Einstein’s Advice To A Little Girl Who Wants To Be A Scientist

Back in Einstein's time - the 20s and 30s, girls minded being girls because that's all they could be. A girl, then a wife and mother. And if not a wife, then a mother to a some other woman's children (as a nanny or teacher).

There were exceptional women who fought against being confined to the home. They went out and did things - and they were exceptional because up until the 1970s, that's something women just did not do, and they were criticized for it, called unwomanly for it, by not only men but other women as well.

From The Frisky : Einstein’s Advice To A Little Girl Who Wants To Be A Scientist

As per the book Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children, this is a 1946 letter written by a little girl to Einstein:

I forgot to tell you, in my last letter, that I was a girl. I mean I am a girl. I have always regretted this a great deal, but by now I have become more or less resigned to the fact. Anyway, I hate dresses and dances and all the kind of rot girls usually like. I much prefer horses and riding. Long ago, before I wanted to become a scientist, I wanted to be a jockey and ride horses in races. But that was ages ago, now. I hope you will not think any the less of me for being a girl!

Albert Einstein’s response:

I do not mind that you are a girl, but the main thing is that you yourself do not mind. There is no reason for it.

Who knew Einstein was a feminist?! It’s advice even us big girls should follow.

Littleton astronomer Margaret Harwood remembered for achievements

From Wicked Local Littleton : Littleton astronomer Margaret Harwood remembered for achievements


Littleton — Today it’s hard to believe, but less than 100 years ago, American women still hadn’t obtained the right to vote. That came with the passage of the 19th amendment in August of 1920. If this commonplace right was denied, you can imagine how difficult it would have been to be recognized as a serious scientist, particularly in the male-dominated study of astronomy.

So it was some surprise that the March 8, 1912 edition of The New York Times carried the following headline:

“Astronomy Prize to Woman — Miss Harwood is awarded the $1,000 Nantucket Fellowship

Cambridge, Massachusetts–the Woman's Astronomical fellowship of the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association was awarded today to Ms. Margaret Harwood of Littleton, Mass. The Fellowship… is to be devoted to advanced astronomical study and research work for six months on Nantucket Island and six months in any large observatory, which the recipient may choose.

Miss Harwood is a graduate of Radcliffe College and for the past four years has studied as an assistant in the Harvard Observatory.”

Well, long before she could vote, Harwood was making a name for herself in newspapers throughout the world.

Littleton beginnings


Harwood was born in 1885 and educated in the Littleton and Concord school systems. She excelled at math and science, which gained her acceptance into the all-women’s Radcliffe College. According to the Harvard University Library, she graduated in 1907, a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

After graduation she worked as an assistant at the Harvard College Observatory until 1912 when she got her first big break winning the aforementioned fellowship.

At Nantucket she worked at the observatory, which was named after the astronomer and educator, Maria Mitchell. Mitchell discovered a comet in 1847, which led to international fame and many achievements and awards, including an appointment as the first American Professor of Astronomy at Vassar College. Mitchell was a true pioneer for women in science and her achievements provided Harwood a solid platform for launching her own career.

In 1916 Harwood earned her master’s degree from the University of California and was next appointed director at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, the first woman to be appointed to that position at an independent observatory in the United States. She would serve as director there for the next 41 years until 1957.

An otherworldly woman


At the time, the few women who were involved in astronomy were relegated to areas of study that were less interesting and cutting edge. However limited her opportunities, that didn’t stop Harwood from making the most of them — there was a big universe out there.

As mentioned in the Encyclopedia of World Scientists, she devoted herself to the study of variable stars and asteroids or minor planets as they are sometimes called. Her particular field was photometry, measuring variation in the light of stars and asteroids, especially that of the asteroid Eros.

According to the Dictionary of Minor Planets, Volume 1, her discovery of the asteroid Washingtonia four days before its official recognition by the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1917 was squashed.

At the time, her Harvard mentors considered it inappropriate for women to receive public recognition for these discoveries so they deferred to the later U.S. Naval Observatory’s claim.

However she would do them all one better some day.

