Sexy Tattoo Back Women: July 2008

Women in Science ON THE AIR!

Public radio network WAMC has a program devoted to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics aptly called Women in Science ON THE AIR! They've put the show online, so you don't even need to be in the network's listener area to hear the program. From their site description:

The Women In Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics ON THE AIR! website is an audio resource for young girls, young women, parents, middle and high school teachers, college professors, guidance counselors, researchers, organizational leaders, and anyone interested in learning more about the past, present and future role of women in science and technology education, fields and careers.

There are several different (but overlapping) program series they have available:

Sounds of Progress: "a series of radio stories that highlight the changing role of girls and women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)."
Powerful Signals: "a special radio series highlighting the role of women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)."
Her-Story Then and Now: profiles women scientists and engineers, past and present
The Tech Club: "Aspiring teenage scientists, Emily Lescak and Ivy Hughes join Mary Darcy, Producer and Host of 51% and talk with 54 women in science and technology about why and how each of these women chose her career, what she does each day and what she hopes to accomplish in her work."

And there are more shows in their archives. It's definitely worth a listen.

Tags: women in science, radio, WAMC

Fire!!

Hanging the washing yesterday at 11.30 am I noticed the planes circling overhead. It wasn't the fighter jets as usual but small propeller planes that look like they were left over after the WWII. I expect the propellers to be wooden looking at their flimsy structure. They belong to the Turkish Aviation Foundation and spend the summer in Canakkale, waiting to be called up if a forest fire starts. They fly over occasionally but this time all four of them are circling behind the house. Must be a drill I thought and shout to the kids to take a look.

Then I see the helicopter. It is Ukranian rented by the Forest Fire Brigade, we see it on the ground at the Forest Fire Post as we pass on the bus into town. Must be a drill. But even as I repeat this the helicopter drops beneath the treeline beyond the Jandarma camp. It fills its bucket from the Dardanelles. It rises again from behind the trees, flys above the house and up towards the ridge behind us. A few minutes later it returns and repeats the procedure. This is no drill.

Looking behind the house the smoke billows slowly, blown by the strong wind. We walk up to the corner of the complex but see very little through the trees and olive groves. The smoke is rising from below the ridge that the wind turbines are on. From then on it grows continuously. A few of the neighbours arrive, curious about the aerial activity and worried by the smoke. One prays, pacing and muttering under her breath.

By lunchtime, the ridge is barely visible beneath the smoke cloud. Fire brigades and bulldozers pass on the main road from Canakkale, Lapseki, Eceabat and Mahmudiye.

By 2.00pm, the ridge is hidden in smoke as the fire moves south through the valley. The number of helicopters is increasing from the original two to four and eventually six. Our electricity is cut off sometime after this.

By 3.30pm the main Izmir road is closed. A seaplane owned by Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyesi has joined the other planes, drenching the valley below the ridge in seawater, circling, filling up and repeating.

On the way home from work my husband is stopped twice by roadblocks. He is allowed to continue given the warning that he should evacuate his house. Shocked by the fire on the ridge behind he is surprised at how little we can see from the house. Around 6pm all the planes and helicopters focus behind the house, towards Cinarli. The seaplane and helicopters all refill in front of the Jandarma camp and fly straight over the house. If the wind changes there is a chance the fire could come towards us. The noise is intense from the low flying planes and the double-rotar helicopters. All the neighbours gather, looking for news, exchanging ideas of where was burning, how the fire started and whether they would control it or not. Some of them I know, mostly to see. Without fail they all know which house I live in and that I am Irish. Neighbours who quarrel gossip together, bound by fear.

By 7pm the fire moves south of Guzelyali, towards Karanlik Limani beyond the Scout camp. The ridge is visible through the smoke, lined with matchstick trees. There are rumours that the restaurants on the road below Intepe, including our favourite gozlemeci, have burned.

By 9pm the area south of Guzelyali, Karanlik Limani, is burning. The Izmir road is reopened in a controlled manner and our electricity is restored. The planes and helicopters aren't flying in the dark and it is eerily quiet after the noise of the day. Having been bumped from the news headlines by the Constitutional Court decision we go to bed with no idea of whether the fire is under control or not.

Fire!!

Breaking News: Girls do just as well as boys at math

OK, so to readers of this blog, it's probably not that shocking, but a study published in today's issue of Science¹ shows that girls do just as well on standardized math tests as boys. The study was lead by University of Wisconsin psychology professor Janet Hyde, and is a follow-up to a similar study she published almost 20 years ago². That original study found that girls and boys performed equally well on math tests through middle school, with boys outperforming girls starting in high school. In the current study she shows that there is no longer any gender difference in test scores through grade 11.

