TheJordanTimes: 'Much needed to protect, empower female children in Jordan'
AMMAN - Customs, society and family form the primary sources of conviction for the parents of a girl or boy child, a local study revealed on Tuesday.
The study also reiterated previous initial findings that Jordanian families in general are more worried about how they are perceived by their own communities when bringing up their daughters, rather than how existing laws protect their female members.
Titled, “To be a Girl in Jordan: A Legal and Cultural Bias”, the survey, funded by USAID through the Rule of Law Project, covered 2,011 households in six governorates. It aimed at finding out about the culture and the environment in which girls are raised in Jordan.
Nermeen Murad, director of the King Hussein Foundation’s research centre, which carried out the survey, highlighted the challenges females face in Jordan, saying that the study in question “gave indicators on where we should focus our efforts”.
One of the findings, according to Murad, was that religion was a significant knowledge source for the families surveyed “but not as significant as the environment, including customs and society, in judging their daughter”.
The apparent effects of the media and the law with regards to how families bring up their daughters “were negligible”, Murad added.
Murad said another finding of the study indicated that the majority of girls surveyed had limited ambitions about their future lives and many reflected that by stating their interests as being mainly on how their wedding dress will look like, wearing makeup and following movie stars news.
“We rarely found a female child who said she wants to be a doctor or a scientist when she grew up and this is an indication of how they are brought up at their homes,” Murad explained.
Turning to education, Murad said many families prefer to educate their daughters “not for the sake of ensuring a better education, but more for the sake of guaranteeing a good husband who is looking for an educated wife”.
On the other hand, she added, many families prefer not to support their daughter’s higher education “thinking that it will make it easier for their daughters to get married since some men prefer uneducated women”.
Murad said several steps should be adopted to empower female children in Jordan.
Appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures are urgently needed to protect the girl child, in the household and in society, from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse, Murad said.
Another important step, according to Murad, is to empower the girl child to be aware of her own potential, her ability to make decisions, to control her own destiny, and to be confident, and to educate her about the rights guaranteed to her under all international human rights instruments, legislation enacted for her and the various measures undertaken by both governmental and non-governmental organisations working to improve her status.
The aim of the project was to contextually map the state of the girl child in Jordan and determine the manner by which cultural ideology practised by the community influences the formulation of the law.
Murad said the findings will be announced in a publication called “The Book” that will form the basis for how stakeholders will deal with the girl child in Jordan.
Murad also announced that anyone interested in learning more about the study or the interviews that were done can check the project’s website at www.teflah.com
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Let's see more of Mrs Brian Cox – doing science on TV
Guardian.co.uk: Let's see more of Mrs Brian Cox – doing science on TV
The problem with science television is merely an amplified version of what is wrong with the rest of TV – institutionalised male boorishness. The argument is as follows: there aren't many women working in science, so it's a small pool to pick from. We don't succeed when we go out to cast female presenters so we fall back on male presenters. There aren't any strong female role models in science on TV, so not very many girls go into science. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As a scientist turned TV producer I've worked on numerous science programmes: Superhuman (fronted by Robert Winston), Scrapheap Challenge (Robert Llewellyn), Brainiac (Richard Hammond), The Garage for Discovery (a documentary set in a garage repair workshop run by men) and Top Trumps (Robert Llewellyn and Ashley Hames). If a programme has a boys-toys gender stereotype as a subtext, chances are I'll have some connection with it.
You'll have spotted the trend: the lack of female presenters. This is not just a failing on TV, of course, but wider society. But that doesn't let TV off the hook. Maybe it's time we had a Brainiac for girls.
Brainiac was excellent; it unapologetically raised the profile of science and got lots of kids onboard. At times the series ran a little fast and loose with the facts, but it did for general science what Brian Cox has done for space. But at what price? Alongside the fun stuff (blowing up caravans) and the interesting stuff (can you walk on custard?), there were inserts such as Professor Myang Li wearing skimpy bikinis while doing pointless experiments (which fruit floats?) under a heavily innuendo-packed voiceover and close-ups of her cleavage. That's not going to become watercooler TV for subscribers to feminista, nor will it inspire a generation of girls into science, engineering, or technology.
What would a Brainiac for girls look like? Well, just like Brainiac but without the cleavage shots, bikini-clad babes and sexy nurses. It's a lie that only boys like explosions and things that go fast. We don't need a female Brainiac, we just need more women blowing things up, racing fast cars and generally being seen to get down and dirty (but not in that way).
The sooner TV stops pussyfooting around and actively goes out with a plan to shift the presenting ratio of females to males back where it should be, the sooner they'll see the change that eventually came to news-presenting gender split.
Let's not pretend the talent isn't out there. If you wanted it, right now, you'd have a feast of talented women to pick from. The fantastic girl-geek Gia Milinovich, who also happens to be Brian Cox's wife, does transatlantic crossover so well I'm amazed that Discovery doesn't make more of her for international programming. Lisa Rogers, missing from our screens since the demise of Scrapheap, knows more than most blokes about the inner working of the combustion engine. Both of these women are feisty, funny and can more than hold their own in traditional male arena. Tanya Ross is an engineer who built me a scale model of the Millennium dome (no the O2) in 15 minutes flat from construction waste. Alice Roberts could be used to better effect than titillating middle-aged men with Wild Swimming, and we could definitely be seeing more of Charlotte Uhlenbroeke. As far as newcomers are concerned, a PhD student in planetary sciences, Sheila Kinani, should be one to watch. And if you're really looking for the next generation, cast your eye on the Planet Scicast entries for last years competition, in which a group of teenage girls from Scotland made an excellent film off their own backs which explained the complex concept of sonoluminescence – how bubbles turn sound into light.
I heard a quote yesterday from an 11 year-old girl who had just been listening to a talk about astronomy by a female presenter. At the end, the presenter asked if there were any questions. She put up her hand and said: "Please don't solve dark matter – I want to do that when I grow up." Let's give her something that will inspire her to live that dream. Give her someone to aspire to. Then maybe she really will grow up to be the female Brian Cox. Now, how about we get some of these women together to front a show that will really inspire the next generation?
The problem with science television is merely an amplified version of what is wrong with the rest of TV – institutionalised male boorishness. The argument is as follows: there aren't many women working in science, so it's a small pool to pick from. We don't succeed when we go out to cast female presenters so we fall back on male presenters. There aren't any strong female role models in science on TV, so not very many girls go into science. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As a scientist turned TV producer I've worked on numerous science programmes: Superhuman (fronted by Robert Winston), Scrapheap Challenge (Robert Llewellyn), Brainiac (Richard Hammond), The Garage for Discovery (a documentary set in a garage repair workshop run by men) and Top Trumps (Robert Llewellyn and Ashley Hames). If a programme has a boys-toys gender stereotype as a subtext, chances are I'll have some connection with it.
You'll have spotted the trend: the lack of female presenters. This is not just a failing on TV, of course, but wider society. But that doesn't let TV off the hook. Maybe it's time we had a Brainiac for girls.
Brainiac was excellent; it unapologetically raised the profile of science and got lots of kids onboard. At times the series ran a little fast and loose with the facts, but it did for general science what Brian Cox has done for space. But at what price? Alongside the fun stuff (blowing up caravans) and the interesting stuff (can you walk on custard?), there were inserts such as Professor Myang Li wearing skimpy bikinis while doing pointless experiments (which fruit floats?) under a heavily innuendo-packed voiceover and close-ups of her cleavage. That's not going to become watercooler TV for subscribers to feminista, nor will it inspire a generation of girls into science, engineering, or technology.
What would a Brainiac for girls look like? Well, just like Brainiac but without the cleavage shots, bikini-clad babes and sexy nurses. It's a lie that only boys like explosions and things that go fast. We don't need a female Brainiac, we just need more women blowing things up, racing fast cars and generally being seen to get down and dirty (but not in that way).
The sooner TV stops pussyfooting around and actively goes out with a plan to shift the presenting ratio of females to males back where it should be, the sooner they'll see the change that eventually came to news-presenting gender split.
Let's not pretend the talent isn't out there. If you wanted it, right now, you'd have a feast of talented women to pick from. The fantastic girl-geek Gia Milinovich, who also happens to be Brian Cox's wife, does transatlantic crossover so well I'm amazed that Discovery doesn't make more of her for international programming. Lisa Rogers, missing from our screens since the demise of Scrapheap, knows more than most blokes about the inner working of the combustion engine. Both of these women are feisty, funny and can more than hold their own in traditional male arena. Tanya Ross is an engineer who built me a scale model of the Millennium dome (no the O2) in 15 minutes flat from construction waste. Alice Roberts could be used to better effect than titillating middle-aged men with Wild Swimming, and we could definitely be seeing more of Charlotte Uhlenbroeke. As far as newcomers are concerned, a PhD student in planetary sciences, Sheila Kinani, should be one to watch. And if you're really looking for the next generation, cast your eye on the Planet Scicast entries for last years competition, in which a group of teenage girls from Scotland made an excellent film off their own backs which explained the complex concept of sonoluminescence – how bubbles turn sound into light.
I heard a quote yesterday from an 11 year-old girl who had just been listening to a talk about astronomy by a female presenter. At the end, the presenter asked if there were any questions. She put up her hand and said: "Please don't solve dark matter – I want to do that when I grow up." Let's give her something that will inspire her to live that dream. Give her someone to aspire to. Then maybe she really will grow up to be the female Brian Cox. Now, how about we get some of these women together to front a show that will really inspire the next generation?
Friday, May 27, 2011
Aussie student finds universe's 'missing mass'
YahooNews: Aussie student finds universe's 'missing mass'
SYDNEY (AFP) – Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, a 22-year-old Australian university student, has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.
She made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that was present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
"There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass ... It's missing to the present day," Pimbblet told AFP.
"We don't know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that's what Amelia found."
Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering and science student, was able to confirm after a targeted X-ray search for the mystery mass that it had moved to the "filaments of galaxies", which stretch across enormous expanses of space.
Pimbblet's earlier work had suggested the filaments as a possible location for the "missing" matter, thought to be low in density but high in temperature.
Pimbblet said astrophysicists had known about the "missing" mass for the past two decades, but the technology needed to pinpoint its location had only become available in recent years.
He said the discovery could drive the construction of new telescopes designed to specifically study the mass.
Pimbblet admitted the discovery was primarily academic, but he said previous physics research had led to the development of diverse other technologies.
"Whenever I speak to people who have influence, politicians and so on, they sometimes ask me 'Why should I invest in physics pure research?'. And I sometimes say to them: 'Do you use a mobile phone? Some of that technology came about by black hole research'.
