Women Scientists Admit, “I Wanted More Kids”

3,455 people answered questionaires, the report doesn't say how many of these were men, how many were women.

It would be interesting to know that, and it would be interesting to know how many female sceientists weren't asked to take part in this study.

(For example, if there are 100,000 female scientists in the US, and only 1,600 of them were asked this question, is it really representative of the whole? [Most polls only ask 1000 people the questions, and then generalizations are made for the remaining hundreds of thousands of citizens of the US.)

Still...interesting...

From Bnet.com: Women Scientists Admit, “I Wanted More Kids”

Why don’t more women pursue careers in the sciences? A new study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, suggests a simple, if saddening, answer: Nearly half of women scientists say their career has caused them to have fewer children than they’d like. About a quarter of men also expressed similar disappointments–even though the male scientists polled seem to have about the same number of children as everyone else in the U.S.

The questions asked by the researchers, Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University and Anne Lincoln of Southern Methodist University, were brutally blunt. They asked how many hours each person worked, if they were married, if they had kids and if they had fewer children than they wanted because of the demands of their career. The researchers polled 3,455 scientists, from graduate students to tenured faculty, in astronomy, physics and biology in “top 20″ departments, as judged by the National Research Council in 2005 and U.S. News and Word Report. Here’s what they found:

* Nearly half of women scientists had fewer children than they’d like because of their careers. The strain seemed the worst among post-docs-55.4% of female postdoctoral students said they had fewer children than they wanted. Almost 40% of women grad students agreed, as did 45% of female science faculty.
* Men are missing out on some aspects of fatherhood, too. Again, the post-docs have it the worst: 39% of male postdocs say they have fewer children than they’d like, compared to 20.3% of male grad students and 24.5% of male faculty.
* Male scientists are more likely to be married than female ones. This holds true at every stage of their careers. By the time they become professors, about 64% of women professors are married, compared to 74.6% of male professors.
* Male scientists are more likely to have children than female ones. Again, this is true for grad students, postdocs, and faculty. About 83% of male professors are married, compared to 72% of females.
* Having fewer children than desired had a bigger negative effect on the ‘life satisfaction’ of male scientists than female ones. The survey also asked graduate students and post-docs if they were considering a career switch. One in four grad students and one in four post-docs said they were. Those who said they had fewer children than they would have liked were more likely to consider a switch to another field.
* The gender differences didn’t have to do with the number of hours worked. Male and female scientists work about the same number of hours.

Do Scientists Have Higher Expectations?

One particularly curious aspect of this research is that male scientists seem to have nearly the same number of children as everyone else in the U.S. In 2008, the U.S. fertility rate was 2.05 children per woman. The average male scientist has 2.05 children, so it’s interesting that so many of them would say they wanted more kids, and believe their career is to blame for the fact that they didn’t. For women scientists, the number of children is lower: an average of 1.88 children. But if nearly half of women scientists wanted more kids, that still seems pretty high.

What’s going on here? Are scientists more likely to want bigger families? Are they more likely to see their careers as detrimental to their personal lives? Is their work unusually demanding?

Or am I missing something in the statistics?

The Girl Scientists Club: Catchup

I'll be resuming this fiction story, as well as posting news articles. Here's the first several chapters.

Chapter One
Fourteen year old Emily Shimako walked down the hallway of her new school to Room 113. She paused in front of the door, and took a deep breath. Within that room was her Advanced Algebra class. It was an elective class, and chances were very likely that she’d be the only girl in the room.

She’d already spent half of 7th grade in the school on the Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany. But her mom’s mother – her grandmother – had taken ill, and she and her mom had moved here to Cheyenne, Wyoming so that they could take care of her grandmother, while her dad remained at Ramstein until the end of the year.

At Ramstein, she’d been the only girl in the class. Things probably wouldn’t be different here…

Emily took a deep breath, opened the door and walked in. Her eyes scanned the room, and to her surprise she saw in a back corner that there were already two girls in the class!

Fifteen boys – she had counted rapidly – and three girls total.

Emily’s eyes caught those of one of the girls, who smiled at her and jerked her head, inviting her to come over and join them.

“Hi,” she said, sitting down in the rear row. “I’m Emily Shimako.”

“I’m Amber Karlovassi,” said the cheerful-faced, blonde-haired, slightly tubby girl who’d invited her over. “And this” – she indicated a slender, very pretty girl with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, “Is Trelane Scott.”

They exchanged greetings.

“Where have you transferred from, Emily?” asked Trelane.

Emily explained about her grandmother’s illness.

“Well, it’s always nice to have another girl in class,” said Trelane. “Me and Amber, we’re kind of like the two musketeers. We’re the only girls in our geology class, too.”

Emily laughed. “Not anymore.”

“Hey, that’s great, you must really be in to science…”

Before she could say anymore, the teacher entered the room, opened his book, and the class began.

Inwardly, Emily breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been nervous about starting in a new school, but worse, being the only girl to take science-centric classes like Advanced Algebra and Geology. But it looked like she’d found a couple of kindred spirits. The rest of this year might not be too bad, after all.

Chapter Two
I.

“This first meeting of the Girl Scientist Club will now come to order,” announced Amber Karlovassi.

It was Saturday, and they were meeting in the Family Room of her house – a large room in the basement complete with comfy chairs and plush carpeting, and even more important, a gigantic screen TV, Blue-Ray, DVD and VHS Player. In the corner a computer with big screen monitor rested on a large computer desk – that’s where Amber did her home work.

Over the last week, Emily Shimako had gotten to know the other two girls pretty well, and learned that they had many things in common. They all enjoyed the sciences, and they all intended to be in a scientific field of some kind when they grew up.

Emily was fascinated with space exploration and intended to be the first woman to walk on the Moon, or better yet, Mars. Trelane was more interested in the ocean depths and wanted to become an oceanographer and deep sea explorer, like Sylvia Earle. And Amber Karlovassi?

“Dinosaurs,” she had declared. “I want to find dinosaurs.”

On Friday, during lunch, they had got to talking about their hopes, dreams and desires, and how they might achieve them. They were aware of the stories – girls always did pretty well in math and science classes until they hit the age of 14 or so, and then their grades fell dramatically.

“We need to help each other,” Amber had said. “Let’s make a pact to team up and help each other out on any subject we’re having problems with.”

“I don’t think it’s that the material gets harder,” said Trelane. “I think it’s because now’s about the time girls get interested in boys…or should I say, obsessed with them?”

“Obsessed with being thought attractive by them,” Emily suggested. “And obsessed with…you know.”

They grinned. They did know. In 21st century society, they couldn’t help but know.

“And god forbid a girl be able to beat her boyfriend in a math or biology test…”

“Or worse, sports,” commented Trelane. She was a pretty good swimmer – better than anyone else in the school, actually, boy or girl, at her grade level.

“Yeah…if you’re good at sports, and not interested in boys…look out!”

“I’m good at sports,” Trelane pointed out. “And I’m not interested in boys, I’m interested in men. I mean…not right now, of course. I’m only 14, for God’s sake! But I mean I’m not interested in any of the boys in our class, for example. I’m going to wait until I get my college degree, and then I’ll find a man friend!”

Emily nodded. “I don’t intend to settle down until I’ve seen the whole wide world. And it’s kind of difficult to do that if you’ve got to tow a kid or two with you!”

“I think we all pretty much agree on the same things,” Amber said. “Why don’t we form a club? The Girl Scientist Club? All for one and one for all?”