But what about the best of the best? Could it be that men dominate in mathematically-based fields because there are more male math "geniuses"? Hyde did find that when you look at the 99th percentile test scores "white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one." Aha! That means that women will never make up more than 33% of the engineers and physicists³, right? Setting aside the assumption that there is necessarily a correlation between being in the top 1% of math test takers and success as a physical scientist, what Hyde found was that the difference doesn't even hold true for all girls and boys. When test scores for students with Asian ancestry were compared, girls outnumbered boys in the 99th percentile. The results are consistent with the difference being due to cultural factors, rather than innate difference in ability.

OK, but what about college-prep level mathematics? Boys do outscore girls on the math portion of the SAT. As the Science Now article summarizes:

Another portion of the study did confirm that boys still tend to outscore girls on the mathematics section of the SAT test taken by 1.5 million students interested in attending college. In 2007, for instance, boys' scores were about 7% higher on average than girls'. But Hyde's team argues that the gap is a statistical illusion, created by the fact that more girls take the test. "You're dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the score," Hyde says. It's not clear that statisticians at the College Board, which produces the SAT, will agree with that explanation. But Hyde says it's good news, because it means the test isn't biased against girls.

Even if the 7% difference in average SAT test scores does accurately reflect an innate difference mathematical ability, it certainly isn't sufficient to explain the gender gap in physics and engineering.

There's a bit of discussion of the story at the Chronicle of higher education Wired Campus blog, where the comments seem to alternate between "duh, everybody knows this" and "the results don't reflect true mathematical genius"-style arguments. The Knight Science Journalism Tracker has a roundup of links of coverage in the mainstream media.

Related post: How different are the brains of women and men? Not much.

(Thanks to Abi at nanopolitan for sending me the link to the original Science paper)

1. Hyde JS et al. "Gender Similarities Characterize Math Performance" Science 321 (5888): 494-495 (2008). DOI: 10.1126/science.1160364
2. Hyde JS et al "Gender differences in mathematics performance: A meta-analysis." Psycho. Bull. 107(2): 139-155 (1990)
3. That certainly doesn't explain why only 15% of the physics PhDs and 18% of the engineering PhDs go to women. Interestingly, women earn 27% of the mathematics and statistics PhDs.

Tags: gender gap, mathematics

Women in Science Summer Reading

If you are interested in some scholarly women in science-related reading to take to the beach, you might be interested in Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology: Three Decades of UK Initiatives by University of Sussex Director of Gender Studies Alison Phipps. Pat at Fairer Science says it's interesting and thought provoking:

The author looks at 150 programs including classroom research interventions, network development, after school programs and training programs for women returning to the workforce, all designed to increase the participation and success of women and girls in SECT. By taking an historical perspective and using both archival information and personal interviews, this overview provides an interesting starting point for further discussion of the assumptions underlying the programs and the ways in which these assumptions influenced their success. The author argues that too often the assumption is that the problem resides solely in women and girls rather than looking at the co-construction of gender and SECT. She argues for an approach that is more systematic as opposed to “fixing” individual women.

The book can be ordered through Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.


Beyond Bias and Barriers: ...

Read this FREE online! Full Book \| PDF Summary \| Podcast

Also, the National Academies report, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, can be ordered through the National Academies Press at at 25% discount through August 15. Just use code EBBB25 when checking out. You can also read the text online for free. And there is also a Beyond Bias and Barriers podcast you can download, if you'd rather listen than read.

Tags: women in science, gender gap, books

Ice Stories

The Exploratorium has collected a bunch of blogs under the heading "Ice Stores: Dispatches from Polar Scientists", which showcases scientists working at the poles. Not surprisingly the research is seasonal: scientists work in Antarctica during the Northern Hemisphere's winter (so summer at the South Pole), while research in the Arctic is going on now. A number of women scientists are part of the effort.

