Nine Outstanding Women Working In Science And Technology

photo credit: Maryam Mirzakhani is the only woman to have won the Fields Medal, the highest honor in Math. Stanford University

Worldwide, only 28 percent of the researchers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are women. This number, provided by UN research, is ridiculously low and actually quite worrying about the state of the world in 2016. Great talent is being lost because women are often discouraged to progress their career in science or to study a STEM subject at university.

The media has definitely played a role in the portrayal of scientists as old white dudes, so to help showcase more diversity, here’s our list of extraordinary women scientists working today as we celebrate International Women’s Day. The list is definitely not exhaustive, but we believe it is representative of the incredible pool of talent found in every scientific discipline.

Fabiola Gianotti

^{Portrait of Fabiola Gianotti taken when she was a spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment. Claudia Marcelloni De Oliveira via Wikimedia Commons}

Italian particle physicist Dr. Gianotti was one of the driving forces behind the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, which she announced in July 2012. She is now director-general of CERN, in charge of 2,513 staff members and over 12,000 associated and visiting engineers from 608 universities and research facilities worldwide.

Margaret Hamilton

^{Margaret Hamilton, lead Apollo flight software engineer, in the Apollo Command Module. NASA}

Margaret Hamilton is the computer scientist responsible for writing the in-flight code that allowed the Apollo missions to land on the Moon. She has published over 130 papers, proceedings, and reports on the six major programs and 60 projects she’s been involved with during her career.

Ada Yonath

^{Ada Yonath at the Weizmann Institute of Science, via Wikimedia Commons}

Professor Yonath is responsible for the discovery of the atomic structure of the ribosome, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009. Ribosomes are complex molecular machines that synthesize proteins by linking amino acids together, a fundamental part of cells. Yonath also discovered how 20 different antibiotics target microbial antibiotics.

Shirley Ann Jackson

^{Shirley Ann Jackson speaking at the World Economic Forum in 2010. Qilai Shen via Wikimedia Commons}

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is an American physicist and the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate at MIT. During her illustrious career, she served as the Chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and she is now the 18th president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Her compensation ranked first among USA private university presidents in 2014.

Samantha Cristoforetti

^{Capt. Cristoforetti photographed leaving the ISS via Twitter}

Captain Cristoforetti is an Italian astronaut, Air Force pilot, and engineer. She traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) on behalf of the European Space Agency in 2014/2015, and she holds the records for the longest single space flight by a woman and for the longest uninterrupted space flight of a European astronaut (199 days, 16 hours, 42 minutes).

Jackie Y. Ying

^{Professor Ying photographed for the Institute of Bioengineering in Singapore.} 

Professor Ying is the current executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore. She became one of the youngest MIT full professors when she got her professorship in 2001 at only 35. Her research focused on the synthesis of advanced nanostructures for biomaterial applications, and she has authored over 330 articles.

full story at:IFLScience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Paris Metro Workers Found Sealed behind the Walls by NessyMessy

When your walls start to look outdated, there’s always the option of just painting over them, which is a little bit like what the Parisian metro has done over the years to update its stations. When the old white tiling of yesteryear needed a revamp, they simply covered them up with more modern materials. A quick and easy fix, it didn’t require even removing the old posters and advertisements pasted along the platforms. So when present day metro workers went in last week to begin preliminary renovations and strip back the walls of the Trinité station in the 9th arrondissement, they uncovered a layer of the city’s history lost in time…

(c) Yann Covès

(c) Yann Covès

Public transport schedules dated June 20th, 1959, household advertisements, vintage city maps, concert promotions and even a record of criminal convictions that took place within the metro network– a time capsule of mid-century poster design was unveiled, forgotten behind the walls since they had been entombed during renovation work in 1960 for a city-wide initiative to modernise the stations after the war.

full story at MessyNessy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Girl Who Says She Is Tracked is Called Crazy Until Her Doctor Sees THESE X-Rays

Girl Who Says She Is Tracked is Called Crazy Until Doctor Found THIS Inside of Her

 A doctor, who for safety concerns is going by the pseudonym “Dr. A,” spoke to NPR to reveal a horrific story of human tracking and the horrible crime of sex trafficking that takes place in the United States every day.

