Women in science and medicine
terrasig | October 29, 2007The Scientiae blog carnival has been soliciting posts for their November edition on "talking to yourself." Zuska brought this theme to the attention of some of us guy bloggers and carnival host Yami at Green Gabbro elaborated as follows:
...the past few Scientiae carnivals have been composed entirely of women's voices. While I think it's appropriate that women's voices should dominate the conversation about women's experiences, the job of thinking about gender in science belongs to everyone! I'd like to invite all you equality-minded men scientists to join the fun this time around - how do…
terrasig | October 12, 2007Vote for Shelley!
Welcome readers, I am Dr John Jacob Abel, namesake of the proprietor of this blog and The Father of American Pharmacology. Among my many scientific and educational accomplishments was my establishment of the first American Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan in 1891.
It has come to my attention through something called a "blog" that a fellow Wolverine and neuroscience trainee, Dr-to-be Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle!, is competing for a student blogging scholarship worth $10,000 offered by CollegeScholarships.org (vote here). Shelley was very kind to…
terrasig | September 24, 2007Earlier last week, we appeared as one of the featured bloggers asked to recommend their three, must-read life science blogs in The Scientist. All seven of the bloggers appearing were male; in fact, my avatar is an old German-American man who has been dead for 70 years.
The lack of female bloggers obviously generated some ire among female scibloggers and even I commented on how unusual that seemed.
Well, an editorial explanation has now been posted as an addendum to the article:
Editor note (September 24): A few life science bloggers have correctly pointed out that no female bloggers are…
terrasig | July 21, 2007From today's Washington Post:
Odile Crick, an artist who made the first widely published sketch of the double-helix structure of DNA, died of cancer July 5 at her home in La Jolla, Calif. She was 86.
Her graceful drawing of the double-helix structure of DNA with intertwined helical loops has become a symbol of the achievements of science and its aspirations to understand the secrets of life. The image represents the base pairs of nucleic acids, twisted around a center line to show the axis of the helix.
The free PDF of the famous 1953 Nature paper reveals the elegance of her interpretation of…
terrasig | September 22, 2006The other day, Coturnix alluded to Simon Owens of Bloggasm and his survey of blogosphere diversity. I neglected to note that I was one of the respondents. Simon's questions were:
1. What niche does your blog fall into (Examples: Political, gadget, movie, etc...If more than one, please list)?
2. What are the genders of all the bloggers who write for your site?
3. What are the races for all the bloggers who write for your site (if there are any that you're not sure about, just indicate that you don't know)?
4. What do you think of the diversity of the blogosphere, both in your niche and as a…
terrasig | September 17, 2006This year's recipients of the Lasker Awards were announced yesterday. These awards from The Lasker Foundation are often referred to as the "American Nobels."
The award for Basic Medical Research went to three scientists for "the prediction and discovery of telomerase, a remarkable RNA-containing enzyme that synthesizes the ends of chromosomes, protecting them and maintaining the integrity of the genome."
Elizabeth H. Blackburn (UC-San Francisco)
Carol W. Greider (Johns Hopkins)
Jack W. Szostak (Harvard)
Most cancer researchers, biochemists, and cell biologists know all three of these…
terrasig | August 24, 2006I've been terribly remiss in not welcoming the trickle of additions to the ScienceBlogs.com stable, especially Molecule of the Day, the new blog most allied with my subject matter.
However, I was not going to miss the Sb launch of one of my faves and long-time members of my very short and poorly-updated blogroll, Thus Spake Zuska.
Thus Spake Zuska is not for the faint of heart. It is, however, for anyone who believes that you shouldn't have to possess white skin and a penis to obtain a passport to Science-and-Engineering Land.
Although in possession of both white skin and a penis, I offer…
terrasig | August 14, 2006She could've joined the lab of a Nobel laureate at Yale.
She picked me instead.
This is my thank you.
Regular readers may recall my post earlier last month about the tragic, heart-wrenching loss of the brother of my former student, Jen, a Morehead Scholar and sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her brother Jon was a 23-year-old Carnegie-Mellon University graduate student and crew team coach. After completing the Chicago Marathon last fall, some nagging persistent pain in his femur turned out to be the bone cancer, osteosarcoma.
After months of hospitalization…
terrasig | August 11, 2006Welcome feminist bloggers and commentors from Coturnix's guest post at Echidne of the Snakes.
Howdy, folks. Let me introduce myself. I'm the guy who got this discussion started at Terra Sigillata, where Coturnix's home blog is hosted by ScienceBlogs.com.
Short story is that I asked a rhetorical question about a single Hooters establishment (on the San Antonio, TX, Riverwalk) that sits within two blocks of the world's largest international breast cancer research conference held every December, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
My wife is a medical oncologist specializing in…
terrasig | August 7, 2006...all without being perceived as capitalistic, misogynistic, or otherwise demeaning to women?
This is an open thread for y'all because I have to go to a funeral and won't be able to oversee the discussion today.
I brought this point up over the weekend with my ScienceBlogs.com colleagues and it got such a passionate response that I thought I'd open it up to the blogosphere.
I have a very serious question (below) related to breasts, and I really hope the women bloggers and readers will weigh in. I know that there are many high-profile female bloggers out there with a heavy feminist worldview…
terrasig | June 10, 2006[A regular reader, SciMom at Doubleloop, thanked me for putting up this post on my old blog this past Wednesday. As I don't believe that any of my new SiBlings here covered the passing of this amazing scientist, I am reprinting it here for our new and more diverse audience.]
Cancer research and the cause of women in science and medicine lost a true leader and shining example last week with the passing of Dr Anita Roberts to gastric cancer. She was only 64.
From her Washington Post obituary:
Dr. Roberts, the 49th most-cited scientist in the world and the third most-cited female scientist,…
sb admin | June 9, 2006No surprise here: a highly-regarded climatologist declares that the Bush administration is "muzzling government scientists" and covering up the facts about global warming.
Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, said that Bush appointees are suppressing information about climate change, restricting journalists' access to federal scientists and rewriting agency news releases to stress global warming uncertainties.
"The news media is not getting the full story, especially from government scientists," Washington told about 160 people…