In the Arctic:

Anne Jensen "lives and works in Barrow, Alaska. Anne’s field studies have taken her throughout much of Alaska for the past 25 years. Her research in human adaptation in the Arctic includes a long-term project at the prehistoric village site of Nuvuk, where the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas come together. Historic Nuvuk is also the site of a 1,000-year-old burial ground. Hundreds of gravesites are endangered there by erosion, which sometimes removes 50 feet of coastal frontage in a single storm."
Amy Breen "has studied the impacts of climate change on Arctic plant communities for nearly a decade. She is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska, and a member of a team of circumpolar scientists participating in the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). In July 2008, she’ll begin blogging from the Toolik Field Station, her field site in the northern foothills of the Brooks Range in Alaska."
Laura Thomas "is an archaeologist and full-time resident of Barrow, Alaska. As the Field and Lab Director for the Nuvuk Archaeology Project, Laura devotes her time to the long-term excavation of a 1,000-year-old burial ground significantly threatened by erosion. Born and raised amongst the rich geological history of Ontario, Canada, Laura has held a lifelong interest in prehistory and how past peoples adapted to their environments. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, and describes her archaeological work in the Arctic as 'living the dream.'"
Zoe Courville "studies snow and ice in polar regions. She received her PhD in material science from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in 2007. She is currently employed as a research mechanical engineer at the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab in Hanover, New Hampshire. She loves working in the polar ice caps and sharing her experiences with others."

In the Antarctic:

Cassandra Brooks "is a graduate student in Marine Science at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) in California who has studied Antarctic marine resources for the last four years both at MLML and with the Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program (AMLR). Cassandra’s work focuses on life history and population structure of Antarctic toothfish. Her goal is to provide information on their age, growth, and spatial distribution in order to facilitate sustainable management of this important Antarctic species."
Christina Riesselman "has traveled to Antarctica three times in pursuit of fossil diatoms that can unlock the secrets of past climate change. She's a Ph.D. student at Stanford University's Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences and a member of the international team of scientists working on the ANDRILL sediment coring project."
Nadine Quintana Krupinski "studies the dynamics of ice sheets and the waterways that exist under glaciers. She's a glaciology Ph.D. student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and enjoys working on isolated glaciers in the world's polar regions."
Maria Vernet "has been a primary investigator on thirteen research cruises off the Western Antarctic Peninsula, exploring one of the coldest marine ecosystems on earth. She's a marine biologist from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. During winter 2008, she studied the ecology of phytoplankton and its role within the marine ecosystem at the Palmer Station Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER). From May 31 to June 20, 2008, Maria is on board the Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker in the northwest Weddell Sea, collecting plankton samples from under and around large free-floating icebergs that have broken off from the Antarctic Ice shelf."
Kathryn Schaffer Miknaitis "dreamed of becoming an artist but fell in love with physics in graduate school. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago's Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and pursues questions about the origin and history of the universe on the South Pole Telescope team. She arrived at the South Pole in November 2007 and blogged about her work on the telescope until she left in February 2008."

If you click on the scientists' names, you'll not only get to their blogs, but you can learn more information about the projects they are working on. It's an interesting glimpse into doing scientific research under extreme environmental conditions.

Tags: women in science, Arctic research, Antarctic research, blogs

Ultra-orthodox Israeli Women Earn Biotechnology Degrees

The Jerusalem Post has an interesting column about a science degree program designed especially for religious Jewish women.

Picture the graduates: 28 young, very religious women with mortar boards fitted snugly over head scarves and wigs, marching to the stage of the Hadassah College Jerusalem auditorium on Rehov Hanevi'im to receive their bachelor of science degrees. A stunning delegation of government representatives - the National Infrastructures minister who is also Deputy Prime Minister, the Religious Affairs minister, the chairman of the Knesset Education Committee - as well as prominent rabbis - sat in the front row to applaud the graduates. Supportive families filled the back rows, sitting in separate men's and women's sections. Baby carriages lined the aisles.

The three-year course is designed to provide the theoretical and technical background for entering the biological and medical research industry. What is unique is the special accommodations for the young women who grew up in strictly religious households and attended gender-segregated elementary and high schools. Most who want to pursue a higher education attend religious seminaries and become teachers, a less lucrative career than laboratory research. Designing a program for them required gender-segregated classrooms and labs, instructors willing to dress and speak "modestly", and childcare for the many women students who had infant children. And, not surprisingly, the students found some of the classroom material challenged their religious beliefs.

The students consulted their rabbi when evolution, a previously avoided subject, appeared on the curriculum. The class material wasn't altered, but he filled in the religious approach to the origins of species.

What is unclear to me - and not addressed in the article - is what happens when these women enter the workforce. The organizer of the program, Adina Bar-Shalom, was "determined to preserve the sheltered environment that was prized in the haredi world while providing higher education that wasn't watered down in any way." Will the new graduates expect that same "sheltered environment" at the biotech companies where they presumably wish to be employed? And will the more secular employees of those companies be required to adhere to their social rules? I imagine it will be difficult for these women, who are apparently the "breadwinners" of their families, to navigate what is a secular industry, at least here in the US. I'd be interested in learning more about Israeli biotech - leave a comment if you know more.

Photos of the graduation ceremony.