"The pure research has knock-on effects to the whole society which are sometimes difficult to anticipate."
SYDNEY (AFP) – Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, a 22-year-old Australian university student, has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.
She made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that was present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
"There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass ... It's missing to the present day," Pimbblet told AFP.
"We don't know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that's what Amelia found."
Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering and science student, was able to confirm after a targeted X-ray search for the mystery mass that it had moved to the "filaments of galaxies", which stretch across enormous expanses of space.
Pimbblet's earlier work had suggested the filaments as a possible location for the "missing" matter, thought to be low in density but high in temperature.
Pimbblet said astrophysicists had known about the "missing" mass for the past two decades, but the technology needed to pinpoint its location had only become available in recent years.
He said the discovery could drive the construction of new telescopes designed to specifically study the mass.
Pimbblet admitted the discovery was primarily academic, but he said previous physics research had led to the development of diverse other technologies.
"Whenever I speak to people who have influence, politicians and so on, they sometimes ask me 'Why should I invest in physics pure research?'. And I sometimes say to them: 'Do you use a mobile phone? Some of that technology came about by black hole research'.
"The pure research has knock-on effects to the whole society which are sometimes difficult to anticipate."
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Portman's 'Thor' Highlights Women in Astronomy
US News and World Report: Portman's 'Thor' Highlights Women in Astronomy
By Stephen P. Maran, Inside Science News Service
(ISNS)—Natalie Portman plays an astrophysicist in the recently released movie "Thor," but she is hardly the first Hollywood actress in a leading role as an astronomer.
There were other woman scientist actresses prior to Portman's role in "Thor." Comet-observing Darryl Hannah in the film "Roxanne," and alien-searching Jodie Foster in "Contact,"—but their star turns as astronomers mirror recent progress in the scientific profession itself. Once, women were scarce in astronomy, and confined to low-status, poorly-compensated positions. But their numbers have grown in recent decades, and they've begun to attain important positions and achieve well-deserved scientific recognition.
Henrietta Leavitt of the Harvard College Observatory is the classic example of a woman astronomer achieving renown despite the gender discrimination of her time. In the early 1900s, she was employed at the observatory as a "computer" assigned to the repetitive work of measuring photographic records of thousands of star images on telescopic photographs that were made by male astronomers. She was paid just 30 cents per hour for the seemingly routine task, but she discovered an unexpected trend in the data, which would enable astronomers to measure the distances of faraway galaxies. The finding, sometimes called Leavitt's law, was used by Edwin Hubble to analyze his own telescopic observations and thereby make his famous 1929 discovery that the universe is expanding.
Hubble worked with the 100-inch diameter reflector in California on Mount Wilson, where women astronomers were unwelcome. After World War II—when the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain succeeded the Mount Wilson instrument as the largest telescope in the world—women observers again were banned. The "telescope-glass ceiling" wasn't broken until the mid-1960s. The first woman invited to observe at Palomar, Vera Rubin, went on to collect convincing evidence (at other observatories) for one of the most important breakthroughs in modern cosmology: the existence of the still-unexplained "dark matter" that abounds throughout the universe.
More than 40 years have passed since Rubin's famous discovery. Now in her early 80s, she remains an active researcher; and women now have regular access to the instruments of forefront research.
"Opportunities for women in astronomy are continuing to increase," said Wendy Freedman, who led a Hubble Space Telescope project investigating the age of the universe from 1991-2001, and current director for the Carnegie Observatories—where Edwin Hubble did his notable work. "Women can even now be directors of major observatories."
The observatories have changed names a few times since Hubble's era, but did not have a female post-doctoral researcher until 1979. Now that young trailblazer, Debra Elmegreen, is an endowed professor at Vassar College and President of the 7500-member American Astronomical Society. She serves on high-level government advisory committees, has presented congressional testimony, and even met with the pope.
Elmegreen said that she "was the only female astrophysics major" in her undergraduate class, and first woman to graduate with that major at Princeton University, which itself began admitting women only a few years before her arrival. Assessing current progress for women astronomers, she said, "... the main thing is that with a higher proportion of women entering the field, more and more are rising to prominence, occupying more positions formerly held almost exclusively by men, and enjoying the same rights for [telescope] observing time and grants as they do."
Other prominent women include Jill Tarter, a leader in searches for extraterrestrial intelligence. Some believe that she was the model for Foster's "Contact" role. French astrophysicist Catherine Cesarsky recently served as the International Astronomical Union's president—a position ranked by some as the most important position in astronomy. This group famously downgraded Pluto's planetary status.
Yet despite important progress, women are still underrepresented in astronomy and other technical fields. Less than 22 percent of the current members of the American Astronomical Society are women, but when the statistics are broken down by age, the younger the astronomers, the greater the fraction of them that are female. According to Kevin Marvel, the society’s executive officer, women are 30 percent of members who are 50 or younger, 36 percent of those 40 and younger, and 40 per cent of the astronomers who are 30 years old or less.
Freedman said that it was important for parents and teachers to boost this progress by realizing "the subtle ways in which we can encourage (or discourage) young girls from going into science or being interested in math."
By Stephen P. Maran, Inside Science News Service
(ISNS)—Natalie Portman plays an astrophysicist in the recently released movie "Thor," but she is hardly the first Hollywood actress in a leading role as an astronomer.
There were other woman scientist actresses prior to Portman's role in "Thor." Comet-observing Darryl Hannah in the film "Roxanne," and alien-searching Jodie Foster in "Contact,"—but their star turns as astronomers mirror recent progress in the scientific profession itself. Once, women were scarce in astronomy, and confined to low-status, poorly-compensated positions. But their numbers have grown in recent decades, and they've begun to attain important positions and achieve well-deserved scientific recognition.
Henrietta Leavitt of the Harvard College Observatory is the classic example of a woman astronomer achieving renown despite the gender discrimination of her time. In the early 1900s, she was employed at the observatory as a "computer" assigned to the repetitive work of measuring photographic records of thousands of star images on telescopic photographs that were made by male astronomers. She was paid just 30 cents per hour for the seemingly routine task, but she discovered an unexpected trend in the data, which would enable astronomers to measure the distances of faraway galaxies. The finding, sometimes called Leavitt's law, was used by Edwin Hubble to analyze his own telescopic observations and thereby make his famous 1929 discovery that the universe is expanding.
Hubble worked with the 100-inch diameter reflector in California on Mount Wilson, where women astronomers were unwelcome. After World War II—when the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain succeeded the Mount Wilson instrument as the largest telescope in the world—women observers again were banned. The "telescope-glass ceiling" wasn't broken until the mid-1960s. The first woman invited to observe at Palomar, Vera Rubin, went on to collect convincing evidence (at other observatories) for one of the most important breakthroughs in modern cosmology: the existence of the still-unexplained "dark matter" that abounds throughout the universe.
More than 40 years have passed since Rubin's famous discovery. Now in her early 80s, she remains an active researcher; and women now have regular access to the instruments of forefront research.
"Opportunities for women in astronomy are continuing to increase," said Wendy Freedman, who led a Hubble Space Telescope project investigating the age of the universe from 1991-2001, and current director for the Carnegie Observatories—where Edwin Hubble did his notable work. "Women can even now be directors of major observatories."
The observatories have changed names a few times since Hubble's era, but did not have a female post-doctoral researcher until 1979. Now that young trailblazer, Debra Elmegreen, is an endowed professor at Vassar College and President of the 7500-member American Astronomical Society. She serves on high-level government advisory committees, has presented congressional testimony, and even met with the pope.
Elmegreen said that she "was the only female astrophysics major" in her undergraduate class, and first woman to graduate with that major at Princeton University, which itself began admitting women only a few years before her arrival. Assessing current progress for women astronomers, she said, "... the main thing is that with a higher proportion of women entering the field, more and more are rising to prominence, occupying more positions formerly held almost exclusively by men, and enjoying the same rights for [telescope] observing time and grants as they do."
Other prominent women include Jill Tarter, a leader in searches for extraterrestrial intelligence. Some believe that she was the model for Foster's "Contact" role. French astrophysicist Catherine Cesarsky recently served as the International Astronomical Union's president—a position ranked by some as the most important position in astronomy. This group famously downgraded Pluto's planetary status.
Yet despite important progress, women are still underrepresented in astronomy and other technical fields. Less than 22 percent of the current members of the American Astronomical Society are women, but when the statistics are broken down by age, the younger the astronomers, the greater the fraction of them that are female. According to Kevin Marvel, the society’s executive officer, women are 30 percent of members who are 50 or younger, 36 percent of those 40 and younger, and 40 per cent of the astronomers who are 30 years old or less.
Freedman said that it was important for parents and teachers to boost this progress by realizing "the subtle ways in which we can encourage (or discourage) young girls from going into science or being interested in math."
Friday, May 20, 2011
Girl Scientists Club at the Denver Aquarium
Trelane, Amber and Emily walked entranced through the many exhibits of the Denver Aquarium.
They passed through the North American section, the Desert section (although Trelane wondered aloud why they had a desert section in an aquarium!), and the Under Sea section, where they spent most of their time, watching the many species of fish and mammals gliding effortlessly through the water.
Trelane, the nascent oceanogrpaher, was particularly fascinated by the Sunken Temple and Shipwreck areas...those were the places she wanted to visit, when she grew up, with her scuba diving gear.
After they finished walking through the exhibits, they ended up in the Gift Shop. Their parents had given them each enough for a couple of souvenirs. They all chose T-shirts with the Denver Aquarium logo.
Trelane bought a picture book on underwater archaeology, Amber one on sea turtles ("the last dinosaurs" it said on the cover), and Emily just bought a "blank book", the cover of which had a couple of cavorting dolphins
They had hot fudge sundaes at the Aquarium's restaurant, and then returned home.
Mrs. Karlovassi looked up occasionally, enjoying the silence from the back seat. Trelane and Amber were engrossed in their books, and Emily was busily writing - occasionally looking out the window as she sought inspiration, then returning to her task.
She had purchased a CD of whale song, and they listened to that on the drive.
All in all, a pleasant day.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
June 1: Maggie Gyllenhaal to Play Marie Curie at World Science Festival,
BroadwayWorld.com: Maggie Gyllenhaal to Play Marie Curie at World Science Festival, 6/1
Award-winning screen and stage actress Maggie Gyllenhaal steps into the role of history's most famous woman scientist for a special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a new play by actor/writer Alan Alda. Gyllenhaal replaces the previously announced Meryl Streep, who had to bow out due to a sudden and unforeseen scheduling conflict. Through a spokesperson, Streep says she regrets the conflict and that she is "very disappointed to miss this important and inspiring event."