In the interim, she satisfied herself as the only woman astronomer to have photographed three solar eclipses and she was recognized in astronomical societies here and abroad. She continued to publish articles about variable stars and asteroids and their light wave patterns.

Part of a larger Universe


But there was so much more to Harwood than just pure science. She was an educational and civic leader throughout her lifetime, including:

· Teaching at MIT during World War II


· Mentoring students



· Participating in various professional organizations



· Awarded a Graduate Chapter Medal by Radcliffe College



· Red Cross home service worker 1918-1922



· Trustee of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital 1925-1927



· President of the Coffin School Association 1935-1937



· Member of the Nantucket School Committee 1936-1940



· Helping Boy Scouts earn merit badges in astronomy



· A member of the American Astronomical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (England)



· Teaching at various at private schools in Massachusetts



· Teaching evening classes in navigation to adults and during World War II, to members of the Navy Sea Bees in Nantucket.



· Serving as secretary to her class at Radcliffe from 1905-1922



· In 1957, following her retirement from the Maria Mitchell Observatory, she was presented a Graduate Chapter Medal by Radcliffe College for distinguished achievement

The tall and slender Harwood was a woman who carried herself with great charm, always looking to help others. In Lillian Moller Gilbreth’s book, “A Life beyond ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’” she talked about Harwood at Nantucket:

“(She) held an open house every other Monday and the Gilbreths were among the dozens of people climbing up onto the Observatory to look through the telescope and learn about stars. She taught them how to use a sextant and navigate by the stars; she also ran a wildflower club. She was immensely popular on the island and is remembered as having loads of charm — the way she greeted people she was just wonderful. She had loads of friends.

There were not many opportunities for women astronomers in those days, but Margaret Harwood did what she could to help. Young women in turn spent the summer on the island helping her run the observatory. Margaret was remembered as a guide, philosopher and friend. Sometimes stopping by to go swimming with the Gilbreths and talk to the children, ‘Marnie’ as they called her, was a great favorite of the girls.”

Still in orbit


Harwood died in 1979 at the age of 94 and is buried at Westlawn Cemetery in Littleton. But during her lifetime she was able to witness great advances for both women and astronomy.

She saw men land on the moon and learn that Sally Ride was becoming America’s first astronaut. She knew of the Mariner spacecraft reaching Venus and Mars and the Pioneer program reaching out to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond. She read of Rachel Carson’s contributions to environmental science and Margaret Mead’s insights into anthropology.

Harwood may have wondered if things would have been different if she had been born later — but one thing that she couldn’t change was the recognition of her fellow astronomers bestowed upon her in September 1960. The scientific trio of Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groveneveld and Tom Gehrels discovered an asteroid and promptly named it in Harwood’s honor.

7040 Harwood (2642 P-L) sits in the main belt asteroid forever tumbling and orbiting our sun between Mars and Jupiter. And justice be served: Neither Harvard nor the U.S. Naval Observatory can claim a asteroid named in their honor.

Live on Margaret!

Newly discovered advertising art illustrates Indy's past

This article has nothing to do with science but its interesting and I thought I'd share it. Do you have a grandmother? Have you ever listened to her stories of when she was young - what did she do for a living?

And does she have mementos or things she's collected from the past? Don't sell them on Ebay - give them to a museum!

From the Indianapolis Star: Newly discovered advertising art illustrates Indy's past
After Sue Payne's mother died in 2006, the work began. Every week or two, Payne's husband, John, climbed into the old attic and brought down boxes.

Payne would spend the next week going through vintage post cards, letters from decades past, clothing from the 1920s. She even found a locket that matched one in a photograph of her great-great-aunt.

Then one day, Payne peeled away some yellowed newspaper and unwrapped a revelation. Her mother had been much more talented than she had imagined. Payne's mother, Betty Schaefer, had been part of a bygone era in advertising -- long before the advent of "Mad Men" -- when big downtown department stores ruled the retail landscape and employed their own fashion illustrators.

Payne found a stylish drawing of a woman's legs in back-seamed nylon stockings, a face faintly visible in the background.