Tags: women in science, education, biotechnology, Israel

How different are the brains of women and men? Not much.

Amanda Schaffer has an interesting series of articles at Slate about "The Sex Difference Evangelists", which looks at recent popular science books on difference between the male and female brain by Susan Pinker (The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women and the Real Gender Gap) and Louann Brizendine (The Female Brain):

The bottom line from the science should really be this: Some differences between the minds of men and women exist. But in most areas, they are small and dwarfed by the variability within each gender. To be fair, Brizendine and Pinker intermittently acknowledge this point, and they translate complex material for a wide audience, which necessarily involves simplification. They get credit for trying.

But in the end they don't leave their readers with the correct, if unsensational, impression, which is that men and women's minds are highly similar.

Of course in "translating complex material" Brizendine and Pinker simplify the studies by exaggerating the differences and, in particular, emphasize those that reflect common gender stereotypes. It's not clear, for example, whether women really more empathetic, or are just more likely to fill out surveys with answers that make them appear more empathetic. And it's even more difficult to determine whether the small difference in male and female brains are "innate" or shaped by environment and experience.

Brizendine moves seamlessly from references to fMRI studies to phrases like "distinct female and male brain operating systems." (She also jumps off the deep end with a claim about male and female mirror neurons.) Pinker suggests that fMRI studies can show how women's "neural hardware" gives them an edge in discerning emotion. But our brains change in response to how we use them—what we think, see, feel, and practice doing over a lifetime. This is the plasticity of the brain, demonstrated most colorfully in this famous study of London cabbies. With its potential connection to a person's response to the culture he or she lives in, plasticity could explain much—or potentially all—of the difference between brain scans of men and women responding to emotional stimuli.

And then, of course, is the issue of women and science, which seems to come down to whether more men than women have innately better aptitude for science and engineering subjects. Males do generally perform better than women on tests of spatial reasoning, but like many other skills, training makes a difference.

Researchers from the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, which brings together scientists from several universities, conducted a meta-analysis of more than 100 studies that have examined the effects on men and women's spatial-reasoning scores of everything from a few hours with a spatially oriented video game to weeks or months in a classroom to projects like dressmaking. Crunching numbers across the studies, the group found that training was associated with a substantial gain in spatial reasoning—comparable in size to almost a 10-point boost in IQ, according to Northwestern University researcher David Uttal.

And that kind of training can make a practical difference in whether women stick with engineering:

According to a longitudinal study, men and women who received the extra training got better grades in graphics compared with classmates who also did badly on the diagnostic test but did not get further help. What's more, women who got the extra teaching and encouragement were more likely to remain engineering majors: more than 75 percent, compared with less than 50 percent for women who didn't do the training. (For men, for some reason, the extra teaching didn't have this retention yield.)

Despite what some alarmists say, such extra tutoring is not equivalent to forcing women to enter fields they have no interest in, and it's not the same as instituting a quota for female engineering majors. Instead the extra training appears to be allowing some women in engineering to cross hurdles that would otherwise seem insurmountable. It's interesting that the extra teaching didn't seem to help male students in the same way. Maybe the study linked above speculates about the reason, but I unfortunately don't have access to that journal.

Anyway, as Schaffer points out, being able to rotate 3-dimensional objects in your head is not the central focus of most scientists and engineers.

Ultimately, no one really knows what makes a successful scientist. "Sure, mathematical and spatial ability may play a role, but so may creativity, diligence, communication skills, and intellectual risk-taking," says [psychologist Steve] Ceci. Teaching spatial reasoning is a good thing. But overplaying its importance sells a lot of great scientists short.

It would be unfortunate if many women interested in science and engineering dropped out of their majors because of difficulty in classes that require a skill that would rarely be used in a professional setting. I wonder if that just ends up being the final straw for some women who are bombarded with the message that engineering is the realm of men. That message doesn't need to be overt to have a detrimental effect:

In one case, watching a set of TV ads, including one with a woman " 'drooling' with anticipation to try a new brownie mix," seemed to affect how female students answered questions about their educational and career interests. Women who saw the caricaturing ads were less likely to express interest in quantitative pursuits. The ads didn't seem to affect men, presumably because they didn't feel subtly associated with the shallow brownie maven.

And it's those kind of stereotypes of women are hard to avoid. If you watch television at all, you will be bombarded with ads showing women who are ecstatic because they found the best way to mop the floor or remove a stain (see also this ad that equates feminine with "emotional" and masculine with "logical"). The good news is that the detrimental effects of stereotype threat can be counteracted by making contradictory statements.