Gyllenhaal joins the all-star cast of Radiance, which also includes Amy Adams, Bill Camp, Allison Janney, David Morse, Liev Schreiber and Brent Sexton. Directed by acclaimed actor/director Bob Balaban, the special reading anchors the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration on June 1 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
Radiance tells the emotional story of one of the most accomplished and revered scientists in history. It explores the intellectual passions of the physicist/chemist most famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity, as well as her tumultuous private life marked by a strong determination to pursue both love and knowledge.
Gyllenhaal most recently was seen on stage in Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company in New York. Her other stage credits include Uncle Vanya at CSC, Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at BAM and the Mark Taper Forum, and Patrick Marber's award-winning Closer at the Mark Taper Forum and Berkeley Repertory. Her film credits include Crazy Heart (Academy Award nomination), Secretary (Golden Globe and Spirit Award nominations), The Dark Knight, Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction, World Trade Center, Happy Endings, Sherrybaby (Golden Globe nomination), and more. She will be seen in the upcoming film Hysteria. Gyllenhaal is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied literature.
The Opening Night Gala Celebration kicks off the fourth annual World Science Festival, which has grown into one of the nation's most anticipated science happenings - 50 programs over five days that bring together great minds in science and the arts to make science exciting and accessible to everyone.
This special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration is produced in collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The 2011 World Science Festival Gala Celebration Co-Chairs are Jim and Marilyn Simons, and Ann Ziff.
TICKETS
Tickets to the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration are on sale now. Visit www.worldsciencefestival.com/gala, call 646-200-8817 or email gala@worldsciencefest.org.
ABOUT WSF
The World Science Festival is an annual celebration of science that brings together great minds in its mission to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival is a production of the Science Festival Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.
The World Science Festival has been made possible with the generous support of its Founding Benefactors - the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
The World Science Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its major sponsors, Ann Ziff, Con Edison and The Kavli Prize, its media partners, ABC News, Scientific American, The Week, Time Warner Cable, National Geographic, WNYC Radio, WABC-TV and Time Out New York Kids, and its university partners New York University, The City University of New York, Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, The New School and The Cooper Union.
To learn more about the World Science Festival, visit www.worldsciencefestival.com, or follow the World Science Festival on Facebook and Twitter.
Tickets and information on all 2011 World Science Festival programs is available at www.worldsciencefestival.com.
Award-winning screen and stage actress Maggie Gyllenhaal steps into the role of history's most famous woman scientist for a special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a new play by actor/writer Alan Alda. Gyllenhaal replaces the previously announced Meryl Streep, who had to bow out due to a sudden and unforeseen scheduling conflict. Through a spokesperson, Streep says she regrets the conflict and that she is "very disappointed to miss this important and inspiring event."
Gyllenhaal joins the all-star cast of Radiance, which also includes Amy Adams, Bill Camp, Allison Janney, David Morse, Liev Schreiber and Brent Sexton. Directed by acclaimed actor/director Bob Balaban, the special reading anchors the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration on June 1 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
Radiance tells the emotional story of one of the most accomplished and revered scientists in history. It explores the intellectual passions of the physicist/chemist most famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity, as well as her tumultuous private life marked by a strong determination to pursue both love and knowledge.
Gyllenhaal most recently was seen on stage in Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company in New York. Her other stage credits include Uncle Vanya at CSC, Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at BAM and the Mark Taper Forum, and Patrick Marber's award-winning Closer at the Mark Taper Forum and Berkeley Repertory. Her film credits include Crazy Heart (Academy Award nomination), Secretary (Golden Globe and Spirit Award nominations), The Dark Knight, Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction, World Trade Center, Happy Endings, Sherrybaby (Golden Globe nomination), and more. She will be seen in the upcoming film Hysteria. Gyllenhaal is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied literature.
The Opening Night Gala Celebration kicks off the fourth annual World Science Festival, which has grown into one of the nation's most anticipated science happenings - 50 programs over five days that bring together great minds in science and the arts to make science exciting and accessible to everyone.
This special reading of Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration is produced in collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The 2011 World Science Festival Gala Celebration Co-Chairs are Jim and Marilyn Simons, and Ann Ziff.
TICKETS
Tickets to the 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala Celebration are on sale now. Visit www.worldsciencefestival.com/gala, call 646-200-8817 or email gala@worldsciencefest.org.
ABOUT WSF
The World Science Festival is an annual celebration of science that brings together great minds in its mission to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival is a production of the Science Festival Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.
The World Science Festival has been made possible with the generous support of its Founding Benefactors - the Simons Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation.
The World Science Festival gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its major sponsors, Ann Ziff, Con Edison and The Kavli Prize, its media partners, ABC News, Scientific American, The Week, Time Warner Cable, National Geographic, WNYC Radio, WABC-TV and Time Out New York Kids, and its university partners New York University, The City University of New York, Columbia University, The Rockefeller University, The New School and The Cooper Union.
To learn more about the World Science Festival, visit www.worldsciencefestival.com, or follow the World Science Festival on Facebook and Twitter.
Tickets and information on all 2011 World Science Festival programs is available at www.worldsciencefestival.com.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Adventurous scientist to receive national honors
Maine Sunday Telegram: Adventurous scientist to receive national honors
BLUE HILL - Early last week and despite feeling under the weather, Susan Shaw started her day at the Marine Environmental Research Institute probing the mouth of a dead harbor seal pup.
The pup had been stranded the day before on Little Deer Isle and died overnight. Rescue specialists from the College of the Atlantic recovered the body and dropped it off at Shaw's lab that morning. Pointing to the pup's toothless gums, Shaw declared the pup just a few days old and badly undernourished.
"This pup is skin and bones. There is no fat whatsoever," Shaw said.
What caused the pup to become separated from its mother and her fat-building supply of milk will never be known, but Shaw had a suspicion: a neurological disorder caused by an accumulation of man-made chemicals in the seal's tissues.
An environmental toxicologist, Shaw has been studying the buildup of industrial chemicals in seals and other marine mammals along the Maine coast for several decades.
Her cutting-edge work has won her renown in the scientific community and the attention of the general public, whether it is testifying before the Maine Legislature about the dangers of a widely used flame retardant or diving near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to explore its impact on marine life.
This month, Shaw will receive the Gold Medal award from the Society of Women Geographers. There have been only 18 other recipients of the society's most prestigious award in its 85-year history, including aviator Amelia Earhart, primatologist Jane Goodall, anthropologist Margaret Mead and archaeologist Mary Leakey.
Also this month, at its annual Rachel Carson awards ceremony, the National Audubon Society will name Shaw "Woman of the Gulf" for her work at the Deepwater Horizon spill.
"People around the world know her work," said friend and colleague Kurunthachalam Kannan, a research scientist at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the State University of New York at Albany.
Shaw came to scientific research relatively late in life -- she received her doctorate at age 55 -- and her work in marine toxicology resulted from several career twists and turns.
She grew up in Texas and has had an adventurous streak all her life. As a child, she rode horses bareback and earned a reputation as a risk-taker. In high school, she was a champion high-platform diver.
She studied languages and film at the University of Texas before moving to New York for a master's degree in documentary film from Columbia University. For the next decade, she made documentaries, including one based on the painting "Christina's World" by Andrew Wyeth.
But Shaw developed a violently allergic reaction to the formaldehyde-based chemicals used in film processing, and then became interested in the natural food movement. At the time, Rachel Carson's writings about the impact of synthetic pesticides on the environment were capturing public notice.
When the documentary film industry began to shift to California, Shaw returned to Columbia, this time to study how chemicals -- such as those used in film processing -- affect health.
"I started worrying about it," said Shaw.
Photographer Ansel Adams heard about her work and enlisted her to write a book.
Shaw said Adams was alarmed by health problems such as nasal cancer and nervous system disorders that were cropping up in a new generation of photographers who were rediscovering daguerreotype and other photographic processes that use platinum salts and other toxic chemicals.
"It was a real occupational hazard," Shaw said.
In 1983, her book "Overexposure: Health Hazards in Photography" was published.
By then, Shaw had decided to go for her doctorate and became immersed in AIDS-related research. But she struggled to perform lab work in a hazmat suit, and her AIDS-research project eventually fell apart.
Ordered by her adviser to take a break, Shaw moved to Maine for the summer and read newspaper accounts about mysterious seal die-offs. Testing had found high levels of toxic man-made chemicals in their tissues.
"No one knew if there was a connection" between the chemicals and their deaths, she said.
Finding out became Shaw's new mission.
She set up a nationwide voluntary tissue collection and analysis network. It soon became apparent that marine mammals, which feed at the top of the food chain, had levels of toxic chemicals high enough to qualify them as hazardous waste, Shaw said.
"I was completely appalled," said Shaw.
Twenty years later, she has amassed a bank of more than 1,000 tissue samples from seals from the Gulf of Maine and other locations, as well as a body of research linking high levels of synthetic chemicals such as flame retardants and pesticides to suppressed immune systems in marine animals and humans.
Funded largely by private donors, she opened the Marine Environmental Research Institute, which is housed in a renovated 19th-century building on Blue Hill's waterfront.
The institute, which employs nine people, includes research and educational facilities and operates a volunteer watershed monitoring project. It is also part of the Northeast Region Stranding Network, which rescues and rehabilitates stranded marine animals.
The institute includes a library open to the public and a touch tank housing several unusual blue-tinted lobsters donated by local lobstermen.
During the past year, she has been involved with a long-term study of the impacts of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the chemicals used to disperse it, as part of a 10-member federally appointed group of scientists.
That is how she wound up diving into a murky plume of dispersed oil last spring that was thick with the carcasses of dead marine life. She has returned several times, most recently in March, when she found oil percolating 6 inches deep in the sand along the shore.
But her focus remains on the Gulf of Maine's harbor seals, which continue to have high levels of PCB and DDT in their bodies 40 years after those chemicals were banned.
Arlene Blum, a fellow recipient of the Gold Medal in 1984 for her mountaineering feats, was one of several members of the elite Society of Women Geographers who nominated Shaw for the award. Blum said Shaw is notable both for her scientific work and her public advocacy.
"Susan is an excellent scientist who cares passionately about the natural world and making it a safer place," said Blum.
Friday, May 13, 2011
No, you're not losing your mind
If there were posts here yesterday that you read, which are not here today, it's because...they're not here.
Blogger.com, the platform that hosts this blog, was down for much of yesterday afternoon and all night...just coming up now (11 am mountain time.) And all posts made yesterday have disappeared.