A second piece of artwork featured big sexy legs with high-heeled shoes. It had been used in a 1940s print ad for The Indianapolis News. The instructions for newspaper printers were still legible: "1/2 red, reverse pos, Fri News, Blocks up, line and highlight halftone."

"It just knocked me out," said Payne, recalling the moment. She knew her mother had been an artist for Wm. H. Block Co. department store but didn't realize the extent of her background in commercial art. Furniture had been her mother's specialty, and it was the only type of art Payne had ever seen her do. "To see this was remarkable. I was like, 'Damn, I wish I could ask her about it.' "

But it was too late for that.

For weeks, Payne, 58, went through scads of illustrations, uncovering nearly 300 in all. It got so she couldn't help herself. When her husband would carry more artwork down from the attic, Payne would sometimes cry.

"It was like Christmas every day," she said.

And now she is sharing that gift with the community. This spring, her mother's artwork will be donated to the Indiana Historical Society for preservation and future study.

Steve Haller, the historical society's senior director of collections, describes the collection as "high-quality" and said it is "far more engaging than perhaps a nostalgic look at how advertisers once saw their customers."

In addition to the drawings, Payne found a black-and-white halftone image of her mom sitting at her desk at Blocks in the 1940s and newspaper clippings featuring her mom's artwork.

One drawing depicted a woman's hands painting the buttons on a serviceman's uniform, an advertisement for Revlon's Keep 'em Shining. Another drawing was a tube of toothpaste with a chef who devised the formula, an ad for Elizabeth Arden. Another drawing showed bobby pins falling out of an envelope. "They'll do a swell MP job on your AWOL locks and keep them where you put them," the ad read.

Through much of the 20th century, Blocks was one of Indiana's premier department stores. From 1937 to 1953, Schaefer worked at the eight-story Blocks store at the corner of Illinois and Market streets in Downtown Indianapolis. Blocks closed in 1988, and its 10 Indiana stores were converted to Lazarus stores. The building is now home to a T.J. Maxx store and apartments.

Payne's artwork, Haller said, offers a window into the cultural history of advertising in the United States and adds to the historical records of Indiana and Indianapolis.

Jo Nicks, 92, a former colleague of Schaefer's, says Blocks in the 1940s was a special place and time.

Nicks came to Blocks as a commercial artist in 1940 and became great friends with Schaefer. The Indianapolis resident still keeps in touch with Payne and remembers what she called "the golden years" at Blocks -- from creating artwork for ads to sneaking out to watch movies over lunch when the two weren't busy.

Artists made $15 per week in salary and would go out on the sales floor to see the furniture or draw from manufacturers' photos. Sometimes, Nicks said, store products were brought to the artists, who would draw the pictures.

Mannequins, rather than live models, were used to illustrate clothing.

After the artwork was published, it was returned daily to Blocks and put in a closet. Artists had a chance to take their work before it was thrown out.

Nicks recalled how each artist had a specialty, hers being household goods such as pots and pans and, later, lingerie and ladies' fashions.

Schaefer's specialties were hosiery, children's clothing, draperies, rugs, tablecloths, hankies and furniture. "She could take a picture of a sofa and turn it into this gorgeous thing," said Payne, who remembers watching her mother draw pictures of couches, chairs and dining room tables.

Payne's mom later designed furniture and co-owned with her daughter a store called Colonial Treasures in Zionsville. Schaefer worked as an interpreter in costume in the late 1960s and early 1970s at Conner Prairie Interactive History Park in Fishers, where she also volunteered.

Payne, a textile specialist at Conner Prairie, has spent the past four years cleaning, restoring and now appraising her mother's artwork. Many of the drawings are yellowed; light has gotten to some pieces and left an uneven color.

Through an art store, she found Guy Davis, an art conservator at Snodgrass & Davis Studio near Broad Ripple, who has been removing stains and surface grime and is digitizing every piece so Payne can keep copies.

"She brought the artwork to me because it was in really poor condition," said Davis, 59, Zionsville, who would spend up to an hour on each item. "A lot of them had fingerprints and stickers The Star would use to label the artwork," he said. Most of the work was done on illustration board with colored pencils.

Davis has relined canvas with new linen and removed dimples and imprints caused when pieces leaned together.

