The funding is the science II: "Why do they always drop the females?"

The titular quote came from one of my early, and highly formative, experiences on study section. In the course of discussing a revised application it emerged that the prior version of the application had included a sex comparison. The PI had chosen to delete that part of the design in the revised application, prompting one of the experienced members of the panel to ask, quite rhetorically, “Why do they always drop the females?”
I was reminded of this when reading over Dr. Isis’ excellent post on the, shall we say less pernicious, ways that the course of science is slanted toward doing male-based research. Really, go read that post before you continue here, it is a fantastic description.
What really motivated me, however, was a comment from the always insightful Stephanie Z:

Thank you. That’s the first time I’ve seen someone address the reasons behind ongoing gender disparities in health research. I still can’t say as it thrills me (or you, obviously), but I understand a bit better now.

Did somebody ring?

SfN 2008: The $100 Spike (The Podcast)

Remember the $100 Spike project from this year’s SfN meeting? One of the project authors noted on his blog MarzulloHead that Nature’s Neuropod posted a podcast on the SfN meeting which included a segment on the $100 Spike.