What the heck are HBCUs anyway?

If you are like me, you either have no idea what a Historically Black College and University is or only the vaguest understanding. Abel Pharmboy of Terra Sigillata has posted a very nice review of the history, purpose, demographics and famous alumni of HBCUs in honor of National HBCU Week.
One of the most interesting things that I learned from Abel were some statistics pulled from this by Michelle J. Nealy:

While HBCUs represent only 3 percent of all colleges and universities, they enroll close to one-third of all Black students. Forty percent of HBCU students pursue four-year degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, and about half of all Black students in teaching fields attended HBCUs. Three-quarters of all African-American Ph.D.s did their undergraduate studies at an HBCU, and, according to a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, the total economic impact of the nation’s HBCUs in 2001 was $10.2 billion.

Go read.
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Update 9/17/08: Reflections on the HBCU experience from Samia of 49 percent.

scicurious joins Neurotopia (version 2.0)!

My first reaction on hearing that SciMonkbling Evil Monkey had signed up a co-blogger was “Did you vet properly?” I mean, geez, you all know what can happen when you fail to properly vet the person who will be sharing the stage with you!
I was much relieved to see he selected scicurious, previously of Neurotic Physiology. I had been planning to do a Blogrolling post on this blog but I guess now I don’t get to do that. For those of you who are not familiar, scicurious is:

a graduate student in Physiology and Pharmacology… In my free time, I am a nerd, a geek, and a dork.

First off, my reaction: Yay!!! More drug blogging! Excellent!
Welcome aboard, scicurious!