It was during that process that Payne decided to donate the collection to the historical society. "I want it to go to an institution where it will be well taken care of," she said.

Through finding all of these treasures, Payne said, she gained a new appreciation for her mother.

The advertising drawings weren't the only treasures in the attic. Payne also found several watercolor paintings that date to primary school, when her Marion-born mother was 9 years old and growing up in Hollywood, Calif. There were also 13 pieces of artwork from John Herron Art Institute dated 1935.

Payne discovered her mom's lightheartedness, intelligence and great imagination in her artwork. "She was a lot more creative and even a much better artist than I had realized. I kind of took it for granted, and I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd complimented her more."

Said Payne: "I wish we would have been able to get these things down before Mom died. . . . I wish she could tell me about them. It would have been incredible to be able to show her these things and talk about them."

Now she knows her mother's legacy will be kept alive.

Easter Pause

So sorry to have missed so many days of posting - unexpected family matters cropped up.

And now it's Easter, so more family matters.

Will get back on track Monday.

Thanks for your patience.

Marine Biologist is a Giant in World of Shrimp Medicine

From Jakarta Globe: Marine Biologist is a Giant in World of Shrimp Medicine
After Aceh was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, its economy had to be rebuilt to meet the demand for food and to provide jobs. Marine biologist Sidrotun Naim, 32, the “shrimp doctor” to her Acehnese colleagues, is playing a pivotal role in this rebuilding, and in the future health of Indonesian shrimp farms.

Sidrotun arrived in Aceh’s Pidie district in 2006, after she graduated in marine biology from the University of Queensland in Australia. Working as part of a tsunami rehabilitation program through the World Wildlife Fund, Sidrotun was asked to consult on a shrimp breeding project.

“They said, ‘You’re clever and still young, you must study the shrimp and help us,’ ” Sidrotun said. And so she dedicated herself to shrimp, and helping the people of Pidie and Aceh get back on their feet.

Sidrotun is from a large Javanese family and excelled at school, picking up a number of prestigious scholarships as she furthered her studies. She is thought to be one of the first crustacean pathologists in a country that is one of the biggest shrimp producers in the world.

Shrimp farming is a high-risk business, with shrimp being highly prone to a handful of illnesses, the most dangerous of which is white spot syndrome, a viral infection that can wipe out an entire broodstock (a term in aquaculture that refers to a group of mature individuals used for breeding purposes) in three days.

Although Indonesia is among the biggest shrimp exporters in the world, along with China, Thailand and Vietnam, the country still does very little scientific research to support local shrimp farmers. Plenty of studies have been carried out on fish and crabs, Sidrotun said, but not shrimp.

“The shrimp industry began in the ’80s when people stopped catching shrimp and began breeding them,” she said. “But shrimp are prone to illness because of the density of the broodstock.”

In 2009, Sidrotun won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Arizona in Tucson, a reference laboratory for studying illnesses in shrimp, where she is now completing her master’s thesis on the effects of adding tilapia (a type of fish) to shrimp broodstock.

After 16 weeks of research in Arizona, Sidrotun found that tilapia can help the health of the stock. In a regular broodstock, shrimp typically live at the bottom of the pond.

Sidrotun’s experiment involved breeding tilapia above the broodstock by putting them in a large fish net. This improved the quality of the water, as the fish seemed to consume the bacteria before it could filter down to the bottom of the pond and attack the shrimp.

“[Adding tilapia] also adds economic value for our farmers, because they can breed fish, algae and shrimp all in one broodstock,” Sidrotun said.

But the exact reasons behind the results are inconclusive, and she hopes to investigate the results further.

Last week, Sidrotun won a fellowship worth $40,000 from For Women in Science, a collaboration between Unesco and the L’Oreal Foundation in Paris. Sidrotun said she planned to use the fellowship, which was awarded by a jury led by Nobel winners, to fund her postdoctoral studies at Harvard’s medical school, where she is a visiting scholar.

The seventh of 11 children, Sidrotun said her family usually ate rice and tempeh when she was growing up, and rarely indulged in seafood. Her father, Abidullah, was a high school teacher, and is now retired with his wife, Siti Muslichah.