One striking example is a 2007 study of a top-track calculus class, designed for science and engineering majors, at the University of Texas. This is a pool from which top math and science professionals would be drawn—"the group Larry Summers was talking about," as Aronson puts it. At the beginning of a calculus exam, he gave some of the women in the class a statement that the test had "not shown any gender differences in performance or mathematical ability." These women scored substantially higher on average than their female classmates. They also performed better on average than their male classmates.

So that seems like a simple solution. But there are many people who seem to have a vested interest in emphasizing the differences between the sexes, and books like those written by Pinker and Brizendine simply reinforce stereotypes by making them sound like they have a firm basis in "science", even when they do not.

Go read the whole series, which includes video of discussions between Schaffer and Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon.

Tags: women in science, gender gap, stereotypes

Dorcas Muthoni: Anita Borg Change Agent Award Winner

Every year the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology presents the Change Agent Award to three women from emerging countries. The recipients are chosen for their ability to demonstrate leadership within their communities, expand opportunities and influence the careers of girls and women in technology, and demonstrate an impact on advancing women’s participation in technology. The award gives them the funding to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, held this October a the Keystone Resort in Colorado.

One of this year's winners is Kenyan Dorcas Muthoni. Muthoni is the founder and managing director of Openworld, which provides consulting and training services in open source systems. She's also a co-founder of the African chapter of LinuxChix (whose web site is offline). According to Africa Business Daily she has worked towards helping girls and women enter the computer sciences.

Ms Muthoni is being recognised for her three years’ labour to get more girls and young women interested in Information Communication Technology (ICT), through mentorship programmes, workshops, book donations to schools and events.
[. . .]
"Women in Africa need to do something to encourage girls to do subjects related to computing,” she says.

And promoting open source software is part of that effort, as this 2006 Tectonic article explains:

FLOSS, or Free/Libre and Open Source Software, now makes it possible to make software available to people who would otherwise not afford it. Countries will no longer have to prioritise between poverty and the digital divide. Women, affected the most, need to be “properly tooled and positioned” to make that difference in their lives.
[. . .]
Dorcas says: “Generally, there’s lack of awareness about FLOSS. Women are more seriously affected by this. Few people (in our part of the world) have contact with, or a background in, IT. Women also try to avoid science or mathematics. They’ve not been in big numbers in IT or computers. So we’ve had very few opportunities for women to interact - or mentor other women."

And she is trying to help women by raise awareness of open source software and make it more widely available. I hope she enjoys the Grace Hopper conference.

Read the Africa Business Daily article, which briefly talks to other Kenyan women in computer science, including Gilda Odera, Catherine Adeya, and Alice Munyua.

Tags: women in computer science, Anita Borg Change Agent Award, Dorcas Muthoni

Title IX and Women in Science, Again

John Tierney has written an op-ed for the New York Times (and cross-posted in his blog, where you can comment) a piece about the possible negative impact of Title IX* on science. It dismisses concerns of many women as “supposed obstacles like ‘unconscious bias’ and a shortage of role models and mentors…”, as if those were just imaginary issues.

He then goes on to raise the specter of a "quota system" and notes that some women scientists were concerned about a "quota system [that] revived the old stereotype that women couldn’t compete on even terms in science." But has that kind of quota system - where mandatory slots are held for women, even if they aren't qualified for the job - actually been seriously proposed? I haven't seen that. Instead, there are lots of indications that many very qualified women, women who often outperform their male colleagues, are leaving the sciences. And that's a problem for anyone who is interested in maintaining America's competitiveness in the sciences.

More discussion around the webs:

Women in science - extra addition @ Female Science Professor
The question of 'female choice' -- as in, do women choose not to be scientists -- is not a relevant question; it is a diversion based on flawed data. Those of us who teach at universities have long had significant numbers of women in our undergraduate and graduate science classes. Many of these women are passionate about science, and they are very smart. It is bizarre to ask a question about whether women decline to pursue scientific careers because they aren't interested or whether they drop out because they don't want to work hard enough. The women are there, they are interested, and they are able.

The relevant question is: How can we change things to encourage these smart, motivated, hard-working women to stay in science?
Habladora at Feministe
PhysioProf at Feministe (note that he uses profanity), with an astute comment by tster:
It’s also playing into the silly idea of scientists as godlike heroes, geniuses who need to work in peace without any kind of interventino from the outside world. Maybe there are a few geniuses out there, but the majority of academic science is workaday, just like the rest of work everywhere. It’s not so much about being brilliant as it is being meticulous, working your ass of, being logical, and playing politics.
Pat at Fairer Science
Absinthe on Title IX and Fermilab

Some old related posts of mine that discuss the issues in more detail:

* Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Tags: gender gap, women in science, Title IX

Turkey is No 1!