Supposedly, those posts will be restored. I'll give them a day to do so, and if not, will re-post them tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Blogger.com, the platform that hosts this blog, was down for much of yesterday afternoon and all night...just coming up now (11 am mountain time.) And all posts made yesterday have disappeared.
Supposedly, those posts will be restored. I'll give them a day to do so, and if not, will re-post them tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Submersibles: The Bathysphere
"I've decided on my focus for our magazine," said Trelane. "I"m going to write articles on submersibles, starting with the Bathysphere. First off, here's an article from Wikipedia that talks about it. Of course when I write my own report, it will be original work...but this is just to get me started:
The Bathysphere (Greek (bathos), "depth" and (sphaira), "sphere") is a spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. The Bathysphere was designed in 1928 and 1929 by the American Engineer Otis Barton, to be used by the naturalist William Beebe for studying undersea wildlife. Beebe and Barton conducted dives in the Bathysphere together, marking the first time that a marine biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment. Their dives set several consecutive world records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human. The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 feet on August 15, 1934, lasted until it was broken by Barton in 1949.
Origin and designIn 1928, the American naturalist William Beebe was given permission by the British government to establish a research station on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda.[1] Using this station, Beebe planned to conduct an in-depth study of the animals inhabiting an eight-mile-square area of ocean, from a depth of two miles to the surface. Although his initial plan called for him to conduct this study by means of helmet diving and dredging, Beebe soon realized that these methods were inadequate for gaining a detailed understanding of deep-sea animals, and began making plans to invent a way to observe them in their native habitat.
As of the late 1920s, the deepest humans could safely descend in diving helmets was 100 feet, since beyond that point the pressure becomes too great. Submarines of the time had descended to a maximum of 383 feet, but had no windows, making them useless for Beebe's goal of observing deep-sea animals. The deepest in the ocean that any human had descended at this point was 525 feet wearing an armored suit, but these suits also made movement and observation extremely difficult. What Beebe hoped to create was a deep-sea vessel which both could descend to a much greater depth than any human had descended thus far, and also would enable him to clearly observe and document the deep ocean's wildlife.
Beebe's initial design called for a cylindrical vessel, and articles describing his plans were published in The New York Times. These articles caught the attention of the engineer Otis Barton, who had his own ambition to become a deep-sea explorer. Barton was certain that a cylinder would not be strong enough to withstand the pressure of the depths to which Beebe was planning to descend, and sent Beebe several letters proposing an alternative design to him. None of Barton's letters received a response, but a mutual friend arranged a meeting between him and Beebe, enabling him to present his design to Beebe in person. Beebe approved of Barton's design, and the two of them made a deal: Barton would pay for the vessel and all of the other equipment to go with it, while Beebe would pay for other expenses such as chartering a ship to raise and lower it, and as the owner of the vessel Barton would accompany Beebe on his dives in it.
Barton's design called for a spherical vessel, as a sphere is the best possible shape for resisting high pressure. The sphere had openings for three 3-inch-thick (76 mm) windows made of fused quartz, the strongest transparent material then available, as well a 400-pound entrance hatch which was to be bolted down before a descent.
Initially only two of the windows were mounted on the sphere, and a steel plug was mounted in place of the third window.[4] Oxygen was supplied from high-pressure cylinders carried inside the sphere, while pans of soda lime and calcium chloride were mounted inside the sphere's walls to absorb exhaled CO2 and moisture.[5] Air was to be circulated past these trays by the Bathysphere's occupants using palm-leaf fans.
The casting of the steel sphere was handled by Watson Stillman Hydraulic Machinery Company in Roselle, New Jersey, and the cord to raise and lower the sphere was provided by John A. Roebling's Sons Company.
General Electric provided a lamp which would be mounted just inside one of the windows to illuminate animals outside the sphere, and Bell Laboratories provided a telephone system by which divers inside the sphere could communicate with the surface. The cables for the telephone and to provide electricity for the lamp were sealed inside a rubber hose, which entered the body of the Bathysphere through a stuffing box.
After the initial version of the sphere had been cast in June 1929, it was discovered that it was too heavy to be lifted by the winch which would be used to lower it into the ocean, requiring Barton to have the sphere melted and re-cast.[4] The final, lighter design consisted of a hollow sphere of 1-inch-thick (25 mm) cast steel which was 4.75 ft (1.5 m) in diameter.[5] Its weight was 2.25 tons above the water, although its buoyancy reduced this by 1.4 tons when it was submerged, and the 3000 feet of steel cable weighed an additional 1.35 tons.
History of use
The Bathysphere's first dives were conducted from the deck of a former British Naval ship called the Ready, which was towed by a tugboat called the Gladisfen. The winch used to raise and lower the sphere had been salvaged from a third ship, the Arcturus, on which Beebe had led two previous expeditions. One of Beebe's assistants, John Tee-van, was in charge of operations aboard the two ships, while another, Gloria Hollister, had the duty of communicating with the two divers via the telephone line and taking notes of whatever observations they communicated to her.
1930-1931
Beebe and Barton conducted their first test of the sphere on May 27, 1930, descending to the relatively shallow depth of 45 feet in order to ensure that everything worked properly. For a second test, they sent the Bathysphere down unmanned to a far greater depth, and found after pulling it up that the rubber hose carrying the electrical and phone cables had become twisted forty-five times around the cable suspending the Bathysphere. After a second unmanned test dive on June 6 in which the cord did not become tangled, Beebe and Barton performed their first deep dive in the Bathysphere, reaching a depth of 803 ft (245 m).
Beebe and Barton conducted several successful dives during the summer months of 1930, documenting deep-sea animals which had never before been seen in their native habitats. During these dives, Beebe became the first person to observe how as one descends into the depths of the ocean, some frequencies of sunlight disappear before others, so that below a certain depth the only colors of light that remain are violet and blue.
Beebe and Barton also used the Bathysphere to perform shallower "contour dives", mapping Bermuda's underwater geography. These were particularly dangerous due the the possibility of the Bathysphere smashing against the underwater cliffs which Beebe was mapping,[2] and Barton installed a rudder on the Bathysphere in order to better control its motion during these dives.[4] On June 16, in honor of Hollister's 30th birthday, Beebe allowed her and Tee-Van to perform a dive in the Bathysphere to a depth of 410 feet, setting a world record for a dive by a woman. Hollister and Tee-Van pleaded to be allowed to descend deeper than this, but Beebe did not allow it out of fear for their safety. In Fall of 1930, Barton donated the Bathysphere to the New York Zoological Society, the primary organization behind Beebe's work.
Beebe attempted to continue his dives in summer of 1931, but was foiled by technical problems and by the weather. The Arcturus winch developed a crack in it, a replacement for it did not arrive until the end of July, and by that point Bermuda was being plagued by storms which made the water too rough for dives to be conducted safely. The onset of the Great Depression also made it more difficult to obtain funding, and in an effort to raise money for continued dives Beebe promised to eventually descend a half mile. He also obtained more funds for his dives by writing an article describing them for the June 1931 issue of National Geographic, which he titled "Round Trip to Davy Jones' Locker".
Illustrations for the article were painted by Else Bostelmann, a wildlife artist who frequently illustrated the animals that Beebe observed during his dives.
1932
Beebe and Barton resumed their dives in 1932, this time launching the Bathysphere from a single ship called the Freedom instead of the Ready and the Gladisfen.
They had arranged a plan with NBC whereby their observations relayed up the phone line would be broadcast nationally over the radio. Barton also hoped to film deep-sea creatures from inside the Bathysphere. Beebe normally observed the depths through one of the Bathysphere's three windows, the searchlight was shone through the second, and a steel plug had previously been fitted in place of the third, so Barton had the steel plug replaced with a third window in order to film through it.
When conducting an unmanned test of the Bathysphere with the third window installed, after pulling the Bathysphere back up they found it almost entirely full of water. Realizing the immense pressure that the water must be under, Beebe ordered his crew to stand clear and began loosening the hatch's bolts to remove the hatch himself. Beebe described the experience that followed this in his book Half Mile Down:
After replacing the third window with the steel plug and conducting another unmanned test, the same problem happened again. Beebe later described what would have happened to him and Barton had they been inside the sphere on a dive during which it leaked. They would not have had time to drown: due to the immense pressure, "the first few drops of water would have shot through flesh and bone like steel bullets."
After packing the plug in more securely, and sending the Bathysphere down for another test dive in which the plug held, Beebe and Barton set off for their radio dive on September 22nd.
The first part of the radio broadcast was conducted from on board the Freedom, describing Beebe and Barton preparing for their dive, while the second part would be relayed up the phone line from the sphere as Beebe and Barton descended in it. The ocean during this dive was rougher than it had been during any of their previous dives, and as the Freedom rocked on the surface, its motion was transmitted down the steel cable, causing the Bathysphere to swing from side to side like a pendulum. As the Bathysphere descended, Barton succumbed to seasickness and vomited inside it. However, the first half of the radio transmission had already been broadcast, and neither Beebe nor Barton wished to cancel its second half, so they continued their descent.
Beebe and Barton began the second half of their radio broadcast at a depth of 1,550 feet. Beebe's observations were transmitted broadcast over the radio as he gradually descended to a depth of 2,200 feet. With the broadcast finished, although they were only 440 feet short of their promised goal of a half mile, the Bathysphere was still rocking wildly and Beebe and Barton were both bruised and bleeding from being knocked about inside it. Shortly after the end of the radio broadcast, Beebe gave the order for them to be pulled back up.
Beebe and Barton conducted several more dives in 1932, including both dives to document deep-sea animals and the shallower contour dives. Although the Bathysphere's third window still was not installed, Beebe periodically shared his window with Barton so that Barton could film through it.
1933-1934
In 1933, the Bathysphere was displayed in a special exhibit for the American Museum of Natural History, and at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago. Beebe shared the fair's Hall of Science with Auguste Piccard, who held the world record for altitude for his ascent into the stratosphere in a hot-air balloon, and the publicity Beebe received for this exposition was even greater than what he had received in his radio dive.
Meanwhile, Barton was busy filming more footage for an underwater movie which he hoped to make. Due to the combination of these factors and the Depression, Beebe and Barton did not conduct any dives in 1933.
Else Bostelmann's illustration of the Bathysphere's descent, painted for the National Geographic article which Beebe wrote in return for the National Geographic Society sponsoring his dives. Beebe's meeting with Piccard gave him an idea about how to obtain funding for additional dives. Piccard's flights had been funded by the National Geographic Society, in return for Piccard having written an article describing them for National Geographic.
