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Somewhat legendary science and culture blog 3 Quarks Daily has just announced the 3rd instalment of its science blogging prize. This year’s competition will be judged by physicist and writer Lisa Randall, which is awesome, and I hope to see some good physics writing given the nod.
All details are here, and you have until 31 May, 11:59 pm EST, to nominate your favourite online science writing in the comments of that same post.
Amidst the perennial discussion of how to get more women into scientific careers and keep them there, it hadn’t occurred to me that female science bloggers may also be in a minority.
A few days ago, Jenny Rohn posted a graph on her blog, showing the male to female ratio of several science blog networks: the well-established Discover and relative newcomers The Guardian, Wired and PLoS. She didn’t actually make any statement about gender balance or proportionality of representation – that was me – but an interesting discussion followed in the comments. Self-proclaimed “armchair activist” Martin Robbins started a hashtag, kickstarted the hive overmind, and collated a list of women science bloggers over at his new perch in The Guardian.
So that’s how my name ended up in my favourite newspaper. Hurrah.
It’s a really nice initiative to get more attention to us women who write about science. Female role models have been cited as an important factor in getting and keeping more women in science careers, and in that respect increasing the visibility of working female scientists is a great idea.
And yet, and yet. I don’t think singling women out is particularly constructive way to approach a gender balance issue – a gender balance issue that, in this case, we don’t even know for sure exists.
Route of the Sea of Cortez expedition
John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, and though his popularity had waned in the latter stages of his career, he’s been a much-read and well-loved author for many decades. The Nobel committee cited his “sympathetic humour and keen social perception” as the hallmarks of his writing. Steinbeck’s books and stories often deal with war, class, adversity and destitution, and in his lifetime he wrote both fiction and non-fiction; the former frequently based on his real-life experiences as a journalist. But did you know Steinbeck also wrote about science?
A friend pointed me towards this fab little video of the song “Meet the Elements” by They Might Be Giants. Very cute!
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, commemorating the 19th century British Countess who became one of the pioneers of computing. The first Ada Lovelace Day was held last year, as an international day of blogging about inspirational women in science and technology. I read some really great pieces last year, so decided I’d make a bit more of an effort too this time round.
When I started my PhD at University College London, I joined the astronomy department’s instrumentation lab. Not many astronomers knew where to find us, we were way down in a dark windowless basement. At the time the group was in the final throes of building an instrument for the 8-m Gemini South telescope. Behind my tiny little desk in our large office was a much larger cubicle with a desk, and on, under and all around it was truly the largest amount of paper I have ever seen. Somewhere buried beneath was a computer, and judging by the muffled but incessant ringing, a telephone. That was the desk of the scientist who was managing the project, and that person was Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
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