Turkey is on average the highest producer of fig, quince, pomegranate, hazelnut, apricot and cherry in the world according to the Vegetable-Fruit report (Sebze-Meyve Raporu) released by the Agriculterers Association of Turkey (Türkiye Ziraatcilar Derneği) at the weekend. Turkey is second highest producer of cucumber and watermelon and third highest producer of tomatos, aubergine and green peppers. The country produced 14.4 million tonnes of fruit in 2007 though apple, apricot, pear, sour (morello) cherry and cherry production was down from 2006. Other fruits produced include plum, peach, orange, mandarin orange, olive, melon, kiwi, banana, grape and lemon. Nuts include pistacio nut, walnut and peanut. Vegetable production was 25.6 million tonnes with increasing yields of onions and carrots. Red pepper, potato, beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, chickpea and sesame are also produced in Turkey.

So how come when I visit my local (albeit British-owned) supermarket, the garlic comes from China?

Turkey is No 1!

Reminder August Scientiae Carnival

Hey all, posting will be light the next couple of weeks because I'll have out-of-town visitors. In the mean time, consider submitting a post to the August Scientiae carnival, which will be hosted by Faraday's Cage is Where You Put Schroedinger's Cat. Here's what she says about the theme:

Right now, I'm thinking about transitions (since I finished my MS and will "sort of" be moving next month).

I thought this might be a good theme. I'd like to hear about other people's transitions. Some things to consider are

• What big (or small) transitions have happened in your life? Or are you anticipating a big transition?
• How did it affect you? (Physically, emotionally, psychologically, locationally..)
• What was the outcome?
• Did you handle it well? If so, how did it help? If not, what could you have done differently?
• What fears or hopes did you have? Did they come to be?

Feel free to elaborate or go beyond these points. Of course, if you don't like this topic, you're welcome to discuss anything else.

Submit your (or someone else's) blog post by July 29 for inclusion.

Conserving Evolution

A lot of people don't seem to realise that evolution involves extinction just as much as it does the development of new species. The niches that species evolve to fill were not empty before they came along. Rather the newcomers out-competed the existing species and took over. In the process they affect the whole ecosystem from the creatures they eat to the ones who eat them and so on up the line.

So I find it very difficult to feel sorry for the Adelie penguins or the soft-bodied benthic invertebrates mentioned in this article about the Antarctic Peninsula in American Scientist. The sea ice is retreating and in doing so favours Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins over the Adelie. The influx of predators such as the King Crab as the waters warm threatens the soft-bodied invertebrates. The invertebrates are soft-bodied because they evolved in an area where shell-cracking predators could not and so lost their shells. The population of Adelie penguins is falling while the invertebrates are under pressure.

Whatever the reasons for the retreating ice sheet (that's another days post!) the natural progression is that as the ecosystem changes the dominant species must adapt or move over. Here we have an example of a changing ecosystem and it's effect on the fauna. These changes cannot be described as being for the worst or for the best. They simply are.

Some will shout immediately for to make it a conservation area, to help the Adelie and protect the invertebrates. But that is preventing or skewing the natural progression of evolution. Because the ecosystem is unique, it's special; the hand of man should not set foot. But whether we like it or not humankind has already affected these creatures, Antarctica may seem remote but whaling in Japan or the North Sea still affects it. And has been affecting it for centuries.

Perhaps we should leave well enough alone and allow evolution to proceed. At least then the creatures that evolve may be able to cope with humankind and their effect on the environment.

Conserving Evolution

Margaret Amsler: Antarctic Biologist

Today's video is an interview with Margaret Amsler, Research Assistant Member of the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Antarctica Team. In fact, she has been doing research in the Antarctic since the 1980s, when she was a student of the late Dr. Mary Alice McWhinnie. Amsler talks about how she became interested in research:

As a young girl I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist. I went to college at DePaul University and my advisor was a marine biologist. Guess where she worked? Yes - Antarctica! Her name was Dr. Mary Alice McWhinnie. She was one of the first females scientists to work in the Antarctic. She and another woman scientist share the distinction of of being the first female researchers to spend a winter in Antarctica at the largest U.S base called McMurdo Station. Dr. Mary Alice also worked many years at Palmer Station. She would often take her students as assistants. I feel so privledged to have been one of those lucky students. The Palmer biology lab is named for Dr. McWhinnie in recognition of all her contributions to Antarctic marine biology. The dedication plaque hangs in a busy hallway and serves to remind me how fortunate I am to have had Dr. Mary Alice in my life. [. . .]