Dr. A said one day a woman came in complaining about being tracked. She was initially written off, since in his hospital wing mentally unfit patients are a dime a dozen, but they decided to give her an x-ray at the spot she said the “tracker” was located anyways. What they found left them speechless:

“Embedded in the right side of her flank is a small metallic object only a little bit larger than a grain of rice,” Dr. A said. “But it’s there. It’s unequivocally there. She has a tracker in her. And no one was speaking for like five seconds — and in a busy ER, that’s saying something.”

It turned out the girl was being prostituted by her boyfriend who had implanted the device to keep track of her in case she ever ran away or disappeared.

These devices are becoming more common in sex trafficking, especially in the US where the money is far better.

News Foxes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

South Koreans Kick Off Efforts to Clone Extinct Siberian Cave Lions

By: The Siberian Times reporter

Samples taken from cubs frozen in permafrost for at least 12,000 years.

Two infant prehistoric big cats – dating from Pleistocene times – were found in a ‘sensational’ discovery last year, as disclosed by The Siberian Times . The cubs were dug from their icy grave ‘complete with all their body parts: fur, ears, soft tissue and even whiskers’, said Dr. Albert Protopopov, head of the mammoth fauna studies department of the Yakutian Academy of Sciences.

Now cloning expert Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean scientist who is already pioneering research work to bring the extinct woolly mammoth back to life, is in Yakutsk to obtain samples of one of the cave lion cubs. These laboratory pictures show skin and muscle tissue being extracted from the ancient creature “Dina’s” remains.

These laboratory pictures show skin and muscle tissue being extracted from the ancient creature Dina’s remains. Pictures: Galina Mozolevskaya/YSIA

Dr. Protopopov said: ‘Together with the Mammoth Museum, we took samples for cell research.’ The museum’s experts will study these for the presence of living cells suitable for cloning.

Hwang came to Yakutsk – capital of the Sakha Republic – specifically for this purpose. But there was dispute between the Siberian and Korean scientists over the size of the sample.

The Korean professor wanted a large section, such as part of the skull or a leg but this was opposed by the local experts who are anyway withholding one of the cubs from any research – the better preserved of the pair, called Uyan – confident that more advanced techniques in future years will ensure more is gleaned from it than if research is done now.

read the full story at:Ancient Origins

 

 

Tilikum the killer whale is dying, announce SeaWorld

SeaWorld have announced that it’s not looking too good for Tilikum the killer whale.

The orca, who is the subject of documentary BlackFish, is becoming ‘increasingly lethargic’ and has reached ‘the high end of the life expectancy for male killer whales’.

In an official statement, SeaWorld say: ‘We are saddened to report that over the past few weeks, Tilikum’s behavior has become increasingly lethargic, and the SeaWorld veterinary and animal care teams are concerned that his health is beginning to deteriorate.’

full story at:Metro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zero-hours contracts: 801,000 workers on zero-hours terms

The number of workers on a zero-hours contract for their main job stood at 801,000 in late 2015, up by 104,000 from a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

That meant 2.5% of the employed UK workforce was on such a contract.

ONS statistician Nick Palmer said some of this rise could reflect greater recognition of “zero-hours” contracts.

However, he added: “There’s also nothing to suggest this form of employment is in decline.”

• What are zero-hours contracts?

In its report, the ONS said there were about 1.7 million contracts that did not guarantee a minimum number of hours in November, meaning that many workers had more than one zero-hours contract.

The previous estimate, for May 2015, was 2.1 million, but the ONS said that the estimates could be affected by seasonal factors and should not be directly compared.

Those on zero-hours contracts were more likely to be young people, part-time workers, women, or those in full-time education when compared with other people in employment.

Someone on a zero-hours contract worked an average of 26 hours a week. About a third of those on a zero-hours contract wanted to work longer, with most wanting more hours in their current job, as opposed to a different job that offered more hours.

In comparison, only 10% of other people in other types of employment wanted more hours, the ONS said.

The TUC condemned the rise in zero-hours contracts as “a nightmare for workers”.

TUC research found that average weekly earnings for zero-hours workers were £188, compared with £479 for permanent employees.

source:BBC NEWS