“That’s a great idea,” Emily and Trelane had chorused.

“Let’s have an official meeting tomorrow,” Amber had continued. “Why don’t we meet for lunch at my house.”

II.

Back in the present, in Amber’s Family Room, Amber continued: “I think the most important thing is that we don’t waste time,” said Amber. “Right now we’re learning algebra. Why don’t we spend a couple of hours every Saturday going through the book, and getting ahead of the class?”

“Could cause problems,” said Trelane. “If we already know what’s in the book, and show it, the rest of the kids will accuse us of showing off.”

“Well, we don’t have to let the other kids know that we’ve already gone through the book,” said Emily. “Just get the answers right when called upon.”

“Okay, then, said Trelane, “Amber, you’ve got your book here?”

Thus it was, when Amber’s mother came down the stairs to the family room an hour later, with a tray bearing milk and cookies, she was surprised…and even a little pleased, to find the three girls spending their Saturday working on algebra problems.

Amber told her about their new club.

“I think that’s a great idea, girls,” she said, smiling happily. “Working as a team, you’ll be sure to accomplish your goals.”

She went upstairs and Amber, Trelane and Emily got back to work. After another hour, they decided they’d worked enough for one day.

“How about another tradition of the Girl Scientist Club,” suggested Amber. “Watching a 1950s science fiction film after our meeting. Let’s watch Them! It’s about giant ants!”

“I don’t like horror movies,” Emily objected.

“Oh, it’s not really horror,” Amber said quickly. “I mean…there are a couple of scary spots, yes, but basically it’s just an adventure film. And there’s a woman scientist…she’s pretty cool.”

“Well, okay,” said Emily.

“Great, I’ll make some buttered popcorn and we can have some pop, so it’s like we’ll be at a real movie.”

Minutes later, the jagged red-and-blue letters of Them! filled the big screen, and the girls sat entranced (it was Amber’s favorite movie) as the adventure unfolded.

Chapter Three
I.

“Your mom tells me you’ve formed a Girl Scientists Club,” Amber’s dad said that evening at dinner. “I think that’s a great idea.”

“I think it will be really fun,” Amber agreed. “We’re going to help each other out in all our schoolwork, and make exhibits for science fairs, and everything.”

“And they both want to be paleontologists, like you?”

“No, Emily is going to be an astronaut, and Trelane is going to be an oceanographer.”

“Well, it’s nice to see how you are all set on your careers while you are so young,” said her dad with a smile. “It’s just too bad that the nearest ocean is hundreds of miles away, and the nearest observatory…” he paused to think. “Well, wait a minute, there’s an aquarium in Denver, I think. That should interest a would-be oceanographer. And I seem to recall seeing that there is an Astronomy Club here in Cheyenne…but there’s a historical observatory in Denver…”

Amber was looking at her dad excitedly. “Do you think you could take us to Denver to see the aquarium? And the observatory?”

“Well, we’ll have to talk it over with the other parents, of course, but I don’t see why not. What do you think, Mary?”

Amber’s mom nodded. “Why don’t we invite them all over for dinner…not tomorrow…how about Tuesday? We adults can get to know each other, and you girls can be down in the family room…”

“The Club Headquarters,” Amber said quickly.

“The Club Headquarters, of course, working on your projects.”

“Yay!” said Amber. “That will be great.”


II.

The next day, Sunday, the three members of the Girl Scientists Club met once again in the Club Headquarters.

“What my dad said last night got me to thinking,” Amber said. “We each have different ambitions. I want to be a paleontologist. Trelane wants to be an oceanographer. And Emily wants to be an astronaut. But we shouldn’t study our own field to the exclusion of all else. So what I was thinking was that we should each learn each other’s subjects as well. “

“Sure,” said Trelane, and Emily nodded.

“Dad’s going to take us to Denver to see the aquarium and the observatory – so that’s you two sorted out. So I was thinking we should go to the Wyoming State Museum this weekend, to see the dinosaurs. Have you been to the museum yet, Emily?”

“No…we really haven’t looked around Cheyenne at all,” said Emily Shimako.

“Well, then we’ll go on Saturday. I’ve been there a couple of times, and I’ll show you around. It’s pretty interesting. There’s more than just dinosaurs, of course. There’s history about the Indians and the early settlers, and there’s even kitchen stuff from the 1940s…and I’ve got to tell you looking at that stuff makes me glad to be living in the 2000s!

“There’s more we can do, too,” said Emily. “You know how every science has its own vocabulary. Why don’t we make a vocabulary work book, and every few days we share our new vocabulary words with each other.”’

“And we could have tests on the weekends,” said Trelane excitedly. “Just to make sure we remember what we’re learning.”

“And what about sport?” Trelane continued.

“What do you mean, what about sport?” laughed Amber.

“Well, if Emily is going to be an astronaut, she’s got to be physically fit, hasn’t she? And you are going to be out in the hot sun digging for fossils all day..but I bet you’ll have to be climbing up mountains in search of those fossils, so you need to be physically fit, too. And of course as an oceanographer I’m going to swim with whales and dolphins…”

“And sharks,” put in Emily with a shudder.

“And hopefully not very many sharks,” Trelane said with a grin. “So I was thinking we need to get into sports a bit, too, to keep fit. You can all come swimming with me, or we could go biking….”

“I think I’d prefer to go biking,” said Amber. “Swimming laps always seems kind of boring to me.”

“Well, biking then. Do you have a bike, Emily?”

“Not here,” said replied Emily. “Most of my stuff is still in Germany until my dad moves here.”

“But you know how to ride?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, no problem then. You can ride my mom’s bike. I know she won’t mind. As a matter of fact, shall we go for a ride right now? I’ve got an odometer on my bike, and that will tell us how far we ride. Let’s got for a five mile ride…two and a half miles out, and then two and a half miles back. Just to see how fit we are.”

“Let’s go,” said Emily, getting to her feet, and Trelane joined her.

“The Girl Scientists and Bicycling Club is now in session,” Trelane laughed.

Chapter Four
Trelane Scott received a $20 a week allowance for doing her chores – cleaning off the table after meals, loading and unloading the dishwasher, loading the clothes washer and dryer and folding the clothes. These had been her jobs for over two years, and after this time she had almost a thousand dollars in a savings account that her parents had started for her on her 12th birthday.

Every Monday the Scott family went out to dinner at a local restaurant – lots of people in Cheyenne went to Fort Collins, in Colorado, for dinner, but the Scott’s believed in supporting local businesses, and besides, there were plenty of good restaurants in Cheyenne.

After dinner, the family continued on to the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Dell Range and spent anywhere from a half hour to an hour there, browsing, and usually coming home with a couple of books each.

It had been midway through her twelfth year that she’d sat down with her parents for a James Bond movie marathon. The movie she’d seen was For Your Eyes Only, with Roger Moore as James Bond. Parts of the movie had taken place underwater, with underwater archaeologists excavating a Greek temple, and scuba diving, and the use of a JIM underwater suit. Trelane had been fascinated with the downhill skiing scenes early in the film (and had gone downhill skiing for the first time that winter) but what had really ignited her interest were the underwater scenes. That was what she wanted to do when she grew up, she decided.

There was no place in Cheyenne to learn how to scuba dive, but she wouldn’t always live in Cheyenne, Trelane had vowed. When she was old enough to go to college, she’d choose a college in Florida, or better still, Hawaii, and then she’d spend every minute she could in the water.