Thinking that the society might feel similarly about descents into the ocean to how they did about ascents into the sky, Beebe wrote a letter to Gilbert Grosvenor proposing a similar sponsorship for his Bathysphere dives. Grosvenor wrote back offering to provide $10,000 for additional dives in return for Beebe keeping his promise to descend a half mile, and writing two articles for National Geographic describing the experience. Despite his reluctance over Grosvenor's terms, Beebe accepted this offer.
Examining the Bathysphere in preparation for resumed dives, Beebe found that it was in need of considerable repair. The steel body of the Bathysphere was as strong as ever, but the quartz windows had developed minute fractures which would prevent them from withstanding the pressure of the deep sea, and one of the copper bolts for the hatch was found to be damaged due to the explosive decompression after the failed test dive in 1932.
In addition to replacing these parts of the Bathysphere, Beebe also had it installed with a new system of valves which could regulate the release of oxygen much more precisely than before, and a barometer to show the increase in pressure if oxygen was flowing too quickly. The palm-leaf fans to circulate air past the chemical trays were replaced with a small electric fan, powered by the same cable that powered the searchlight, and the searchlight itself was replaced with a far more powerful one.
With the renovated Bathysphere, Beebe and Barton began preparing for their planned descent of half a mile. Their ship once again was the Ready, this time towed by a tug called the Powerful. During their first test dive, they demanded to be pulled up after descending only four feet because the sphere had begun to leak; they soon discovered this was because Tee-Van had neglected to fasten all of the bolts that hold the hatch shut.
Another problem occurred on their second test dive, during which they discovered that the lower end of the rubber hose holding the power cable and phone line had begun to deteriorate, and they spent the rest of the day reversing the hose's direction so that the end which was deteriorating would be the end above the water.
For a third test dive, they sent down the Bathysphere unoccupied but with Barton's camera, which had not yet captured any footage of deep-sea animals, pointed at the center window. Most of the footage from Barton's camera was unintelligible, but it captured one image of a deep-sea fish, and more importantly it came up dry.
On August 11, 1934, Beebe and Barton made a descent of 2,510 feet, setting a new world record. Beebe used this dive as an opportunity to test the predictions made by quantum mechanics that different colors of light would behave differently due to their varying wavelengths. Beebe carried a painted spectroscope to measure the rate at which the various colors of light vanished as he descended. This dive was also Beebe's most successful yet in terms of the variety of fish he encountered, some of which were new to science. Although he halted this descent only 140 feet short of their goal of a half mile, Beebe later explained that he considered the observations he made from the Bathysphere to be more important than the depth records that he set.
On August 15, 1934, Barton and Beebe descended to 3,028 feet (923 m), fulfilling their promise to descend half a mile. At this depth the entire cable was unwound from the winch used to raise and lower the sphere, preventing it from being lowered any deeper. Although Beebe wished to remain at that depth to observe for half an hour, the Ready's captain would not allow this and pulled them up after five minutes. The record set during this dive remained unbroken until 1949, when Barton broke it with a 4,500 foot descent in a new deep-sea vessel he created called the Benthoscope.
Beebe and Barton conducted several more shallower dives during the rest of the 1934 season. Later on the same day as the half-mile dive, Barton and Hollister descended to 1,208 feet, setting a new world record for a woman diver that would stand for three decades. The Bathysphere's final dive was performed by Beebe and Barton on August 27, to a depth of 1,503 feet.
Although Beebe had initially agreed to write two articles for National Geographic in exchange for the National Geographic Society's sponsorship, after he had written the first of the two he and the magazine's editor agreed that it was not interesting enough to be a stand-alone story, and that it would be better to combine the two into a single article.
Beebe's account of his record-setting dive was published in the December 1934 issue of National Geographic, along with sixteen of Bostelmann's paintings, under the title "A Half Mile Down: Strange Creatures Beautiful and Grotesque as Figments of Fancy, Reveal Themselves at Windows of Bathysphere". The text of this article also became the climactic chapter of Beebe's book Half Mile Down, which appeared in bookstores in time for Christmas of that year and was an immediate best-seller.
After 1934
Beebe continued to conduct marine research for the rest of the 1930s, but after 1934 he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere, and that further dives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. With the onset of World War II, Bermuda was transformed into a military base, destroying much of the natural environment and making further research there impractical.
After Beebe stopped using the Bathysphere, it remained the property of the New York Zoological Society. It remained in storage until the 1939 New York World's Fair, where it was the centerpiece of the society's exhibit. During World War II, the sphere was loaned to the United States Navy, which used it to test the effects of underwater explosions.
The Bathysphere was next put on display at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island in 1957. In 1994, the Bathysphere was removed from the Aquarium for a renovation, and languished in a storage yard under the Coney Island Cyclone until 2005, when the Zoological society (now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society) returned it to its display at the aquarium.
Legacy of dives
Although the technology of the Bathysphere was eventually rendered obsolete by more advanced diving vessels, Beebe and Barton's Bathysphere represented the first time that researchers attempted to observe deep-sea animals in their native environment, setting a precedent which many others would follow. Beebe's Bathysphere's dives also served as an inspiration for Jacques Piccard, the son of the baloonisit Auguste Piccard, to perform his own record-setting descent in 1960 to a depth of seven miles using a self-powered submersible called a bathyscaphe. The Bathysphere itself served as a model for later submersibles such as the DSV Alvin.
Beebe named several new species of deep-sea animals on the basis of observations he made during his Bathysphere dives, initiating a controversy which has never been completely resolved. The naming of a new species ordinarily requires obtaining and analyzing a type specimen, something which was obviously impossible from inside the Bathysphere.
Some of Beebe's critics claimed that these fish were illusions resulting from condensation of the Bathysphere's window, or even that Beebe willfully made them up, although the latter would have been strongly at odds with Beebe's reputation as an honest and rigorous scientist.
Barton, who was resentful that newspaper articles about his and Beebe's Bathysphere dives often failed to mention him, added to ichthyologists' skepticism by writing letters to newspapers that contained wildly inaccurate accounts of their observations.
While many of Beebe's observations from the Bathysphere have since been confirmed by advances in undersea photography, it is unclear whether others fit the description of any known sea animal. One possibility is that although the animals described by Beebe indeed exist, so much remains to be discovered about life in the deep ocean that these animals still have yet to be seen by anyone other than him.
Bibliography
Wikipedia
The Bathysphere (Greek (bathos), "depth" and (sphaira), "sphere") is a spherical deep-sea submersible which was unpowered and lowered into the ocean on a cable, and was used to conduct a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda from 1930 to 1934. The Bathysphere was designed in 1928 and 1929 by the American Engineer Otis Barton, to be used by the naturalist William Beebe for studying undersea wildlife. Beebe and Barton conducted dives in the Bathysphere together, marking the first time that a marine biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment. Their dives set several consecutive world records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human. The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 feet on August 15, 1934, lasted until it was broken by Barton in 1949.
Origin and designIn 1928, the American naturalist William Beebe was given permission by the British government to establish a research station on Nonsuch Island, Bermuda.[1] Using this station, Beebe planned to conduct an in-depth study of the animals inhabiting an eight-mile-square area of ocean, from a depth of two miles to the surface. Although his initial plan called for him to conduct this study by means of helmet diving and dredging, Beebe soon realized that these methods were inadequate for gaining a detailed understanding of deep-sea animals, and began making plans to invent a way to observe them in their native habitat.
As of the late 1920s, the deepest humans could safely descend in diving helmets was 100 feet, since beyond that point the pressure becomes too great. Submarines of the time had descended to a maximum of 383 feet, but had no windows, making them useless for Beebe's goal of observing deep-sea animals. The deepest in the ocean that any human had descended at this point was 525 feet wearing an armored suit, but these suits also made movement and observation extremely difficult. What Beebe hoped to create was a deep-sea vessel which both could descend to a much greater depth than any human had descended thus far, and also would enable him to clearly observe and document the deep ocean's wildlife.
Beebe's initial design called for a cylindrical vessel, and articles describing his plans were published in The New York Times. These articles caught the attention of the engineer Otis Barton, who had his own ambition to become a deep-sea explorer. Barton was certain that a cylinder would not be strong enough to withstand the pressure of the depths to which Beebe was planning to descend, and sent Beebe several letters proposing an alternative design to him. None of Barton's letters received a response, but a mutual friend arranged a meeting between him and Beebe, enabling him to present his design to Beebe in person. Beebe approved of Barton's design, and the two of them made a deal: Barton would pay for the vessel and all of the other equipment to go with it, while Beebe would pay for other expenses such as chartering a ship to raise and lower it, and as the owner of the vessel Barton would accompany Beebe on his dives in it.
Barton's design called for a spherical vessel, as a sphere is the best possible shape for resisting high pressure. The sphere had openings for three 3-inch-thick (76 mm) windows made of fused quartz, the strongest transparent material then available, as well a 400-pound entrance hatch which was to be bolted down before a descent.
Initially only two of the windows were mounted on the sphere, and a steel plug was mounted in place of the third window.[4] Oxygen was supplied from high-pressure cylinders carried inside the sphere, while pans of soda lime and calcium chloride were mounted inside the sphere's walls to absorb exhaled CO2 and moisture.[5] Air was to be circulated past these trays by the Bathysphere's occupants using palm-leaf fans.
The casting of the steel sphere was handled by Watson Stillman Hydraulic Machinery Company in Roselle, New Jersey, and the cord to raise and lower the sphere was provided by John A. Roebling's Sons Company.
General Electric provided a lamp which would be mounted just inside one of the windows to illuminate animals outside the sphere, and Bell Laboratories provided a telephone system by which divers inside the sphere could communicate with the surface. The cables for the telephone and to provide electricity for the lamp were sealed inside a rubber hose, which entered the body of the Bathysphere through a stuffing box.
After the initial version of the sphere had been cast in June 1929, it was discovered that it was too heavy to be lifted by the winch which would be used to lower it into the ocean, requiring Barton to have the sphere melted and re-cast.[4] The final, lighter design consisted of a hollow sphere of 1-inch-thick (25 mm) cast steel which was 4.75 ft (1.5 m) in diameter.[5] Its weight was 2.25 tons above the water, although its buoyancy reduced this by 1.4 tons when it was submerged, and the 3000 feet of steel cable weighed an additional 1.35 tons.
History of use
The Bathysphere's first dives were conducted from the deck of a former British Naval ship called the Ready, which was towed by a tugboat called the Gladisfen. The winch used to raise and lower the sphere had been salvaged from a third ship, the Arcturus, on which Beebe had led two previous expeditions. One of Beebe's assistants, John Tee-van, was in charge of operations aboard the two ships, while another, Gloria Hollister, had the duty of communicating with the two divers via the telephone line and taking notes of whatever observations they communicated to her.