In this video she talks about research and women in the Antarctic .

Last October an island in Antarctica was named after Margaret and her husband Charles Amsler, a UAB faculty member. For more first hand accounts of Antarctic research, check out the team's blog about last year's field work.

Tags: Margaret Amsler, antarctica, biology

SheSource.org: Closing the Gender Gap in the Media

Despite their growing ranks as experts in fields ranging from national security and military spending to technology and health care, women continue to be drastically underrepresented in the news media as policy shapers and leading voices of authority on critical issues. We've heard from journalists that say the main reason they do not quote women as experts on a range of topics is simply because they do not know how to find them.

SheSource.org is a site that attempts to "close the gender gap in news coverage" by providing a database of women experts as an easily-searched resource for journalists. While it looks like most of the listed women have expertise in policy, social sciences, or journalism, there are Ph.D. scientists and engineers too. Most of them are involved in policy and politics, though, rather than academic research. A few examples:

Jane Rigby is a Spitzer Space Telescope postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution. She has a particular interest in demystifying science for the public, and to that end co-founded the first Penn State Astrofest, served on the editorial board of Odyssey, a science magazine for children.
Lisa Haverty applies her Ph.D. in cognitive science to the tricks of advertising. She works for Arnold Worldwide as their "brain whiz", providing "expertise in how people think and learn provides new and unique insights into how people perceive and remember – or don’t remember - ads."
Judith Hand is an evolutionary biologist, author, and futurist who has created A Future Without War, a series of essays on strategies for ending war.
Sonja Ebron has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, with special expertise in power systems and utilities. She has been an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Hampton University. She is currently the CEO of blackEnergy, an organizer of energy bying groups that help people use their utility bills to support Black communities.
Climate scientist Brenda Ekwurzel is a former faculty member in the University of Arizona departments of Hydrology & Water Resources and Geosciences. Currently she leads the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate science education work "aimed at strengthening support for strong federal climate legislation and sound U.S. climate policies."
Mathematician Cindy Williams is a Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Security Studies Program where she "focuses on U.S. budgets for national security and the policies that surround military personnel in the United States and Europe." Prior to joining M.I.T. she was an Assistant Director of the Congressional Budget Office.

If you would like to recommend someone as an expert (including yourself) you should contact SheSource.org.

Tags: women in science, experts, SheSource.org

Women in Science Link Roundup: July 5 Edition

Some miscellaneous links from the past couple of weeks:

At Feministe: The Ivory Ceiling: How Academia Keeps Women Out

Razib at Gene Expression has a post about the political views of professors, which shows "the majority of professors ascribe the underrepresentation of females in science & engineering not to discrimination".

Writer Leslie Warner describes her experience at the "Frontiers of Brain Science" workshop at MIT and her crush on neurobiologist Rebecca Saxe after hearing her presentation.

RSC Publishing has an interview with Patricia Bassereau, who leads the membranes and cellular functions group in the physical chemistry department at the Curie Institute in Paris.

Leslie Madsen Brooks at BlogHer has 10 tips for visiting museums with girls.

At Why All Things Lead to Chaos there's a post on (Women) Engineers Demystified (via Gena Haskett)

Listen to a segment on Science Friday about "Frequency Hopping" the play about Heddy Lamarr.

ABC News on "Women Dropping Out of Science Careers"

Zuska writes about the use of inclusive language.

Tags: women in science

On Planning

Stephen King's 'On Writing' is a wonderful little book. Starting with
his earliest memories, King explains how he writes before describing
the horrific car accident that he survived while writing the book. The
description of the accident is classic King, underplayed and all the
more terrifying for it. I started to tell Himself about it but was
pulled up ''Another book about writing! Why don't you just write your
own?" It's exactly what every writer needs to hear and guaranteed to
piss one off too. It could have turned nasty except that he was just
repeating what King was saying "Read a lot; write a lot".

King advocates writing while the story is fresh, extracting it as
carefully as a fossil from the ground with as little plotting as
possible. It's an attractive idea. Excavate the fossil and then flesh
it out on the later drafts instead of blasting it out with a
sledgehammer plot. It seems a more sensible way than planning every
single step only to find that the actual writing is slowed to a crawl
by constant reference to notes and research. My novel is in the
planning stage and doesn't show much progress. (I'm finding it
difficult to shut the door while I write, so much for our open plan
living room.) The problem is that the story keeps changing; the fossil
has life and metamorphoses every day. If I'd excavated sooner then
perhaps it wouldn't be the monster it's become.