Trelane wandered through the bookstore. She knew she’d ultimately end up in the oceanography section – such as it was – but before then it was always fun to see what else was on offer.

She went to the magazine section first, and searched through the magazines in the science section. As usual, there were no magazines on oceanography. Plenty of magazines on space exploration and astronomy, not a thing on the oceans that they shared their planet with.

Trelane stepped over to the next section of magazines, and her eye fell on one entitled Make Your Own Webpage.

She looked at the cover thoughtfully.

Why not make her own oceanography magazine? She could publish it on the web and it wouldn’t cost her anything. And if she were going to make an Oceanography web magazine, she’d make one for the Girl Scientists Club as well! And Amber and Emily would help her, she knew.

“Found everything today?” asked the clerk as Trelane handed over the magazine and her money.

“Yes, thanks,” said Trelane with a smile. She accepted her change, picked up the bag, and went to find her parents.

The next day, at school, when the three girls met in their algebra class, Emily Shimako asked Amber if she'd seen the news about a college student who had found a new type of dinosaur.

"No, I hadn't," exclaimed, Amber. "Fill me in."

"I printed it off the internet, just in case," Emily said, and handed her a sheet of paper.

This is what Amber read:
Rawrrr, Boise State researcher gets dinosaur named after her
“Boise State postdoctoral researcher Celina Suarez is one of only a handful of people in history to have her name attached to a dinosaur. Geminiraptor suarezarum, a raptor-like species that walked the Earth about 125 million years ago, was discovered by Suarez and her identical twin Marina.

The dinosaur’s fossilized upper jawbone was found near Green River, Utah, in 2004, when the Suarez sisters were Temple University master’s students working on a summer excavation project for the Utah Geological Survey. While investigating the sediment profile above the dig site, they spotted a gully where dinosaur bones were sticking out of the rock. Three species have been recovered from the site thus far, including Geminiraptor — now the oldest known member of the dinosaur family Troodontidae and the only one ever found to be present in North America during the Early Cretaceous period (about 145 to 98 million years ago).

Utah Geological Survey paleontologist Jim Kirkland told the sisters the great news soon after the bones were analyzed. But they didn’t know until late last year that the scientific classification of the ancient creature would bear their family name and refer to Gemini, which is Latin for “twins.”

This cast of a fossilized jawbone is a memento for Suarez, who discovered the original with her twin sister while they were graduate students working on a dinosaur dig in Utah. The fossil led to the naming of a new species in honor of the Suarez sisters: Geminiraptor suarezarum.

“It was just so exciting. When we were kids, Marina and I thought we’d find a dinosaur in our backyard,” said Suarez, who is conducting postdoctoral research at Boise State while her sister does the same at Johns Hopkins University. “When we first found the Utah site we knew it was significant, but we had no idea we would become part of history.”

Suarez now specializes in geochemical paleontology, analyzing the chemical makeup of ancient bones as it relates to the original biology of an animal and the geology of the environment that became its tomb. Funded through a two-year, $170,000 National Science Foundation fellowship, her work at Boise State is expected to contribute to scholarly publications and research results in the Department of Geosciences.

Using bone specimens from nearby Hagerman and from the Idaho Museum of Natural History, Suarez will examine the chemical and physical processes of fossilization — an area of paleontology that is not well understood. In addition to contributing to a fuller understanding of biogeography throughout time, she said the study of fossils teaches us about past climates and how they may reference current and future environments on Earth.

Suarez is working with mentor Matt Kohn, a Boise State geochemistry professor and expert on stable isotopes and trace elements, which are crucial to unlocking the mysteries of vertebrate fossils.

“I had read a lot of Dr. Kohn’s papers and used them in my master’s and Ph.D. research, and I was excited about the prospect of working with him and learning some new tools,” Suarez said of her decision to come to Boise State. “Once you find these bones they often sit in a drawer in a museum collection, but advances in equipment and technology are allowing us to do a lot more with them.”

Since she started consulting with Boise State’s Department of Geosciences in the fall of 2010, Suarez has been impressed with the high level of scholarship and collaboration. While she and Kohn investigate chemical changes that occur in bone through the process of fossilization, Suarez also will collaborate with associate professor Kris Campbell in Boise State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to explore physical changes using a laser light technique called Raman spectroscopy.

In addition to her work in Boise over the next two years, Suarez is preparing for a summer trip to China, where she will examine dig sites with scientists from the Chinese Geological Academy of Sciences and the University of Pennsylvania. She also has done research on fossils in Alaska and plans to continue looking for undiscovered species that may give us clues to our own survival.

“There are about 700 named species of dinosaur. There are probably way more than that, but we haven’t found them — yet,” said Suarez. “Contributing to the discovery of the Geminiraptor was really exciting, but more than that, it made me want to go back to the field and discover more.””

"How cool," Amber said softly after she'd finished reading the article. "Thanks so much for sharing this with me, Emily. That's my goal, too, to find a new dinosaur...or to find more bones of a dinosaur that isn't known very well. I shall stick this away in my scrapbook."

Emily smiled. "I thought you'd like it."

"Here's something I also hope you'll like," Trelane Scott said. "Why don't we create our own website for the Girl Scientists Club? And for each of our specialized interests - space, dinosaurs and oceans?"

"What a great idea!" Amber said.

"Yeah," said Emily. "Do you know how to create these websites, Trelane?"

"I bought a magazine on it, yesterday."

"Well, let's get my mom to help us. She's a web designer."

"Fantastic," said Trelane. "Let's..."

But at this moment their teacher started the class and they had to turn their attention to the business at hand.

The girls spent the next three days learning the fundamentals of writing HTML code from Emily's mother.

"I'll set up the skeleton of the site for you," Emily's mother had said. "But you'll have to put in all the content, okay?"

Emily's mother, Marian, had her own domain name, Volcano Seven, and set up a folder for the Girl Scientists club's magazine.

Marian was a fan of the writing of the famous French aviation writer, Antoine de Saint Exupery, and one of his most famous books was The Wind, the Sand and the Stars.

She decided to make a "riff" on this title, and put a navigation bar on the site, with topics: The Waves, The Wind, The Sand, and The Stars.

(Waves) Oceanography for Trelane
(Wind) Atmospheric sciences for everybody
(Sand) Earth sciences, in particular paleontology, for Amber
(Stars) Space sciences for Emily

"You guys really shouldn't focus on just your own speciality," she explained. "Why not learn all the sciences?"

"Why not?" Amber had said.

Now, they had work to do. Each girl had promised to write articles or at the very least, word lists for each of their favorite subjects.

Those would be soon to come.

Chapter Five
Trelane finished eating dinner with her parents. After she'd cleared the table and stocked up the washing machine, she returned to the table where they played a game of Scrabble - the adult version. (They'd once asked Trelane if she'd wanted to play with Scrabble Junior, and she'd scoffed at them.)

She came in third, as she usually did, but she wasn't interested in winning as much as improving her personal scoring record.

Then her parents went into the living room to watch a movie, and she went to her room and took up a library book, Sonar, by Karen Price Hossell.

She was writing her first article for the Girl Scientist Magazine, and was using the book Sonar as her source material.

The book had a glossary, and the first thing she did was turn on her laptop, pull up a word processing document, and type all the words into the computer. She was going to keep her own collection of oceanographic words, as well as share them with the readers - if any - of their website.

Her mom had warned her that it would take a while before the website "took off" and began to get readers, so they musn't be discouraged if they didn't get very many hits to start with.