Despite a humble upbringing, half of Sidrotun’s siblings went to school overseas through scholarships, including her third brother, who is now pursuing his studies in management at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Sidrotun has a 6-year-old son, and is married to Dedi Priadi, who studies psychology at the University of Arizona.

Upon completion of her dissertation and graduation, Sidrotun intends to study IMNV, one of the most threatening shrimp viruses found in Brazil and Indonesia. The virus first appeared in Indonesia in 2006, and has since caused harvest failures costing millions of dollars, she said.

“Last year, our farmers suffered a loss of $150 million to $200 million because of this virus,” she said.

Upon graduating from the University of Arizona, Sidrotun intends to study how IMNV and shrimp interact. A large number of shrimp survive the virus, and she hopes to discover what allows some shrimp to survive while others die. It is a scientific long-shot, but every major breakthrough begins with a single step.

“To be able to design a system to minimize the risk, we have to understand the virus first,” she said. “I hope in 5 to 10 years, our native shrimp can be more stable, so that traditional farmers can have a more solid bargaining position.”

The fishing industry has not been kind to shrimp farmers, Sidrotun said. The industry will often help farmers start their stocks, she said, but then make them shoulder all the costs for failed harvests.

“It should be the part of the company’s risk and not just farmers, because some crucial things, like disease, are out of their control,” she said.

It might seem like a scientist dedicated to producing healthy shrimp stock would harbor a certain disdain for disease, but Sidrotun speaks about viruses with respect.

“Viruses have been on earth much longer than bacteria and humans have, so we have to understand them,” she said. “Through evolution, humans have become smaller and smaller, but what we don’t know is if viruses have become stronger.”

What we do know, she said, is that unlike plants and animals, which are all built on unchanging DNA, viruses can mutate and adapt very quickly, which is why they are so difficult to study.

The cure for HIV, for example, continues to elude scientists despite years of research and billions of dollars in funding. But IMNV is more complicated because it is a double-strand, where HIV is a single-strand.

Sidrotun is passionate about improving the understanding of — and someday finding a cure for — IMNV. She is currently working with Max Nibert at Harvard, who discovered the 3D structure of the virus.

Sidrotun also hopes her research will be useful for scientists invested in study of the rotavirus, which kills about 500,000 children every year worldwide.

She said, “A virus may seem like a minor thing because to us it’s invisible, but it can destroy months of efforts by our local farmers in days, so yes, it’s important.”

18th-Century Bone Telescopes Discovered in Amsterdam

From Live Science: 18th-Century Bone Telescopes Discovered in Amsterdam
Five telescopes made of bone and dating to the 18th century have been discovered in Amsterdam, with two of the scopes found in the equivalent of toilets.

At the time, called the Enlightenment, the telescopes would have been considered luxury items and were likely used to gaze at objects on land or sea, rather than to look at the stars. They were created during a period when Amsterdam was a flourishing center for trade, one that attracted talented craftsmen.

Ranging in length from roughly 3 to 5 inches (80 to 140 millimeters), the telescopes were made using cattle metatarsal bone. "This particular bone of cow, the metatarsal bone, is actually quite straight and round," Marloes Rijkelijkhuizen, of the Amsterdam Archaeological Centre at the University of Amsterdam, told LiveScience."It's a nice shape to make these telescopes from, it's straight and (has a) very round narrow cavity."

Each telescope would have had a pair of lenses — like the system used by Galileo — a convex objective and a concave ocular, to magnify objects. (Two of the telescopes have at least one lens intact.) The longest of the telescopes, which had both lenses intact, is made of two parts put together with a screw thread, and was equipped with a bone insertion that has a small hole and likely functioned as an aperture stop.

This finely crafted telescope, with a lens still intact, was found in a cesspit, a place used as a toilet in the 18th century. How it got there is a mystery.
CREDIT: Wiard Krook, Office for Monuments & Archaeology, Amsterdam.
View full size image

With a magnification of about 3, the bone telescopes may have been used as opera glasses, held up by their wealthy owners to get a better view of the stage. Another idea is that someone going to sea, perhaps as a ship passenger, toted these with them.

