boson, physicists still have
to collect more data and perform additional studies to measure its exact
mass and confirm other properties.
Read more at:
http://phys.org/news/2012-08-iowa-state-physicists-higgs-physics.html#jCp
![[jet evolution]](http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/research/i.nuc/jets.png)
![[hydro simulation]](http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/research/i.nuc/hydro.png)