Well, Trelane had thought, she'd be doing this work for her own purposes most of all, and it would only be gravy, as the saying went, if other people read their website, too.

So, let's start with the glossary, she said to herself, and began to type:

Sonar - A system that locates objects using echoes from sound waves it sends out. Sonar is an acronym of Sound Navigation and Ranging.

Active sonar - A sonar system that both receives and transmits signals, as opposed to passive sonar, which only receives signals.

Ultrasound - A high-frequency sound that cannot be heard by humans. Ultrasonic frequencies are used to make an image of the inside of the human body.

Sonographer - A person who is trained to use ultrasound.

Side scan sonar - A sonar device that sends beams of sound out sideways, using an instrument called a towfish.

Single beam echo sounder - A sonar device that uses one beam of sound sent straight under the ship or boat.

Sonobuoy - A floating object placed in the water to receive or send out sonar signals. It also transmits them by radio back to a station.

Sonogram - image of part of the body made using ultrasound.

Sounding - Finding out the depth of a body of water,

Acoustic communication system - A system that uses sound waves and beams to communicate

After typing in these words, Trelane decided to take a break.

The next afternoon, Trelane came home from school to find her father at his computer, shaking his head.

"What's the matter, dad?" she asked.

"I was just checking the sports news. A couple of college basketball coaches are in trouble. They've been caught cheating. And they were caught cheating a while ago, but they still haven't been fired by their universities. Then you wonder why some of these young college athletes get into so much trouble - they see their universities turning a blind eye to corruption of coaches...but if they steal so much as a laptop, out of school they go!"

"Stealing a laptop is a pretty big deal," Trelane said.

"Yes. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't, kid. It's just that...the myth of sports has always been that it's supposed to instill "good" sportsmanship and a sense of fair play in its participants, but more often than not kids who go into sports just earn how to lie and cheat in order to win."

"And yet they're still admired more than someone who is lousy at sports but gets straight As in school."

"Very true, kid. Sad but true. So, how's your Science Club coming along?"

"Pretty good. I'm working on an article for our new webzine - I hope to have it finished tomorrow."

"Good. I'm so proud of you three girls. Most kids your age don't know what they want to be when they grow up. Hecks, lots of kids going to college don't know what they want to be."

"I've never understood that," Trelane said. "I've always known what I wanted to be. At least, for as long as I can remember, anyway."

"And I'm glad that you've got a bit of ambition. Now, as you grow older you might change your mind..."

"Ha!" said Trelane.

"Well, you might. I'm not saying you will. But I like the fact that you've got intellectual curiosity. Most kids go through life not caring how the world works, but you want to know things. That's going to carry you a long way."

Trelane smiled, pleased as ever when her mom or dad praised her.

"Well, I'm going to work on my article," she said. "I'll let you get back to your sports."

"Only a few more days til spring training and baseball," he agreed. "I can hardly wait."

Chapter Six
Emily Shimako sat on the porch with a pair of binoculars. It was nine o'clock at night, and she was scanning the night sky. At least, that's what she'd intended to do, but instead she was sitting in her chair, gazing up at the stars, thinking.

As far as space exploration went, the news from the last several months had been all bad. The United States was closing down its space shuttle fleet, and seemingly closing down its space exploration plants entirely. China, on the other hand, was proceeding full steam ahead, with plans to put a manned space station on the moon, and probably one on Mars, too.

Where was the Federation of Planets...that great human achievement described in her favorite TV series, the classic Star Trek, going to come from?

Although Star Trek had gone off the air 40 years ago, to be replaced in the 90s and 00s with other space shows, Star Trek had still been the first science fiction show she'd ever seen, as it had been a favorite of her parents. Captain Kirk had been - and still was, for that matter, her favorite character, with Sulu a close second, although he really didn't have all that much to do in most of the episodes....

After Star Trek her parents had introduced her to Star Trek: the Next Generation and Voyager, but she'd never liked them as well. In Star Trek, mankind had seemingly worked together to solve all their problems, and the Romulans and the Klingons had been made, if not friends, at least noo enemies. The adventures were adventures of exploration. But in Star Trek: TNG and Voyager...the episodes were seemingly all about war, death and destruction...as it seemed there was no peace anywhere in the universe...that was just too sad a future to contemplate.

She'd been looking forward to Star Trek: Enterprise, which was supposed to tell of the early years of the Federation, but she'd been disappointed in that, too. She'd wanted to see a show set on Earth, that had explained how the star ships had been designed and built, and the United Federation of Planets created. Instead it was just more of the same. And they'd played fast and loose with history. Mr. Spock was supposed to have been the first Vulcan on a Federation starship, not a Vulcan woman named T'pol!

Emily sighed. All that had been fiction. And she'd thought she'd been born just at the right time to see fiction becoming fact. The International Space Station should have been a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Instead, it was going to be a monument to futility...

Well, maybe she was just being too pessimistic. There were a few civilian space companies out there...like Virgin Galactic and Space X. People weren't going to give up on the desire for space flight just because the US government was wimping out.

What it did mean, Emily knew, was that competition to become an astronaut was going to be tough - tougher than it had ever been before.

Which is why she didn't have time to waste, in her schooling or in her curricular activities. She didn't have dreams...she had ambitions...and if she was going to make her ambition come true, she'd have to work very, very hard at it.

It was nice, she thought, that she'd met two friends, Amber and Trelane, who felt the same way she did, about their ambitions. She'd always known she was unusual, having decided at so very young an age what she wanted to be when she grew up...it was nice to finally discover that she wasn't that unusual...that there were other girls who were willing to work just as hard as she was...but who were perfectly willing to spend an hour or so biking or watching an old black and white movie with giant ants or moths or even (so gross) tarantulas.

Emily picked up her binoculars and focused them on the moon. "I'll walk there, one day," she thought to herself, and knew that it was true.

Chapter Seven
Amber Karlovassi poured water into a plastic bowl full of PerfectCast, a modeling mixtue. She stirred it carefully, as per the directions, and then, taking a deep breath, proceeded to pour the mixture into the two plastic molds, each one containing six or seven types of bones – neck bones, arm bones, pelvic bones, and so on.

There, that was done, she thought, as she filled the last hollow.

She referred to the directions again. She’d have to wait at least an hour before the casts were completely dry, before she could apply the magnets and stick everything together.

And then, she’d have a 19 inch tyrannosaurus skeleton that she’d be able to place on her desk, to accompany the velociraptor and the triceratops that were already there.

What to do while she was waiting?

Amber looked at the row of library books on her book shelf. She should work on the article she was supposed to write for the Girl Scientist Magazine website. She’d been procrastinating about that for several days. She loved dinosaurs, and she loved reading about dinosaurs, but when it came to writing about them…she was stuck! Everything had been written so much better by everyone else!

“I suppose I could start my vocabulary list,” she thought. “That’s easy. I just need to write down what other people say, and how they define the words. And then, as long as I list the source that I got the words from, it won’t be plagiarism!”

She nodded sharply. “Yes, it’s time I got to work on this. Emily has already written two articles, and Trelane has written three, and I haven’t done anything yet.”

She plucked Dinosaurs off the shelf and looked at it. Well, that was going to be hard to identify, for a start. It was published by Igloo Books, in England, but it didn’t say who had written it, or who had edited it, or anything!

Amber shrugged. If she couldn’t give them a proper citation, that was their own fault!

She turned to the back of the book and began typing out the first part of the glossary:

Ammonite – extinct marine mollusks, had coiled shells.