At the moment it's called 'Ground Down'; the story of one woman's run
in with a rogue belt sander which kills her friends and family. As she
faces the renegade machine, she finds perspective on her pettiness and
immaturity. Has the King influence gone too far?

On Planning

Lectures on Astronomy and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has made a podcast of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, including several by women scientists:

Dr. Jill Tarter (SETI Institute): "The Allen Telescope Array: The Newest Pitchfork for Exploring the Cosmic Haystack". Tarter is the "the leader of the main project looking for radio signals from alien civilizations", and the model for Jodie Foster's character in the movie Contact. Listen to the MP3.
Dr. Janice Voss (NASA Ames Research Center): "A Scientist in Space" and "Searching for Earth-like Planets: NASA's Kepler Mission". Voss is an astronomer and astronaut who has flown on five space missions, and is currently the Science Director of NASA's Kepler Space Observatory. Listen to the MP3.
Dr. Nathalie Cabrol (SETI Institute): "The Mars Exploration Rover Mission: A Year of Exploration and Discovery" Cabrol is a planetary geologist who specializes in "environments favorable to Life on Mars, their exploration (robotic and human) and the study of terrestrial analogues." Listen to the MP3.

(via Bad Astronomy)
Tags: astronomy, podcast, lectures

Scientiae Carnival @ PodBlack Blog: A Voice in the Crowd

The July Scientiae Carnival is up at PodBlack Blog, with the theme "a voice in the crowd." She's collected some great posts, so go check it out.

Next month's carnival is scheduled to be at Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat. You can find out more about contributing or hosting the carnival at the Scientiae blog.

Tags: scientiae carnival

Alia Sabur: World's Youngest Professor

Materials scientist Alia Sabur has been breaking records for nearly a decade:

She was the youngest student to attend college, when she was 10, and four years later, the youngest woman to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University. By 18, she had her doctorate degree in Materials Science and Engineering.

Last semester she taught math and physics classes at Southern University in New Orleans. And now? She's a professor in the Department of Advanced Technology Fusion at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, and Research Liaison with her alma mater, Stony Brook University. Her hiring at age 18 makes her the youngest college professor in history. In addition to teaching, she'll also pursue research in developing nanotubes for use as cellular probes.

She told Voice of America that she wants to help dispel the stereotype that girls aren't as good at math and science as boys.

"I'm hoping to be a role model for other girls," she says, "and inspire them to go into those subjects so that they can prove the same thing, that girls are good at math and science and that you don't have to be really nerdy or weird to be successful in them."

And she is also a musician - she studied the clarinet at Juilliard School of Music the same year she started college, and made her solo debut in front of an orchestra at age 11 - and has a black belt in tae kwon do.

Amazing!

(via Zuska)

Tags: Alia Sabur

The RAISE Project

The RAISE project is a site sponsored by the Society for Women's Health Research, which is surveying awards to women in science, mathematics, engineering, social science and technology. From their press release:

The RAISE Project, a program of the Society for Women’s Health Research to increase recognition of women in science, technology, engineering and medicine through professional awards, has documented more than 1,000 awards and 20,000 recipients on its growing Web site, www.raiseproject.org. A resource for scientists and women’s advocates, the RAISE Project features a searchable database with information on application processes and award histories.

“The RAISE Project is an important tool for any woman scientist, researcher or academician,” said Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research, a Washington, D.C., based advocacy organization. “It provides easy access to information on awards and how to apply for them. Women receive fewer professional honors in part because they are less likely than men to nominate and promote themselves. This site can help them pursue the recognition they deserve.”

According to their data, which starts in 1981, while the percentage of STEM awards presented to women has been slowly increasing (see chart below), 32% of the awards in their database have less than 1% women recipients.

Their database can be searched either by name or by the award, and looks like it's a pretty useful tool. A question that I've been pondering is one that the database might help answer: do a relatively small number of top female scientists receive a disproportionately large number of awards as compared to male award winners? I'm not sure how the analysis should be done to take into account the much greater number of male scientists receiving awards (statistics was never my strong suit), but I'm sure it could be done.

Tags: The RAISE Project, women in science, awards

Follow-up: Pardis Sabeti on ScienceNOW tomorrow

As a follow-up to my post on super cool geneticist Pardis Sabeti, you might want to check out the July 2nd episode of ScienceNOW on your local PBS station. If you miss it (or don't get PBS programming), you can watch the segment online, beginning July 3.

She's also got several videos up on Big Think, where she talks about being a woman in science and why she does what she does: because solving puzzles is fun.

Tags: Pardis Sabeti, ScienceNOW, PBS