Tag Archives: research

Another physicist for my research…

25 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by in Balancing gender

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Thank you, Donna Milgram, for linking this article by Rachel E. Scherr in your newsletter:Hmm...not just the classroom, but women experience this phenomenon in boardrooms and meeting rooms across the professions

Guest: What keeps girls from studying physics and STEM | Opinion | The Seattle Times | September 14, 2014

Rachel writes:

I had fallen in love with physics while working as a science museum docent, where I learned the simple principles behind beautiful and puzzling natural phenomena.

My advanced placement (AP) physics class, unfortunately, was about memorizing equations and applying them to specific contrived examples. I did not perform well on the midterm exam. The teacher advised me to drop the course, along with all the other girls in the class.

I stayed despite the teacher’s pressure, as the only girl in the class, and did well in the long run.

Funny, that cartoon also reflects what women experience in boardrooms and meeting rooms across sectors and across professions.

I will have to connect with Rachel Scherr: our research seems to align…

Researchers Develop New Spacesuit That Could Fight Bone Loss

18 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in General

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I am fascinated by the progress researchers are making towards a future with viable space travel. From the ASEE aggregator:
The ABC News (1/15, Chang) website reports on the new spacesuit designed by researchers at the European Astronaut Center (EAC), called the Skinsuit. The suit “exerts force” on a wearer, thus helping his or her skeleton from the effects of zero gravity. International Space Station engineer Mamta Nagaraja said, “When we’re on Earth and we walk or run, we put weight on our bones that cause the different cellular processes to signal bone formation to occur. … Without gravity, there’s an imbalance between [bone] formation and resorption, so astronauts lose up to 3 percent of their bone mass per month.” Nagaraja added that there might not be a single answer to combating the problem, so “it’s worth trying these types of research-based efforts to counteract bone loss.”