Ancestor – Animal from which a later, related animal evolved.

Ankylosaurs – a group of armored herbivores that lived 76-68 million years ago. There were three main groups of ankylosaurs:
Ankylosaurids
Polacanthids
Nodosaurids

Aquatic – water dwelling
Archosaurs – Triassic reptiles, immediate ancestors of dinosaurs.

And that was all the As.

That would do, thought Amber. She saved the file, opened up her email program and sent it to Emily, who had agreed to be their website editor – uploading all the material that she wrote, and that Trelane and Amber sent her.

“Hi, Emily” she wrote.

“I’ve just gotten started on my Vocabulary page, and here are the As. More to come later.”

That done, Amber breathed a sigh of relief. Then she turned to the first page of the book and started paging through it, reading entries that caught her eye. She, like a lot of aspiring writers, had learned early on that she didn’t want to write, she wanted to “have written.”

Chapter Nine
The next morning, before school, Amber was browsing through the paper and saw a news article that she thought might interest her friend, Emily. She printed it out, ready to give it to her when they met during first hour.

Boeing engineer from Everett hopes to go to Mars

“EVERETT, Wash. -- As a child, Kavya Manyapu would stare into the night sky above Hyderabad, India.

Her father would identify the different stars.

He would tell her about man's first steps on the moon.

He would fuel her dream to become an astronaut.

Later this month, Manyapu will spend two weeks on Mars -- or, at least, the closest thing on Earth to Mars.

The Mars Desert Research Station in Utah draws aeronautical engineers such as Manyapu, geologists, physicians and astro-biologists to its small cylindrical habitat, where research for the first human mission to Mars is taking place. The station is a prototype for the base that astronauts could use on Mars.

Think a mission to Mars will never happen?

This year, under presidential direction, NASA is putting the brakes on its near-Earth missions to the moon and the International Space Station. On Wednesday, the space shuttle Discovery completed its final trip. Shuttles Endeavor and Atlantis will make their final planned flights later this year.

NASA's new goal is to send astronauts to an asteroid and later to Mars. There is not enough money for NASA to achieve that and maintain the shuttle program at the same time. For example, the Mars Society, which founded the Utah research station, estimates a trip to Mars will cost $30 billion.

If a spacecraft took off tomorrow for Mars, Manyapu, 25, would like to be on it.

Manyapu's family members had such faith in her dream of becoming an astronaut that they moved to the United States after Manyapu graduated from high school at the age of 16. She earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In between her studies, Manyapu worked at Lockheed Martin and held internships at Boeing's Huntsville, Ala., site, where the company does space exploration work.

Today, Manyapu is a structural engineer on Boeing's 777 commercial jet program in Everett.

"I have a plan to go back into the space program," she said.

One step along Manyapu's way will be the two-week research trip to the Utah desert. The competitive research program in Utah attracts participants from NASA and from space programs around the world. Manyapu's academic adviser suggested she apply for the program, which should help her chances at becoming an astronaut.

Unlike a trip to the Moon, a mission to Mars will require astronauts to live on the planet for awhile. The Utah desert is thought to have attributes similar to Mars. The round research station in Utah is a two-deck structure, roughly 26 feet in diameter and is mounted on landing struts. All six crew members reside there, just as astronauts on Mars would.

The trip could take nearly two years to complete. The Utah station allows researchers to identify possible problems astronauts could face on a two-year journey. For instance, if the space station's toilet should fail during the actual trip to Mars, the astronauts wouldn't be able to call a plumber. They would have to figure out how to fix it themselves.

"They want to see how we can test out procedures (to solve different problems) that we could implement on Mars," Manyapu said.

That means some of the conditions Manyapu may face in Utah won't be pleasant. She and other crew members will be cut off from the rest of the world. Manyapu won't be able to shower every day. She won't get to decide what she eats. She'll be a lab rat for the other crew members to study, just as she will study them.

"You have to study a lot of human behavior," Manyapu said.

Astronauts will not only need to survive the conditions on Mars, they'll need to thrive. They'll be expected to be as productive as possible, gathering data and conducting experiments.

Similarly, participants at the research station in Utah perform tests, based on area of expertise, while there. Manyapu will fill four crew roles while she's at the station: crew physiologist, human factors engineer, backup crew engineer and journalist.

Manyapu is interested in studying bone loss among astronauts, which has been a continued topic of interest among scientists. In her application to participate in the program, Manyapu proposed experiments centered around bone loss that she could do while in the Utah desert.

She's also interested in ways to improve space suits, which astronauts to Mars would rely on heavily in their long trip.

"It's so hard to move around in those," Manyapu said.

At the research station in Utah, Manyapu will get a taste for walking around in those space suits. She'll be required to wear one any time she leaves the station to go outside -- just as a real astronaut would on Mars.

Manyapu still has some roadblocks between her and her dream. She needs to raise $1,500 in the next few weeks to participate in the research program. Having only landed her job at Boeing in November, she'll have to take some unpaid time off to go. Still, Manyapu plans to report to the research station on March 26.

As for when Manyapu thinks the first manned mission to Mars will take place, she estimates 2035. Manyapu believes the technology needed to get to Mars and back isn't what's holding a mission there back.

"To keep the humans alive, that's the greatest challenge of going to Mars," she said.”

Chapter Ten
The three members of the Girl Scientist's Club sat on the back seat of Mr. and Mrs. Karlovassi's Toyota Highlander. Amber's parents sat in the front - her dad was driving and her mom was chatting to him desultorily as he drove.

The SUV was equipped with two TV screens, so that the passengers in the back could watch two different movies at the same time if they wanted to. However, the three girls had brought computer devices - not games but Kindles, and in between looking out at the scenery, occasionally chatting, they concentrated their attention on.

Emily was reading a novel version of Star Trek, The Original Series: Captain's War, which featured Mr. Sulu in a leading role. Although Captain Kirk was her favorite character, she liked Mr. Sulu, also.

Amber was playing Every Word, an anagramming game, in which she was given a series of 6 or 7 letters, and had to find as many 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 letter words that she could from them.

Trelane had brought a sketchbook, too, and growing tired of reading Seaborn, a novel about men and women genetically altered to live in the depths of the ocean, and was wiling away the time drawing a futuristic submersible.

Amber, who was seated next to her, snuck a glance at her work.

"That's pretty good, Trelane," she commented. "Looks like a real artist drew it."

"Why, thank you," said Trelane with a grin.

"Must be nice to have talent," said Amber sadly. "All I can draw is stick figures."

"Me, too," said Emily, looking up from her book. "Did you have to practice to get so good, or does it just come naturally?"

Trelane eyed her work critically. "A bit of both," she said. "I've always been a good drawer, and of course I pay attention to everything I see so that I know how to draw it - proportions and stuff, you know. It does look pretty cool...one day I'm going to build something like this!"

Her two friends smiled and nodded confidently at her, then went back to their own pursuits.

Chapter Eleven
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 home.

All in all, it had been a very pleasant day.

Philippines' first national scientist dies

A very brief obit for someone as bnotable as this doctor appears to have been!

From ABS CBN News.com: Philippines' first national scientist dies

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines’ first national scientist Dra. Fe del Mundo passed away Saturday morning due to cardiac arrest.

She was 99 years old.

Del Mundo, a renowned Filipina scientist, invented the bamboo incubator.

She also founded the first pediatrician hospital in the Philippines.

Her remains are currently in the conference hall of the Dr. Fe del Mundo Medical Center Foundation in Quezon City and will be transferred to the Sto. Domingo Church.