1930-1931
Beebe and Barton conducted their first test of the sphere on May 27, 1930, descending to the relatively shallow depth of 45 feet in order to ensure that everything worked properly. For a second test, they sent the Bathysphere down unmanned to a far greater depth, and found after pulling it up that the rubber hose carrying the electrical and phone cables had become twisted forty-five times around the cable suspending the Bathysphere. After a second unmanned test dive on June 6 in which the cord did not become tangled, Beebe and Barton performed their first deep dive in the Bathysphere, reaching a depth of 803 ft (245 m).
Beebe and Barton conducted several successful dives during the summer months of 1930, documenting deep-sea animals which had never before been seen in their native habitats. During these dives, Beebe became the first person to observe how as one descends into the depths of the ocean, some frequencies of sunlight disappear before others, so that below a certain depth the only colors of light that remain are violet and blue.
Beebe and Barton also used the Bathysphere to perform shallower "contour dives", mapping Bermuda's underwater geography. These were particularly dangerous due the the possibility of the Bathysphere smashing against the underwater cliffs which Beebe was mapping,[2] and Barton installed a rudder on the Bathysphere in order to better control its motion during these dives.[4] On June 16, in honor of Hollister's 30th birthday, Beebe allowed her and Tee-Van to perform a dive in the Bathysphere to a depth of 410 feet, setting a world record for a dive by a woman. Hollister and Tee-Van pleaded to be allowed to descend deeper than this, but Beebe did not allow it out of fear for their safety. In Fall of 1930, Barton donated the Bathysphere to the New York Zoological Society, the primary organization behind Beebe's work.
Beebe attempted to continue his dives in summer of 1931, but was foiled by technical problems and by the weather. The Arcturus winch developed a crack in it, a replacement for it did not arrive until the end of July, and by that point Bermuda was being plagued by storms which made the water too rough for dives to be conducted safely. The onset of the Great Depression also made it more difficult to obtain funding, and in an effort to raise money for continued dives Beebe promised to eventually descend a half mile. He also obtained more funds for his dives by writing an article describing them for the June 1931 issue of National Geographic, which he titled "Round Trip to Davy Jones' Locker".
Illustrations for the article were painted by Else Bostelmann, a wildlife artist who frequently illustrated the animals that Beebe observed during his dives.
1932
Beebe and Barton resumed their dives in 1932, this time launching the Bathysphere from a single ship called the Freedom instead of the Ready and the Gladisfen.
They had arranged a plan with NBC whereby their observations relayed up the phone line would be broadcast nationally over the radio. Barton also hoped to film deep-sea creatures from inside the Bathysphere. Beebe normally observed the depths through one of the Bathysphere's three windows, the searchlight was shone through the second, and a steel plug had previously been fitted in place of the third, so Barton had the steel plug replaced with a third window in order to film through it.
When conducting an unmanned test of the Bathysphere with the third window installed, after pulling the Bathysphere back up they found it almost entirely full of water. Realizing the immense pressure that the water must be under, Beebe ordered his crew to stand clear and began loosening the hatch's bolts to remove the hatch himself. Beebe described the experience that followed this in his book Half Mile Down:
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the bolt was torn from our hands, and the mass of heavy metal shot across the deck like the shell from a gun. The trajectory was almost straight, and the brass bolt hurtled into the steel winch thirty feet away across the deck and sheared a half-inch notch gouged out by the harder metal. This was followed by a solid cylinder of water, which slackened after a while into a cataract, pouring out the hole in the door, some air mingled with the water, looking like hot steam, instead of compressed air shooting through ice-cold water.
After replacing the third window with the steel plug and conducting another unmanned test, the same problem happened again. Beebe later described what would have happened to him and Barton had they been inside the sphere on a dive during which it leaked. They would not have had time to drown: due to the immense pressure, "the first few drops of water would have shot through flesh and bone like steel bullets."
After packing the plug in more securely, and sending the Bathysphere down for another test dive in which the plug held, Beebe and Barton set off for their radio dive on September 22nd.
The first part of the radio broadcast was conducted from on board the Freedom, describing Beebe and Barton preparing for their dive, while the second part would be relayed up the phone line from the sphere as Beebe and Barton descended in it. The ocean during this dive was rougher than it had been during any of their previous dives, and as the Freedom rocked on the surface, its motion was transmitted down the steel cable, causing the Bathysphere to swing from side to side like a pendulum. As the Bathysphere descended, Barton succumbed to seasickness and vomited inside it. However, the first half of the radio transmission had already been broadcast, and neither Beebe nor Barton wished to cancel its second half, so they continued their descent.
Beebe and Barton began the second half of their radio broadcast at a depth of 1,550 feet. Beebe's observations were transmitted broadcast over the radio as he gradually descended to a depth of 2,200 feet. With the broadcast finished, although they were only 440 feet short of their promised goal of a half mile, the Bathysphere was still rocking wildly and Beebe and Barton were both bruised and bleeding from being knocked about inside it. Shortly after the end of the radio broadcast, Beebe gave the order for them to be pulled back up.
Beebe and Barton conducted several more dives in 1932, including both dives to document deep-sea animals and the shallower contour dives. Although the Bathysphere's third window still was not installed, Beebe periodically shared his window with Barton so that Barton could film through it.
1933-1934
In 1933, the Bathysphere was displayed in a special exhibit for the American Museum of Natural History, and at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago. Beebe shared the fair's Hall of Science with Auguste Piccard, who held the world record for altitude for his ascent into the stratosphere in a hot-air balloon, and the publicity Beebe received for this exposition was even greater than what he had received in his radio dive.
Meanwhile, Barton was busy filming more footage for an underwater movie which he hoped to make. Due to the combination of these factors and the Depression, Beebe and Barton did not conduct any dives in 1933.
Else Bostelmann's illustration of the Bathysphere's descent, painted for the National Geographic article which Beebe wrote in return for the National Geographic Society sponsoring his dives. Beebe's meeting with Piccard gave him an idea about how to obtain funding for additional dives. Piccard's flights had been funded by the National Geographic Society, in return for Piccard having written an article describing them for National Geographic.
Thinking that the society might feel similarly about descents into the ocean to how they did about ascents into the sky, Beebe wrote a letter to Gilbert Grosvenor proposing a similar sponsorship for his Bathysphere dives. Grosvenor wrote back offering to provide $10,000 for additional dives in return for Beebe keeping his promise to descend a half mile, and writing two articles for National Geographic describing the experience. Despite his reluctance over Grosvenor's terms, Beebe accepted this offer.
Examining the Bathysphere in preparation for resumed dives, Beebe found that it was in need of considerable repair. The steel body of the Bathysphere was as strong as ever, but the quartz windows had developed minute fractures which would prevent them from withstanding the pressure of the deep sea, and one of the copper bolts for the hatch was found to be damaged due to the explosive decompression after the failed test dive in 1932.
In addition to replacing these parts of the Bathysphere, Beebe also had it installed with a new system of valves which could regulate the release of oxygen much more precisely than before, and a barometer to show the increase in pressure if oxygen was flowing too quickly. The palm-leaf fans to circulate air past the chemical trays were replaced with a small electric fan, powered by the same cable that powered the searchlight, and the searchlight itself was replaced with a far more powerful one.
With the renovated Bathysphere, Beebe and Barton began preparing for their planned descent of half a mile. Their ship once again was the Ready, this time towed by a tug called the Powerful. During their first test dive, they demanded to be pulled up after descending only four feet because the sphere had begun to leak; they soon discovered this was because Tee-Van had neglected to fasten all of the bolts that hold the hatch shut.
Another problem occurred on their second test dive, during which they discovered that the lower end of the rubber hose holding the power cable and phone line had begun to deteriorate, and they spent the rest of the day reversing the hose's direction so that the end which was deteriorating would be the end above the water.
For a third test dive, they sent down the Bathysphere unoccupied but with Barton's camera, which had not yet captured any footage of deep-sea animals, pointed at the center window. Most of the footage from Barton's camera was unintelligible, but it captured one image of a deep-sea fish, and more importantly it came up dry.
On August 11, 1934, Beebe and Barton made a descent of 2,510 feet, setting a new world record. Beebe used this dive as an opportunity to test the predictions made by quantum mechanics that different colors of light would behave differently due to their varying wavelengths. Beebe carried a painted spectroscope to measure the rate at which the various colors of light vanished as he descended. This dive was also Beebe's most successful yet in terms of the variety of fish he encountered, some of which were new to science. Although he halted this descent only 140 feet short of their goal of a half mile, Beebe later explained that he considered the observations he made from the Bathysphere to be more important than the depth records that he set.
On August 15, 1934, Barton and Beebe descended to 3,028 feet (923 m), fulfilling their promise to descend half a mile. At this depth the entire cable was unwound from the winch used to raise and lower the sphere, preventing it from being lowered any deeper. Although Beebe wished to remain at that depth to observe for half an hour, the Ready's captain would not allow this and pulled them up after five minutes. The record set during this dive remained unbroken until 1949, when Barton broke it with a 4,500 foot descent in a new deep-sea vessel he created called the Benthoscope.
Beebe and Barton conducted several more shallower dives during the rest of the 1934 season. Later on the same day as the half-mile dive, Barton and Hollister descended to 1,208 feet, setting a new world record for a woman diver that would stand for three decades. The Bathysphere's final dive was performed by Beebe and Barton on August 27, to a depth of 1,503 feet.
Although Beebe had initially agreed to write two articles for National Geographic in exchange for the National Geographic Society's sponsorship, after he had written the first of the two he and the magazine's editor agreed that it was not interesting enough to be a stand-alone story, and that it would be better to combine the two into a single article.
Beebe's account of his record-setting dive was published in the December 1934 issue of National Geographic, along with sixteen of Bostelmann's paintings, under the title "A Half Mile Down: Strange Creatures Beautiful and Grotesque as Figments of Fancy, Reveal Themselves at Windows of Bathysphere". The text of this article also became the climactic chapter of Beebe's book Half Mile Down, which appeared in bookstores in time for Christmas of that year and was an immediate best-seller.
After 1934
Beebe continued to conduct marine research for the rest of the 1930s, but after 1934 he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere, and that further dives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. With the onset of World War II, Bermuda was transformed into a military base, destroying much of the natural environment and making further research there impractical.
After Beebe stopped using the Bathysphere, it remained the property of the New York Zoological Society. It remained in storage until the 1939 New York World's Fair, where it was the centerpiece of the society's exhibit. During World War II, the sphere was loaned to the United States Navy, which used it to test the effects of underwater explosions.