The telescopes were excavated at different times over the past 40 years by the Office for Monuments and Archaeology in Amsterdam. Details of the findings hadn't been published until now, and, in the case of two of them, were unidentified until several years ago when Rijkelijkhuizen, then a master's degree student, started work on her thesis. She was looking at organic artifacts found in Amsterdam when she came across bone artifacts that would later turn out to be telescopes.

"At first I didn't recognize them either," Rijkelijkhuizensaid. Her analysis of the five telescopes is now published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries.

When Rijkelijkhuizenlooked over the excavation reports she found that two of the telescopes had been discovered in cesspits – the 18th-century equivalent of a toilet. It's not clear where the other three telescopes would have been originally deposited in the 18th century.

"It's a toilet but it is also like a dump for trash," she said. Why luxury items like these would have been put in toilets is a mystery; perhaps they broke and their owners, despite the cost of producing them, threw them away. Another idea is that their owners lost them. [A Gallery of the World's Toilets]

Rijkelijkhuizen said it's not the first time she's uncovered unusual objects in pits like these. "We find all different kinds of objects in a cesspit, like false teeth, and we think 'why?'"

However it happened, it was fortunate for the archaeologists. "Because it was a toilet, and it's a very wet environment, all the objects in it are usually very well preserved," she said.

Ushering in the Enlightenment
The 18th century was a time of great change with new ideas, both scientific and political, being discussed. The telescope, with its ability to let people gaze at the stars, and see objects from a great distance, played a significant role in these changes. It had been invented only a century earlier. [The History of Telescopes]

"The telescope (and later the microscope), were thus two major devices that helped usher in the enlightenment," writes Geoff Andersen, an astronomer and author, in his book"The Telescope: Its History, Technology and Future" (Princeton University Press, 2007).

"Suddenly, anyone could experience things beyond the range of the unaided human senses, and start questioning conventional wisdom about the universe in which we live."

Although these newly discovered bone telescopes were not the most powerful telescopes of their day, for their owners it would have given them the ability to peer out farther into the horizon.

Scientists predict deep-sea life discovery in future Cameron dives

From SlashGear.com: Scientists predict deep-sea life discovery in future Cameron dives
James Cameron’s Challenger Deep dive 6.8 miles to the bottom of the ocean may not have turned up any of the monstrous sea beasts the Titanic director hoped for, but experts still expect new species to be discovered when more time can be spent at the inhospitable depths. “Three hours is just a drop in the bucket, and with more hours I think he’s going to discover cool things” Cindy Lee Van Dover, director of the marine laboratory at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, told MSNBC. “I was rooting for him to land and find strange-looking animals.”

Van Dover’s speciality is animal life that is found around hydrothermal vents, underwater geysers of hot water containing vital minerals and other nutrients. Areas of regular seabed, however, are generally harsh and ill-suited to life, she points out, though is mindful that it’s early days. “How many years have we been studying the ocean? And it took until 1977 to discover hydrothermal vents.”

She’s not alone in being hopeful, either. Deep-sea ecologist Bruce Robison of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California expects incredible adaptations from whatever life is discovered at such inhospitable depths, though concurs that it’s likely to be found somewhat off the seabed.

“Anything that has adapted to thrive in that habitat is going to have some really remarkable adaptations,” he told reporters. “But most of the animals in the ocean don’t live on the bottom, so there’s an enormous potential for discovery up off the bottom as well.”

While Cameron joked that he hoped to discover beasts similar to the stories he remembers from his childhood during the record-breaking dive, in actual fact the only animal discovery is said to be inch-long shrimp-like creatures. Plans to bring back samples of sea life, rocks and water were scuppered when the hydraulic system powering the equipment failed, curtailing the dive itself.

Cameron has said plans to return to the Mariana Trench are already in the works, and that he is unconcerned by the hardware issues. “The important thing is that we have a vehicle that’s a robust platform” he argued after returning from the first dive. “It gets us there safely, the lights work, the cameras work, and hopefully next time the hydraulics will work.”