Her burial will be held at the Libingan ng mga Bayani on Wednesday, August 10.

She will be survived by her niece, Elisa del Mundo-Bengzon, CEO of the Dr. Fe del Mundo Medical Center.

Young scientists take flight in monarch study

From Duluth News Tribune: Young scientists take flight in monarch study

Samara Verhel was upset to discover a spider eating a full-grown monarch butterfly caterpillar resting on a milkweed plant.

In fact, it cast a pall over the whole group of kids researching monarch butterflies Thursday in Rice Lake Park. For about three minutes.

The 10-year-old is a member of the South St. Louis County 4-H Fireflies, working on a University of Minnesota Citizen Science project. The group works with a leader and the University of Minnesota Extension to monitor local monarch butterfly populations and research factors affecting them. In its second year of the project, the 14 kids will spend six weeks this summer meeting once a week to learn about monarchs, collect data and discuss it.

“It’s amazing how much the kids know about monarchs and how they have done a lot of science to get where they understand the life cycle of a monarch,” said Tracy Moshier, leader of the Fireflies group.

The group is one of many throughout the state working on the same monarch project, with each contributing its findings to a national database, and all meeting at a conference in October to present findings. The National Science Foundation-funded project has a second component. The Extension also is studying the kids doing the science.

“We’re looking at how Citizen Science can foster inquiry in youth,” said Becky Meyer, who works in youth development for the U of M Extension. “Does it do that?”

So far, she’s finding that it does, depending on the level of adult support Moshier has while working with the kids. The more parents, grandparents and babysitters helping out, the more valid the data, she said in this particular case, because of the young ages of the kids in the group. Generally kids working on these projects range in age from 10 to 14, but Moshier has kids as young as 6.

“Once they are exposed and have an understanding, they are starting to raise questions, like ‘I wonder why we’re not finding the chrysalis?’ ” Meyer said.

The chrysalis is the final stage of the caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly.

“That is a perfect question they have come up with,” Meyer said. “The hope is that through their interest in this project they will continue that interest and carry that as adults. We find that in young people, when they have these opportunities, it instills a natural want to be a good steward of natural resources.”

The Fireflies fanned out, checking about 100 milkweed plants for monarch eggs and caterpillars in various stages of growth.

Joey Rentz, 10, said he hasn’t personally discovered any large caterpillars yet this summer, but he loves science and the hunt. Although the group had studied predators of the monarch, he had never seen one eat one of his study subjects before.

“It proves that spiders are actually predators,” he said. “It’s kind of cool but kind of sad.”

The elusive chrysalis was not to be found. Several patches of blueberries were, however, and as the kids stuffed their mouths and pockets full, Moshier taught them the difference between that berry and the poisonous blue-bead lily fruits nearby.

“They’re always learning,” she said.

Undefeated by bears and balky snowmobiles, pioneer woman scientist sets off again over the ice

From The Washington Post: Undefeated by bears and balky snowmobiles, pioneer woman scientist sets off again over the ice

SUMMIT STATION, Greenland — Friends sometimes catch her gazing, entranced, at the wind ripples forming in the snow, or at the “diamond dust” glint of crystals delicately drifting down the Arctic air.

Her queen, Elizabeth II, may have hung the greatest honor, a Polar Medal, around her neck. But this Elizabeth’s greatest joy, despite ominous brushes with hungry polar bears and dying snowmobiles, still comes from skimming across a frozen landscape in search of the ground truth of ice and science.

Travel,” scientists blithely call their risky research expeditions into the polar emptiness. And here once again Liz Morris was set to travel, a petite Englishwoman on the cusp of age 65 about to undertake a demanding, monthlong traverse down the 3,050-meter-high spine of the vast Greenland ice sheet — with a single assistant, two heavy-duty Ski-Doos and three wooden sleds piled with supplies and scientific gear.

“I think the big question is what is happening over the interior of the ice sheet,” Morris said before setting off southward July 17 from this remote Arctic research station, which sits atop ice 3.2 kilometers thick in the frigid heart of the world’s largest island, 500 kilometers from the coast and nearest settlement.

On her 800-kilometer round trip with assistant John Sweeny — seventh in a Greenland series begun in 2004 and totaling 3,200 kilometers — Morris is to do just one thing, but an essential one: measure the density of the top layers of snow in 10-meter-deep bore holes drilled at 12 sites.

That on-the-ground data will then be used to validate and calibrate the readings of the high-flying European Cryosat-2 satellite, a new eye in the sky for tracking the depth of snow and ice and thereby the melting trend in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

The project led by Morris, of Cambridge University’s Scott Polar Research Institute, is funded by Britain’s National Environmental Research Council and was mounted with the U.S. National Science Foundation’s cooperation. It’s an example of the painstakingly detailed work by scores of researchers trying to assess how fast Greenland’s melt may raise sea levels as the world warms.

“We could always tell you the day before the ice sheet disappears, ‘Yes, it’s going.’ What we’re trying to do is get ahead of the game,” Morris said as she prepared for the over-the-ice trek, checking her snowmobiles’ soundness, sleeping in a tent under the midnight sun in minus-12-degree-Celsius temperatures, readying her trademark all-orange traveling outfit.

With her Dutch boy-cut blonde hair, 1.55-meter (”on a good day”) stature and 54 kilograms, Morris fits no one’s image of a polar trailblazer. But in a way, that’s what brought her to glaciology four decades ago, when she earned her doctorate in physics from the University of Bristol.

If she’d been born with a “very tough, agile physical body,” she said, she would have been a mountaineer. Ice was a suitable substitute. Still, rock climbing around Britain helps keep her in shape, although for such Arctic traverses she must “fatten myself up” for the cold and the hard driving, for weeks of subsisting on dried food cooked in melted snow.

What draws her to the ice?

“I like the solitude,” she said. “It’s very beautiful. You look at it on two different scales — on the really detailed, centimeter scale, and then you can see hundreds of kilometers and big skies.”

Her field work in daunting polar conditions dates back to the 1980s and an Antarctica where the British Antarctic Survey, then her employer, still traveled with dog teams pulling sleds, and where Morris became the first female regular on the research treks.

She’s a veteran of five Antarctic traverses and others elsewhere, including the “scariest” in Norway’s Arctic islands of Svalbard, when she and Norwegian researchers shut themselves up in protective wooden crates to sleep. Voracious polar bears came around often, clawing her door.

“We were always sitting up in our sleeping bags with a rifle between us, looking at the door, and wondering, ‘Is this bastard coming in or not?’” she recalled.

Then here in Greenland, on a two-snowmobile traverse, one of the machines broke down, stranding them in the deep freeze of autumn 2006. For three days she and her assistant struggled futilely to find and remedy the problem, until a relief team finally reached them after a 200-plus-kilometer snowmobile dash over the ice. Merely “a major annoyance,” she says today of that episode.

In 2003, Queen Elizabeth honored the intrepid Morris with a Polar Medal, given in recognition of distinguished service in Arctic and Antarctic exploration. Three years earlier the monarch inducted her into the Order of the British Empire. This may be her last traverse, at least in Greenland, Morris said. Too many trips over familiar territory dull the traveler’s sharpness. She’s still sharp enough, she said, but “that’s how I’d like to bow out.”

And how does her accumulated polar mileage compare with Robert Falcon Scott’s, Britain’s legendary Antarctic explorer? She scoffed at the impertinent question: “He did it walking, for goodness’ sake!”