The Bathysphere was next put on display at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island in 1957. In 1994, the Bathysphere was removed from the Aquarium for a renovation, and languished in a storage yard under the Coney Island Cyclone until 2005, when the Zoological society (now known as the Wildlife Conservation Society) returned it to its display at the aquarium.
Legacy of dives
Although the technology of the Bathysphere was eventually rendered obsolete by more advanced diving vessels, Beebe and Barton's Bathysphere represented the first time that researchers attempted to observe deep-sea animals in their native environment, setting a precedent which many others would follow. Beebe's Bathysphere's dives also served as an inspiration for Jacques Piccard, the son of the baloonisit Auguste Piccard, to perform his own record-setting descent in 1960 to a depth of seven miles using a self-powered submersible called a bathyscaphe. The Bathysphere itself served as a model for later submersibles such as the DSV Alvin.
Beebe named several new species of deep-sea animals on the basis of observations he made during his Bathysphere dives, initiating a controversy which has never been completely resolved. The naming of a new species ordinarily requires obtaining and analyzing a type specimen, something which was obviously impossible from inside the Bathysphere.
Some of Beebe's critics claimed that these fish were illusions resulting from condensation of the Bathysphere's window, or even that Beebe willfully made them up, although the latter would have been strongly at odds with Beebe's reputation as an honest and rigorous scientist.
Barton, who was resentful that newspaper articles about his and Beebe's Bathysphere dives often failed to mention him, added to ichthyologists' skepticism by writing letters to newspapers that contained wildly inaccurate accounts of their observations.
While many of Beebe's observations from the Bathysphere have since been confirmed by advances in undersea photography, it is unclear whether others fit the description of any known sea animal. One possibility is that although the animals described by Beebe indeed exist, so much remains to be discovered about life in the deep ocean that these animals still have yet to be seen by anyone other than him.
Bibliography
Wikipedia
Friday, May 6, 2011
Piscataway girl, 15, decides to go to Harvard after being accepted to 13 colleges
NJ.com: Piscataway girl, 15, decides to go to Harvard after being accepted to 13 colleges
PISCATAWAY — Saheela Ibraheem wasn’t sure any college would want to admit a 15-year-old. So the Piscataway teen hedged her bets and filled out applications to 14 schools from New Jersey to California.
"It’s the age thing. I wanted to make sure I had options," said Saheela, a senior at the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison.
In the end, 13 colleges accepted her — including six of the eight Ivy League schools.
After weeks of debate, Saheela settled on Harvard. She will be among the youngest members of the school’s freshman class.
"I’ll be one of the youngest. But I won’t be the youngest," the soon-to-be 16-year-old said.
Saheela is among the millions of high school seniors who had to finalize their college decisions by Monday, the deadline for incoming freshman to send deposits to the school of their choice. Nationwide, this year’s college selection process was among the most competitive in history as most top colleges received a record number of applications.
Saheela joins a growing number of New Jersey students going to college before they are old enough to drive. Last year, Kyle Loh of Mendham graduated from Rutgers at 16. In previous years, a 14-year-old from Cranbury and two of his 15-year-old cousins also graduated from Rutgers.
For Saheela, her unusual path to college began when she was a sixth-grader at the Conackamack Middle School in Piscataway. Eager to learn more about her favorite subject, math, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants asked to move to a higher-level class. The school let her skip sixth grade entirely.
By high school, Saheela said, she was no longer feeling challenged by her public school classes. So, she moved to the Wardlaw-Hartridge School, a 420-student private school, where she skipped her freshman year and enrolled as a 10th-grader. Her three younger brothers, twins now in the ninth grade and a younger brother in second grade, all eventually joined her at the school.
School officials were impressed Saheela, one of their top students, didn’t spend all her time studying.
"She’s learned and she’s very smart. But she keeps pushing herself," said William Jenkins, the Wardlaw-Hartridge School’s director of development.
Aaron Houston/For The Star-LedgerSaheela Ibraheem, a 15-year-old senior at Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, has been admitted to 13 colleges, and chose to attend Harvard this fall. Photo taken during a Wardlaw-Hartridge softball game in Piscataway.
Saheela also excels outside the classroom. She is a three-sport athlete, playing outfield for the school’s softball team, defender on the soccer team, and swimming relays and 50-meter races for the swim team. She also sings alto in the school choir, plays trombone in the school band and serves as president of the school’s investment club, which teaches students about the stock market by investing in virtual stocks.
Saheela began applying to colleges last fall. Her applications included her grade point average (between a 96 and 97 on a 100-point scale) and her 2,340 SAT score (a perfect 800 on the math section, a 790 in writing and a 750 in reading).
She was delighted when she got her first acceptance in December from California Institute of Technology. "I was so excited. I got into college!," Saheela said.
More acceptances followed from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Williams College, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington University in St. Louis.
On March 30, she got her sole rejection letter — from Yale. Saheela isn’t sure why the Ivy League school didn’t want her.
"My parents were thinking it was the age thing," she said.
Saheela was torn between going to MIT and Harvard. A visit to both campuses last month made the choice easy. "She went to Harvard and she fell in love with the place," said Shakirat Ibraheem, her mother.
Saheela said she wants to major in either neurobiology or neuroscience and plans to become a research scientist who studies how the brain works. As for her own brain, Saheela insists she is nothing special.
She credits her parents with teaching her to love learning and work hard. Her father, Sarafa, an analyst and vice president at a New York financial firm, would often study with her at night and home school her in subjects not taught at school.
"I try my best in everything I do," Saheela said. "Anyone who’s motivated can work wonders."
PISCATAWAY — Saheela Ibraheem wasn’t sure any college would want to admit a 15-year-old. So the Piscataway teen hedged her bets and filled out applications to 14 schools from New Jersey to California.
"It’s the age thing. I wanted to make sure I had options," said Saheela, a senior at the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison.
In the end, 13 colleges accepted her — including six of the eight Ivy League schools.
After weeks of debate, Saheela settled on Harvard. She will be among the youngest members of the school’s freshman class.
"I’ll be one of the youngest. But I won’t be the youngest," the soon-to-be 16-year-old said.
Saheela is among the millions of high school seniors who had to finalize their college decisions by Monday, the deadline for incoming freshman to send deposits to the school of their choice. Nationwide, this year’s college selection process was among the most competitive in history as most top colleges received a record number of applications.
Saheela joins a growing number of New Jersey students going to college before they are old enough to drive. Last year, Kyle Loh of Mendham graduated from Rutgers at 16. In previous years, a 14-year-old from Cranbury and two of his 15-year-old cousins also graduated from Rutgers.
For Saheela, her unusual path to college began when she was a sixth-grader at the Conackamack Middle School in Piscataway. Eager to learn more about her favorite subject, math, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants asked to move to a higher-level class. The school let her skip sixth grade entirely.
By high school, Saheela said, she was no longer feeling challenged by her public school classes. So, she moved to the Wardlaw-Hartridge School, a 420-student private school, where she skipped her freshman year and enrolled as a 10th-grader. Her three younger brothers, twins now in the ninth grade and a younger brother in second grade, all eventually joined her at the school.
School officials were impressed Saheela, one of their top students, didn’t spend all her time studying.
"She’s learned and she’s very smart. But she keeps pushing herself," said William Jenkins, the Wardlaw-Hartridge School’s director of development.
Aaron Houston/For The Star-LedgerSaheela Ibraheem, a 15-year-old senior at Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, has been admitted to 13 colleges, and chose to attend Harvard this fall. Photo taken during a Wardlaw-Hartridge softball game in Piscataway.
Saheela also excels outside the classroom. She is a three-sport athlete, playing outfield for the school’s softball team, defender on the soccer team, and swimming relays and 50-meter races for the swim team. She also sings alto in the school choir, plays trombone in the school band and serves as president of the school’s investment club, which teaches students about the stock market by investing in virtual stocks.
Saheela began applying to colleges last fall. Her applications included her grade point average (between a 96 and 97 on a 100-point scale) and her 2,340 SAT score (a perfect 800 on the math section, a 790 in writing and a 750 in reading).
She was delighted when she got her first acceptance in December from California Institute of Technology. "I was so excited. I got into college!," Saheela said.
More acceptances followed from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Williams College, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Washington University in St. Louis.
On March 30, she got her sole rejection letter — from Yale. Saheela isn’t sure why the Ivy League school didn’t want her.
"My parents were thinking it was the age thing," she said.
Saheela was torn between going to MIT and Harvard. A visit to both campuses last month made the choice easy. "She went to Harvard and she fell in love with the place," said Shakirat Ibraheem, her mother.
Saheela said she wants to major in either neurobiology or neuroscience and plans to become a research scientist who studies how the brain works. As for her own brain, Saheela insists she is nothing special.
She credits her parents with teaching her to love learning and work hard. Her father, Sarafa, an analyst and vice president at a New York financial firm, would often study with her at night and home school her in subjects not taught at school.
"I try my best in everything I do," Saheela said. "Anyone who’s motivated can work wonders."
Inspiring Tweens Build Girl a Hand, Give a Mother Hope
The Stir: Inspiring Tweens Build Girl a Hand, Give a Mother Hope
Oh, kids today ... Between the emotional tirades of several of the Teen Moms and the reckless shenanigans of the Jersey Shore kids, sometimes kids today scare the heck out of me. And then I start to lose hope for my own kids' futures and for the future of all mankind, forever and ever. But then I, luckily, come across an inspiring story like this one about some very cool Girl Scouts with ginormous hearts and smarts! And all is not lost ...
Check this. A Girl Scout troop in Iowa called the Flying Monkeys, all aged 11 to 13, has created a working prosthetic hand for a 3-year-old girl who was born without fingers! They did what? Made a girl a hand that works? Holy cow!
Sure, they had some help but still! If a group of tweens is still willing to sit around and think about helping someone else for a good amount of time, this totally gives me hope for the future of all mankind.
One of the Girl Scouts who has a limb difference inspired her troop's beautiful act of kindness for young Danielle. With the help of a prosthetics maker and an occupational therapist, the team came up with the BOB-1 tool, a design that straps to the arm and has a holder for writing or other tools. With her new device, the 3-year old tot can now write better than she could with human fingers.
The creation of the BOB-1 was part of the FIRST Lego League (FLL) competition and part of the STEM effort, which promotes girls’ exposure to science, technology, and engineering. Plus, the girls earned an FLL Global Innovation award of up to $20,000 to patent their invention and will soon be working with Danielle’s family on a similar device for their adopted 5-year-old boy.
These inventor scientist girls are totally awesome! And so may be the future!
