Acclaimed Physicist Bell Burnell Donates $3 Million Breakthrough Prize To More Women, Minorities & Refugees In Physics

JOCELYN BELL BURNELL IS MADE A DAME COMMANDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE BY QUEEN ELIZABETH II AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE FOR SERVICES TO SCIENCE. 

Acclaimed Physicist Bell Burnell Donates $3 Million Breakthrough Prize To More Women, Minorities & Refugees In Physics

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell is creating a scholarship for women, refugees and minorities to study physics, writes Carol Kuruvilla for Huff Po. 

In 1974, Jocelyn Bell Burnell experienced sexism so ingrained in everyday university life that it seemed business as usual. Burnell's male PhD supervisor at the University of Cambridge Anthony Hewish, won a Nobel prize for Burnell's 1967 discovery of pulsars during a routine data collection she monitored at Cambridge. You might think that Hewish would have shared the award with Burnell, knowing the truth of her discovery. 

This was not the way academia worked, Burnell told Science News in an interview on Thursday, the day the now acclaimed astrophysicist won an acclaimed science prize -- the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and its $3 million award. 

The award honors Bell Burnell for her hiscovery of pulsars -- neutron stars that emit electromagnetic radiation from their poles. The press release also recognized Burnell's “inspiring scientific leadership over the last five decades”. 

Afghan Girls' Robotics Team Wins Entrepreneurial Challenge At Europe's Biggest Robotics Festival

Afghan Girls' Robotics Team Wins Entrepreneurial Challenge At Europe's Biggest Robotics Festival

We are SO PROUD of the girls' robotics team from Afghanistan, the group of young women who were front and center on AOC when they were denied visas to the US to participate in an international robotics competition. 

Honored in Washington DC for their determination and moxie, the Afghan girls have now won an international robotics prize on merit. The Afghan teens who live in the western city of Herat applied to and won the Entrepreneurial Challenge at the Robotex festival, the largest robotics festival in Europe, held in Tallin, Estonia, on Nov. 24-26. The proud announcement was made through the Afghan embassies in London and Washington, and reported in the New York Times.  

“We are extremely proud of the wonderful accomplishments of the Afghan All-Girl Robotics Team,” Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Said T. Jawad, said in a statement on Wednesday. “They are an excellent example for people around the world of what can be accomplished by young Afghans if given the right support and the opportunity to excel in their education.”

Three Ex-Google Women File Pay Gap Lawsuit In California, Inviting Class Action Status

Three Ex-Google Women File Pay Gap Lawsuit In California, Inviting Class Action Status

Three former Google female employees filed a lawsuit in San Francisco on Thursday, claiming that Google systematically pays women less money and fails to promotes qualified women as frequently as men. The women hope to make their case a class action one, representing all women who have worked at Google since 2013, writes an in-depth analysis of the case and the plaintiffs in Wiredmagazine.

Google is also the subject of a US Department of Labor investigation into potential pay policies that discriminate against women, writes Wired. Preliminary analyses showed large gaps; confirmed anecdotally in data compiled by female Google employees who insist they are paid less than men in most job categories, according to the New York Times.

A spreadsheet, obtained by The New York Times, contains salary and bonus information for 2017 that was shared by about 1,200 United States Google employees, or about 2 percent of the company’s global work force.

Related: An Inquiring Mind In High Gear: GE's Molly Vows Never To Take Out The Trash Again Or Mow The Lawn

Afghan Girls Robotics Team Awarded Silver Medal For 'Courageous Achievement'

Afghan Girls Robotics Team Awarded Silver Medal For 'Courageous Achievement'

On Tuesday July 18, 2017 the Afghan team was awarded a special silver medal for "courageous achievement" at the FIRST Global Challenge. The New York Times added: 

For three days in the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall, where an African-American woman was once denied the right to sing before an integrated audience in the 1930s, the Afghan girls in head scarves were stars on an international stage, with cameras, lights and whispers trailing them from practice to competition.

Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

Lida Azizi (left) and Kawsar Roshan in Herat, building a self-driving miniature rickshaw decked with Afghan and American flags. Photograph: Sune Engel Rasmussen

Visa Decision Reversal Brings Afghan Girls Robotics Team To FIRST Global Robotics Competition

In the days of Trump, we are learning to accept small wins and tiny pleasures. Progressive women got a dose of pure delight on Wednesday -- Pakistan's heroic Malala Yousafzai's birthday -- when news broke that the US State Dept had reversed its refusal to grant visas to six Afghan female students to travel to Washington DC for the FIRST Global international robotics competition next week. 

The international backlash against an absurd decision that allowed the team from Iran and five other countries listed by the Trump administration in their disputed Muslim ban to come to the competition while denying visas to the Afghan girls team looked like unadulterated sexism by the Trump administration. Countless individuals and organizations accused Trump -- who is rolling back women's rights in America -- of retreating from America's previous efforts that support the education of young women in Afghanistan. 

Gambia, the only other country to be denied a visa, will also be coming to Washington. 

Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

Heartbroken Afghan Girls Science Team Denied US VISAS For FIRST Global Challenge 2017

Last week the US Supreme Court temporarily approved parts of Trump's travel ban, preventing visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US without an approved family connection, employee or student status or other pre-existing relationship. The Court will issue a full ruling when it resumes its caseload in the fall. 

One of the first casualties of the new travel ban are six teenage girls -- an all-girl robotics team of young engineers from Afghanistan -- determined to participate in an international science competition scheduled for mid-July in Washington, DC.

Denied a one-week travel visa to participate in the FIRST Global Challenge, the team has already risked their lives in Afghanistan, travelling twice under the reality of truck bombings to Kabul in April. The Afghan team members are from Towhid, Malakai Jalalai and Hoze Karbas High Schools. The trip from their small town near Herat to Kabul was to complete their visa applications. Nothing about the scientific competition was easy for these young women. Other global competitors received their box of raw materials in March. When their own box was held up amid concerns about terrorism, the young engineers improvised, building their motorized machines from household materials, writes The Washington Post. 

Roya Mahboob, Afghanistan's first female tech CEO and founder of Citadel software, who brought the girls together, told Forbes that the girls "were crying all day." While the exact reason for the visa denial remains confidential, only 112 business travel visa from Afghanistan were granted in May 2017, compared to 780 business travel visas from Iraq and 4,067 from Pakistan.

Trump Immigration Ban & H1-B Visa Slowdown Impacts Travel Industry, Silicon Valley & Doctor Shortage

Trump Immigration Ban & H1-B Visa Slowdown Impacts Travel Industry, Silicon Valley & Doctor Shortage

Karlie Kloss Chills In 'Carrusel', Hangs With Science Guy Bill Nye At White House

Karlie Kloss Chills In 'Carrusel' Lensed By Raf Stahelin For S Moda

Top model and former Victoria's Secret Angel Karlie Kloss was just named to the TIME 100 Most Influential People list. Designer Diane von Furstengerg wrote Karlie's tribute "The model Millennial."

“As a model, a businesswoman, a young philanthropist and a force on social media, she doesn’t just connect with her generation—she leads it, inspiring young women around the world to become the women they want to be, just as she has done so beautifully,” Diane wrote.

Karlie Kloss: Science Geek

Karlie Kloss visited the White House last week, making a celebrated appearance at the White House for the last Science Fair of the Obama Administration. Besides hanging with Bill Nye the Science Guy, Karlie took Facebook fans on a live tour of the outsoor event, spending extra time spreading girl power with impressive yooung ladies showing off their incredible projects. Teen Vogue writes:

Karlie isn’t a stranger to the world of science, either. She took coding classes at the Flatiron School before joining the class of 2019 at New York University this past fall. Last summer she founded Kode with Karlie, a scholarship program that helped 21 young women learn some serious tech skills. And to top it off, she’s launching Kode with Klossy this summer to teach teen girls in New York, Los Angeles, and St. Louis (her hometown) how to code.

Take a look at Karlie Kloss's recent body of modeling work on Anne of Carversville.

Archives | Dr Greenfield's Sexism Charges At American College of Surgeons Remind Anne of Her Cat Shoes Story

Archives | Dr Greenfield's Sexism Charges At American College of Surgeons Remind Anne of Her Cat Shoes Story

Trying to distract myself from the Nevada HIllary/Bernie mashup today I encounterd a great pair of cat shoes from a FB friend.  The shoes inspired a FB post Anne's Cat Shoes Meet A New York Master of the Universe. 

In the case of the cat shoes, I bought mine in Paris during the 80s, and positively adored them. My cat shoes were fully fitted with eyes, whiskers and tails. Wearing them on the sidewalks of New York, I knew my cat tails weren’t long for this world.

A sensible woman would have kept her cat tails for special occasions, but mine were pounding the pavement in days. Within weeks, one tail was AWOL.

Near Grand Central New York, A Smart Woman Tries To Keep Her Tail Intact

I have a major pet peeve with aggressive men in New York -- even though I’ve dated plenty of them. You know the guy — he walks in the wrong direction on your side of the sidewalk, assuming that you will get out of his way, in order to avoid a major collision. It usually works, and women not only defer but say ‘I’m sorry’ as a Manhattan master of the universe mows the little people down.

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Rachel Ignotofsky Makes Art Of Women Scientists

Rachel Ignotofsky Makes Art Of Women Scientists

Coincidentally, Jane Goodall, the world’s most famous conservationist and voice of chaimpanzees is featured in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine in Jane Goodall Is Still Wild At Heart. 

The Magazine also explored the issue of why there are no few women in science in October 2013. The reasons are many and strikingly NOT exclusively the result of women’s lack of confidence or an inability to juggle work and family. 

Last summer, researchers at Yale published a study proving that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications. Presented with identical summaries of the accomplishments of two imaginary applicants, professors at six major research institutions were significantly more willing to offer the man a job. If they did hire the woman, they set her salary, on average, nearly $4,000 lower than the man’s. Surprisingly, female scientists were as biased as their male counterparts.