Might they likewise say of Liz Morris someday, “Think of it, she traversed the ice by snowmobile”? After all, young American engineers were already testing an instrument-laden robot here to replace human researchers on the ice.

Women In Science - You Are Oppressed, Even If You Are Not

While the author below makes some good points, I do have to say that women these days are oppressed, and unfortunately many participate in their own oppression. Take a look at the sex-obsessed media for an hour every day - whether it's a billboard as a child rides to school in a school bus, the ads on webpages that shriek that women must be thin, or the movie trailers that feature men obsessed with women (and of course men are getting short shrift as well, with the commercial cliche that mom and young kids are always right, and dumb ol' dad is always wrong.)

Science 2.0: Women In Science - You Are Oppressed, Even If You Are Not
Hank Campbell

Some stereotypes are self-reinforcing. If someone tells you over and over that you are oppressed, if you hit an obstacle and fail, like all of us do at some point in our lives, a convenient excuse is that you are discriminated against.(1)

There is zero data showing women are discriminated against in science, math or engineering - none. But because there used to be far more men and those men were not lined up against the wall and shot to make room for women in faculty, the claim is that science academia is still prejudiced against women.

For caring about science, some people sure engage in pseudoscience if junk data matches the cultural topology they want it to match, so that should help put into perspective why people without Ph.D.'s don't understand that vaccines don't cause autism, if we are ridiculing progressives, or that climate change happens, if we are ridiculing conservatives. I mean, we can't even get really smart people to take an unbiased look at hiring data.

The unbiased look at the data shows that females do as well as males in math for the first time in history, a terrific achievement. Women get more Ph.D.'s than men and not only are women hired for faculty positions as often as male counterparts, they are hired more.

Yet because the gross numbers are still less, it must still be a problem and the BBC once again spares no effort in being cultural busybodies and try to make the case with no real data at all. Hannah Richardson, BBC News education reporter, even invokes a James Bond movie with a female scientist in it from 1979 so you get the message properly framed for you:


Some of the rationale Richardson uses? Kids in 2006 asked to draw a picture of a scientist drew men more often than women. Really, that's it. Are there no women police either? Because kids who draw a picture of a cop draw men more often than women. For that matter, when they draw robbers they are more men too. Maybe we need cultural outreach so women get equal representation as criminals.

The problem with activism replacing data is that it's culture and politics more than science - so some people who read this will ignore the data and say my article is invalidated because I am a man. Using that same logic, I can claim that advertisers are biased against independent science media like Science 2.0. If we get less money, and we do, it must be discrimination and not the fact that big media companies like the BBC have salespeople who go out and aggressively get expensive advertising.

More anecdotes as data: Rachel Tibbell, development consultant at the UK Resource Centre for women in science, engineering and technology (UKRC), says she has twins, a boy and a girl, and some people buy the boy a car and the girl a doll. Really, isn't she lucky people buy her kids anything at all, knowing their gift choice will then be fodder in her culture war?

And then even more anecdotal evidence - Professor Charlotte Watts, a mathematics professor, says one time someone joked to her that 'I didn't know girls could do maths'.

So how did she get to be a math professor if the culture is so biased? Well, that is the great thing about claims of discrimination - not only do you get to criticize everyone else, you get to imply you are so much more awesome than everyone else because you made it despite discrimination. You can't lose but if you don't win, and even if the data shows no bias, social scientists have invented gender fatigue and stereotype threat to rationalize it for you.(2)

It's a cultural advocacy issue, so junk math is allowed. They cite Sean McWhinnie, independent research consultant with Oxford Research and Policy, who laments that men and women will only reach 'parity' in 2021 for biosciences, in 2042 for chemistry, in 2060 for physics and in 2109 for civil engineering. How did he arrive at such a ridiculous number? He ignored actual current hiring statistics and simply made a linear curve of recent gender changes and predicted when those would break even if the rate stays the same. In other words, every man who retires or dies will still primarily be replaced by men even though hiring statistics show that is not what is happening at all.

What would he have us do, engage in both gender and age discrimination and fire men who have done nothing wrong? Science is about excellence, not forced equality, especially if there is no systemic bias holding people back, and older researchers continue to do excellent work so they shouldn't be put out to pasture to impose gender equality.

Yet if implied bias is not enough to convince women they are oppressed, the tired 'women have babies' argument is invoked once again.

Way down at the bottom of the article, Richardson - in the interests of 'balance', we must assume - does note one woman who had no issue even 20 years ago. Professor Ottoline Leyser, author of 'Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to Have it All', says not only is there no reason for women scientists to choose between their career and a family, it is actually much easier in academia.

Finally, someone has defended uber-progressive academics against insinuation they are bigots despite evidence to the contrary. We know doctors have babies and seem to have no issue in their careers so how academia can be regarded as sexist is a mystery.

Science academia is terrific for men and women because excellence matters most - not race and not gender and, despite my example above to show how ridiculous those claims are, not political affiliation. It's time more people started applauding the excellent culture in science instead of insisting that isolated examples of inequality, real or perceived, mean the system itself is flawed.

NOTES:

(1) Try being a conservative in the world of science media some time and then tell me about representation. If anyone claims fewer than 1000:1 progressives to conservatives in science academia faculty, I demand to see proof. Un-rigorous surveys, the kind that claim women are oppressed in science academia, show that no one is oppressed in academia like conservatives.

(2) For being 70% women, the social sciences are incredibly patronizing toward women. The notion that intelligent women are so emotionally fragile they will be unable to perform unless a classroom has 50% women has to be a little maddening to women in actual science.

Girls Go Geek...Again!

Fog Creek BLog: "The Computer Girls"
Computer science has always been a male-dominated field, right?

Wrong.

In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women. And 34% of the systems analysts in America were women. Women had started to flock to computer science in the mid-1960s, during the early days of computing, when men were already dominating other technical professions but had yet to dominate the world of computing. For about two decades, the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984.

In fact, for a hot second back in the mid-sixties, computer programming was actually portrayed as women’s work by the mass media. Check out “The Computer Girls” from the April 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. It appeared between pieces called “The Bachelor Girls of Japan” and “A Dog Speaks: Why a Girl Should Own a Pooch.”


Don't worry, ladies. According to none other than Grace Hopper, programming is just like "planning a dinner."

There were many reasons for the unusual influx of women into computer science. Partly, it was just a result of the rise of the commercial computer industry in general. There was a tremendous need to hire anyone with aptitude, including women. Partly, it was the fact that programming work itself was not yet fully defined as a scientific or engineering field. In fact, many computer science programs were first housed within a variety of departments and colleges, including liberal arts colleges where women had already made cultural inroads. Not least of all — and you knew this was coming — women quickly noticed that some programming work could be done at home while the children were napping.

And then the women left. In droves.

From 1984 to 2006, the number of women majoring in computer science dropped from 37% to 20% — just as the percentages of women were increasing steadily in all other fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, with the possible exception of physics. The reasons women left computer science are as complex and numerous as why they had entered in the first place. But the most common explanation is that the rise of personal computers led computing culture to be associated with the stereotype of the eccentric, antisocial, male “hacker.” Women found computer science less receptive professionally than it had been at its inception.

Why do we care about a long-gone moment in early computing history when the presence of women was unexceptional?

Because it looks like women are now returning to computer science.