Oh, kids today ... Between the emotional tirades of several of the Teen Moms and the reckless shenanigans of the Jersey Shore kids, sometimes kids today scare the heck out of me. And then I start to lose hope for my own kids' futures and for the future of all mankind, forever and ever. But then I, luckily, come across an inspiring story like this one about some very cool Girl Scouts with ginormous hearts and smarts! And all is not lost ...
Check this. A Girl Scout troop in Iowa called the Flying Monkeys, all aged 11 to 13, has created a working prosthetic hand for a 3-year-old girl who was born without fingers! They did what? Made a girl a hand that works? Holy cow!
Sure, they had some help but still! If a group of tweens is still willing to sit around and think about helping someone else for a good amount of time, this totally gives me hope for the future of all mankind.
One of the Girl Scouts who has a limb difference inspired her troop's beautiful act of kindness for young Danielle. With the help of a prosthetics maker and an occupational therapist, the team came up with the BOB-1 tool, a design that straps to the arm and has a holder for writing or other tools. With her new device, the 3-year old tot can now write better than she could with human fingers.
The creation of the BOB-1 was part of the FIRST Lego League (FLL) competition and part of the STEM effort, which promotes girls’ exposure to science, technology, and engineering. Plus, the girls earned an FLL Global Innovation award of up to $20,000 to patent their invention and will soon be working with Danielle’s family on a similar device for their adopted 5-year-old boy.
These inventor scientist girls are totally awesome! And so may be the future!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Girls In Science
Livingston Patch: Schools Opinion: Girls In ScienceHow can we promote girls' interest in science and math?
By Shelley Emling
Girls and science just don't mix. At least that's the message that comes from report after report including one on the underrepresentation of women in science and math from the American Association of University Women.
The study, released last year, found that even though women have made some strides in these fields, stereotypes and cultural biases still stymie their success. What's needed? In the end, the study stressed the need for more parental involvement and female role models.
For sure, parents can help drive their daughters' interests in science by infusing home life with science activities, field trips, and opportunities to learn. The National Science Teachers' Association recently went so far as to issue a position statement about how important parental pressure is when it comes to sparking a girl's interest in science.
There's no doubt the number of women in science and engineering is growing. Yet men continue to outpace women, especially at the upper levels of these professions. According to that AAUW study, in elementary, middle, and high school, girls and boys take math and science courses in roughly the same numbers, and about as many girls as boys leave high school set to pursue science and engineering majors in college. Yet, in the end, fewer women than men actually do pursue these majors.
"Among first-year college students, women are much less likely than men to say that they intend to major in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM)," the study said. "By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, and in some, such as physics, engineering, and computer science, the difference is dramatic, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Women’s representation in science and engineering declines further at the graduate level and yet again in the transition to the workplace."
So why is this exactly? Again, the study claims that even subtle references to gender stereotypes whether on the playground or on TV have been shown to negatively impact a girl's science and even math performance.
Fortunately, research also shows that society has the ability to counter these stereotypes by emphaszing and talking about the accomplishments of girls and women in science and math.
The more people hear about women's achievements, the more the abilities of women can't be denied.
Amazingly, studies show that people, when asked, can't name a single female scientist except for perhaps Madame Curie. But here are a few outstanding but little-known women who have achieved great things when it comes to science:
Mary Anning, just named by Britain's Royal Society as one of the most influential British women scientists in history. Only now are many people becoming acquainted with the remarkable work of the self-educated geologist whose fossil discoveries in early 19th century England paved the way for the work of Charles Darwin. (I wrote a biography of this incredible woman—the inspiration for the tongue-twister "She sells sea shells by the sea shore"—called "The Fossil Hunter.")
Caroline Herschel, a British astronomer. Her most significant contribution was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name.
Sarah Breedlove Walker, an American businesswoman and philanthropist. After being orphaned at 6 and widowed at 20, she went on to invent a process for straightening the hair of African-Americans. Her process caught on and she invented all sorts of beauty- and health-related products while supporting a wide range of philanthropic efforts.
Virginia Apgar came up with the Apgar Newborn Scoring System, which boosted the survival rates of infants. She also helped focus the attention of the March of Dimes organization on birth defects.
Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was one of the first computer programmers and a pioneer in the field of software development concepts. In 1928 she graduated from Vassar College with a BA in mathematics and physics. While an instructor at Vassar, she earned an MA in 1930 and a PhD in 1934 at Yale, one of four women in a doctoral program of 10 students. She went on to become a great mathematician and consultant for the U.S. Naval Reserve.
And so, it seems, the time has come for the work of these women and others to be studied and celebrated—both at home and at school. And wouldn't these women be pleased?
By Shelley Emling
Girls and science just don't mix. At least that's the message that comes from report after report including one on the underrepresentation of women in science and math from the American Association of University Women.
The study, released last year, found that even though women have made some strides in these fields, stereotypes and cultural biases still stymie their success. What's needed? In the end, the study stressed the need for more parental involvement and female role models.
For sure, parents can help drive their daughters' interests in science by infusing home life with science activities, field trips, and opportunities to learn. The National Science Teachers' Association recently went so far as to issue a position statement about how important parental pressure is when it comes to sparking a girl's interest in science.
There's no doubt the number of women in science and engineering is growing. Yet men continue to outpace women, especially at the upper levels of these professions. According to that AAUW study, in elementary, middle, and high school, girls and boys take math and science courses in roughly the same numbers, and about as many girls as boys leave high school set to pursue science and engineering majors in college. Yet, in the end, fewer women than men actually do pursue these majors.
"Among first-year college students, women are much less likely than men to say that they intend to major in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM)," the study said. "By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, and in some, such as physics, engineering, and computer science, the difference is dramatic, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Women’s representation in science and engineering declines further at the graduate level and yet again in the transition to the workplace."
So why is this exactly? Again, the study claims that even subtle references to gender stereotypes whether on the playground or on TV have been shown to negatively impact a girl's science and even math performance.
Fortunately, research also shows that society has the ability to counter these stereotypes by emphaszing and talking about the accomplishments of girls and women in science and math.
The more people hear about women's achievements, the more the abilities of women can't be denied.
Amazingly, studies show that people, when asked, can't name a single female scientist except for perhaps Madame Curie. But here are a few outstanding but little-known women who have achieved great things when it comes to science:
Mary Anning, just named by Britain's Royal Society as one of the most influential British women scientists in history. Only now are many people becoming acquainted with the remarkable work of the self-educated geologist whose fossil discoveries in early 19th century England paved the way for the work of Charles Darwin. (I wrote a biography of this incredible woman—the inspiration for the tongue-twister "She sells sea shells by the sea shore"—called "The Fossil Hunter.")
Caroline Herschel, a British astronomer. Her most significant contribution was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet, which bears her name.
Sarah Breedlove Walker, an American businesswoman and philanthropist. After being orphaned at 6 and widowed at 20, she went on to invent a process for straightening the hair of African-Americans. Her process caught on and she invented all sorts of beauty- and health-related products while supporting a wide range of philanthropic efforts.
Virginia Apgar came up with the Apgar Newborn Scoring System, which boosted the survival rates of infants. She also helped focus the attention of the March of Dimes organization on birth defects.
Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was one of the first computer programmers and a pioneer in the field of software development concepts. In 1928 she graduated from Vassar College with a BA in mathematics and physics. While an instructor at Vassar, she earned an MA in 1930 and a PhD in 1934 at Yale, one of four women in a doctoral program of 10 students. She went on to become a great mathematician and consultant for the U.S. Naval Reserve.
And so, it seems, the time has come for the work of these women and others to be studied and celebrated—both at home and at school. And wouldn't these women be pleased?
Girls take to science at MSU event
Bozerman Daily Chronicle: Girls take to science at MSU event
When Kelli Lemke was in high school, she didn't know what engineering was - and she certainly didn't know it could be a career.
Then she shadowed an engineer for a day, and she's now a mechanical engineering student at Montana State University.
"I liked being able to apply science and math instead of just learning them," she said.
Saturday, Lemke was able to share her passion for engineering with junior high-aged girls who attended "Expanding Your Horizons," a conference that introduces hands-on math and science.
More than 200 girls from across the state attended the program, according to Suzi Taylor, the outreach and communications director for MSU Extended University. Each girl attended four workshops throughout the day, which included activities like creating a simulated whitewater kayak course, programming robots, and isolating DNA.
About 70 volunteers helped put on the event, including MSU students and faculty and professionals from the community. Abbie Richards, a chemical engineering professor, said this is her third year volunteering for the program.
"It excites girls about opportunities in science and technology careers," she said, adding that when she was a freshman in college, there were about 500 men in her physics class and only a few women.
In the classes she teaches today, she said about 20 to 30 percent of the students are women. However, that number is beginning to flatten out, which she said highlights the importance of programs like "Expand Your Horizons."
Teresa Blaskovich, a medical student, was helping with an activity where girls learned about brain processes - there was even a human brain on display. She said many of the girls who'd been in the workshop wanted to be doctors or pediatricians.
Blaskovich said she attended a similar program when she was in middle school, and it got her interested in science and math.
Cenzi Clarno, 12, came from Lima to attend the event. She said it was fun and she learned a lot, and added that she wants to be a forensic scientist when she grows up.
When Kelli Lemke was in high school, she didn't know what engineering was - and she certainly didn't know it could be a career.
Then she shadowed an engineer for a day, and she's now a mechanical engineering student at Montana State University.
"I liked being able to apply science and math instead of just learning them," she said.
Saturday, Lemke was able to share her passion for engineering with junior high-aged girls who attended "Expanding Your Horizons," a conference that introduces hands-on math and science.
More than 200 girls from across the state attended the program, according to Suzi Taylor, the outreach and communications director for MSU Extended University. Each girl attended four workshops throughout the day, which included activities like creating a simulated whitewater kayak course, programming robots, and isolating DNA.
About 70 volunteers helped put on the event, including MSU students and faculty and professionals from the community. Abbie Richards, a chemical engineering professor, said this is her third year volunteering for the program.
"It excites girls about opportunities in science and technology careers," she said, adding that when she was a freshman in college, there were about 500 men in her physics class and only a few women.
In the classes she teaches today, she said about 20 to 30 percent of the students are women. However, that number is beginning to flatten out, which she said highlights the importance of programs like "Expand Your Horizons."
Teresa Blaskovich, a medical student, was helping with an activity where girls learned about brain processes - there was even a human brain on display. She said many of the girls who'd been in the workshop wanted to be doctors or pediatricians.
Blaskovich said she attended a similar program when she was in middle school, and it got her interested in science and math.
Cenzi Clarno, 12, came from Lima to attend the event. She said it was fun and she learned a lot, and added that she wants to be a forensic scientist when she grows up.
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