In the past year, the number of women majoring in Computer Science has nearly doubled at Harvard, rising from 13% to 25% (still nowhere near the 37% of 1984). And — because Harvard is not actually the center of the universe — it’s nice to know that the trend has been spotted elsewhere. In the past three years, the number of female Computer Science majors at MIT has risen by 28%. And, at Carnegie Mellon, the portion of Computer Science majors who are women has moved from 1 in 5 in 2007 to 1 in 4 last year.

Why might women once again be interested in computer science? Is it Facebook, whose most addicted users are young women? (Just fyi, girls have yet to go gaga for Google+.) Or maybe the recent economic downturn has caused more young American women to notice that computer programming is where the money’s at. Oh wait, no! It must be because Google Vice President Marissa Mayer recently advised women to follow her footsteps into utter geekdom…


Google VP Marissa Mayer: " People ask me a lot what it's like to be a woman at Google. I don't think of my experience that way. I'm a geek at Google."

Whatever the reasons, if it’s true that more women are pursuing computer science, then that would be great news for Fog Creek’s recruiting efforts. We’d love to attract and hire more female developers. In the past year, we saw a 62% increase in our total number of internship applicants. But we saw just a minor increase from 8% to 11% in the portion of female internship candidates. Here’s how women performed compared to men in our screening process.

Because we can’t ask applicants their gender, we guessed based on first names. It’s not perfect, to say the least, but it’s the best we have.

We know that, even if the number of women majoring in Computer Science is really on the rise, it will probably take some time before we see such an increase fully reflected in the number of female applicants we attract and hire. At the same time, we’re committed to targeting as many female computer science majors as possible in our recruitment efforts. In search of strategy ideas — and to learn more about what it’s like for a woman to pursue computer science today — we talked with one of our interns, Leah Hanson. Leah is a rising senior at Johns Hopkins University. She is currently the only woman on Fog Creek’s internship team. In fact, she is currently the only woman on Fog Creek’s entire technical staff.

Q: What would you say has been the breakdown of men and women in your Computer Science classes?

Leah: Out of the forty or so Computer Science majors in my freshman class, about eight of us were girls. Five of those girls had never programmed before, although I had. Three of us are still in the program now as rising seniors. In most of the upper-level classes I’ve taken, about twenty percent of the students are female.

Q: How has being one of very few women impacted your experience as a Computer Science major?

Leah: I think it has probably been a lonelier experience for me than for the guys. That might be partly because I work mostly on my desktop in my room instead of in the CS department computer lab, where a lot of students work, especially close to deadlines. But also most of my friends are girls and they aren’t in Computer Science; most of them are in biology. We became friends through living in the same dorm freshman year. I’d say I was able to make more friends through things like the dorm than in my Computer Science classes. But that means that I can’t really talk to my friends about the stuff I do for my classes, which is frustrating. Sometimes, there’s a really cool idea presented in class, but it’s only cool if you already know the background information to understand it – to grasp how and why it’s cool. Trying to present enough background to explain why this concept is awesome during the course of a conversation really just doesn’t work, as they don’t get a deep enough understanding of the background to see why it’s cool and spending several minutes attempting to explain frustrates me and bores them. Also, at school, some guys can be awkward. You can tell when they view you first as a girl and second as a person.

Q: Is there a networking organization for women in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins?

Leah: Yeah, our department started a Women in Computer Science organization last year, to aid in networking among women within the department and to encourage us to continue in computer science, particularly in academia. I really don’t like categorizing coders along gender lines. I mean, it really shouldn’t matter. But I can see why it’s important to have networking groups right now, while the number of women in Computer Science is so low. I just wish there were a more elegant solution. The only thing I can think of to compare it to is a brute force algorithm, which is really not an elegant solution even though it works. I don’t want to be judged as a girl first. I mean, there have been times when I’ve wondered, “Did I get picked for this project just because I’m a girl?” How are you supposed to figure out if you’re any good if they pick you just because you’re a girl instead of because you’re any good at it?

Q: How and when did you get into computer science?

Leah: I started coding when I took a computer programming class in high school. I didn’t know what computer programming even was, really, so I just took the class to find out. I had been home-schooled previously so I had no idea that computer science wasn’t something that girls did. I just thought it was a weird thing about my high school that there weren’t any other girls in the classes. Then, when I got to college and was one of two girls in a forty-student programming class, I realized the reality of the situation. My dad liked to build computers, so that made a difference in the sense that I had him around to explain things, but my mom was also a competent user of computers. She might not have been able to configure the router, but she used her computer rather than being intimidated by it.

Q: Why do you think younger girls or college-age women don’t go into computer science?

Leah: Well, I used to be baffled at how they could miss seeing how awesome programming and CS in general are, but there’s a bunch of things that seem to contribute to that. For example, women seem to give up sooner even in everyday situations with technology. Like, it’s socially acceptable for a woman to give up on technology and say, “Oh I can’t figure out how this computer thing works.” My friends who are girls ask for help to fix their computers normally because it’s acceptable for them not to be able to do it. They don’t realize that I’m just going to google the answer anyway! They think I already know the answer! Whereas I think most guys would be embarrassed to admit that they can’t fix their computers. Having experience with going through the frustration of trying to get some piece of technology to work, and eventually succeeding, builds skills that you need for working with technology and for debugging. Also, most girls don’t really get computers of their own when they’re young. It seems like sometimes the family computer is bought mainly for the boy to use and then he’s kind of forced to share it with his sister. That means that girls can’t experiment on computers. You need your own computer because you have to be able to possibly break it while you’re trying new stuff, without getting in trouble. For my sixteenth birthday, I got to build my own computer with my dad and then I could have all the time I wanted on it and break it or whatever. Until I had complete control of my own computer, I never had any interest in trying Linux; when someone else is responsible for keeping your computer functioning, and does a good job of it, there’s little incentive to try something like a different OS, since you’d have to convince other people that it’s a good idea to mess with what’s currently working.

Q: As you know, Fog Creek would like to attract and hire more developers who are women. Is there anything you’d recommend we do in our recruiting process to attract more women?

Leah: Well, one thing I noticed is that on your website you really stress how the developers here are the best and all the perks that you offer. But, to be honest, that doesn’t really differentiate Fog Creek from Google or Facebook because they also have awesome developers and loads of perks. Whereas what I think your internship offers that you don’t stress quite as much is all the close mentorship we get. Here, we’re a trusted part of the team. It’s our call to try things when we’re developing new features. We get to be a part of actual decisions about the code that ships. And every line of code gets reviewed and tested, whereas at school your code only gets checked to see if it actually works. Here, every time my code gets reviewed, it helps build my confidence that what we ship will be good. I also learn a lot about coding style and best practices based on what they want me to change. I don’t think that interns at larger companies get to work so closely with mentors or are as included as part of the team. And, basically, these things that have to do with collaboration and learning appeal a lot more to female candidates than talking about the best developers in the world or all the perks. I went to a talk at Johns Hopkins, hosted by our Women in CS group, by Hanna Wallach on gender imbalance among FLOSS developers. And she said that one of the things that happens is that women don’t even think they’re qualified for something because it’s advertised in competitive language. The language of competition not only doesn’t appeal to many women, it actually puts them off. Google advertises their Summer of Code with very competitive language. In 2006, GNOME received almost two hundred GSoC applicants – all male. When GNOME advertised an identical program for women, but emphasizing the opportunities for mentorship and learning, they received over a hundred highly qualified female applicants for the three spots they were able to fund. Honestly, when you hear the phrase “the world’s best developers,” you see a guy. And, for women, that can be alienating.