Henrietta’s life wasn’t easy. She lost her parents by the age of four and worked hard alongside her cousins on a tobacco farm while facing the challenge of growing up as an African American woman in the south. After marrying young and having five children, Henrietta died at age 31 from cervical cancer. But around the time of her diagnosis, cancer cells from her cervix—famously known around the world as HeLa cells—were taken from her tumor to be used in research without her knowledge or consent.

HeLa cells were the first living human cells to be successfully grown in culture. They were distributed to scientists around the world and led to the vaccine for polio and many other diseases. HeLa taught scientists about chromosomes and genetic diseases like Down syndrome. They were launched into space to observe how space travel would affect human cells. They were inundated with toxins to understand cell response to different substances. They led to advances such as in vitro fertilization and helped win many Nobel Prizes. Over time, HeLa cells were cultured and copied and shipped and sold so many times, it’s estimated combined they would weigh over 50 million metric tons (equal to at least 100 Empire State Buildings).

Henrietta’s family was not told any of this for years. Her children and husband did not hear how their mother’s cells revolutionized medicine over and over as they were tested by researchers for seemingly ambiguous reasons. For-profit companies made billions off Henrietta’s cells, while those she cared about most often couldn’t even afford healthcare.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about the life, death, and legacy of one of history’s most important individuals who all but lost her identity. Rebecca elegantly shares her true story which deals with science, ethics, and equality. The book spans nearly a century, and reflects the changing landscape of medicine, and the good, bad, and ugly side of research.

Most of all, it’s a human story that touches all of us. It’s beautiful, poignant, interdisciplinary, and should be required reading for every high school student.

I will have more to say about this wonderful book soon, but for now I leave readers with a single suggestion: Read it.

UTM: I’m curious whether you’ve found that the public’s ability to distinguish credibility and sound arguments is going out the window?

SK: I’m very concerned. We just saw this hack into e-mails of climate change. Most people made very quick judgments without fully understanding the context of what they were reading. [There is] a survey just released by George Mason University and Yale Center for Climate Change Communication. It’s a dismal report, people more than ever don’t “believe” in climate change.

The big point here is that pseudoscience is on the rise. … It’s dangerous and I’m not sure what it means for the future of science and it’s a big red flag in terms of where we’re going. Science needs a better platform. It’s certainly not about PR in a traditional sense but we have to think about how we’re represented when we’re working against so many other forces that have a certain vested interest. We’re trying to emphasize the best research and [research] is very dynamic. There’s no black and white in the way that the pseudo-scientific [groups] want to represent things.

UTM: Can you give us just a few examples of what ordinary people can do to benefit science literacy?

SK: I think just being engaged and being interested is a big part of it. Looking for sources that you should be able to trust like universities. More and more young scientists are creating their own websites in order to counter the rubbish that’s out there. I’d love to see more young people engaged in their communities — like those that have a [bachelor of science] but are unsure whether they want to go to graduate school — writing op-eds or working with local politicians or schools.

Read the full interview here and stick around to check out other featured stories and interviews at Under The Microscope.

They’ve certainly highlighted some incredibly ‘cool scientists‘ like Amy Vedder and Marta Tienda and I’d love to see this online list expand to include women like Bonnie Bassler, Sylvia Earle, and many more. So far I’m impressed with how easy this site is to navigate as well as the animated character Lia who provides information. Go check it out for yourself and props to NAS for encouraging girls to pursue careers in science!

The Web site iWASwondering.org is inspired by Women’s Adventures in Science, a biography series for middle-school-aged students co-published by the Joseph Henry Press and Scholastic Library Publishing. Women’s Adventures in Science chronicles the lives of contemporary, working scientists. Despite their varied backgrounds and life stories, these remarkable women all share one important belief: the work they do is important and it can make the world a better place.

Each of the women profiled in the series participated in her book’s creation by sharing important details about her life, providing personal photographs to help illustrate the story, making family, friends, and colleagues available for interviews, and explaining her scientific specialty in ways that will inform and engage young readers. The scientists also participated directly in the creation of the Web site.

H/T Carl

Not for women’s eyes. Discovery Channel has television men want to watch. Exciting, smart, interesting, adventurous, and most of all real. Watch for yourself.

Seriously? Can anyone reassure me that the real meaning got lost in translation? Please…

H/T Ed Yong

It is not an anthology of “science writing”…[but] a collection of writing by good scientists, many of them dead and very distinguished. I am not one of those who thinks men are genetically better equipped than women to become distinguished scientists. Presumably for other reasons, it is a regrettable fact that the great majority of distinguished scientists of the past 100 years, as measured by Nobel Prizes, Fellowships of the Royal Society, numbers of science publications, etc, have been male. That imbalance, and not an imbalance in my preference or my choice, is what is reflected in the anthology.

Later in comments, he also clarified that the view from Oxford is that the twentieth century is modern. However, while undoubtedly, the book includes an excellent collection of essays, the lack of female contributors matters because it perpetuates underrepresentation. And Tara is right: Science is, unfortunately, often a boys club. It needn’t be, but a shift in attitudes takes time. Mike Dunford added:

I am not disappointed because Dawkins failed to bend over backward to make sure that the scientists included in his anthology matched some sort of set of diversity statistics. I am disappointed because Richard Dawkins, a man who is as gifted and talented a communicator of science as anyone alive today, clearly failed to consider the message that his choice of authors might send to quite a few of his readers, and the good that might come from putting a bit of thought into finding even one or two more talented scientists to include in the anthology who were not white men.

DrugMonkey and drdrA feel similarly, while a post by Miranda objects to ‘inclusion for inclusion’s sake’ and Dawkins agrees. Of course, inclusion for inclusion’s sake would be ridiculous and there are many, many layers to this issue. Most of all I’m glad it’s being discussed around the internet and hope the conversation continues.

What I know for sure is that there are certainly more than 2.5 noteworthy female scientists who have written extraordinary essays over the past century making great contributions in science–some even leading to a paradigm shift in her respective field. Yes, perhaps, they often did not garner the same level of attention and recognition as male colleagues, but I argue it was often due to oversight, rather than lack of skill, creativity, or curiosity.

Got myself an early yule present today; “The Oxford book of modern science writing” edited by teh Dawkins d00d. A first glance of the table of contents sends happy shivers down my spine – a great collection of 83 pieces of science writing. Extracts from key classics and more recent texts as well as shorter pieces like JBS Haldane’s heartbreaking but very funny “Cancer’s a funny thing”.

But since I can’t seem to leave my gender glasses behind ever, I started counting. And that takes me to the first complaint. Of 83 texts Professor D has selected 3 written by women. That’s about 3.6 %. How hard could it be to find a handful more?

While I don’t own the book itself, I skimmed the table of contents at Amazon and it appears she’s onto something. No, I’m not surprised, however, Dr. Isis, Rebecca, Sci, Sciencewomen, Janet, Zuska, Tara… we have work to do.

EYL’s latest study surveyed high school girls, guidance counselors, and practicing engineers to understand ‘cultural perceptions of engineering and its feasibility as a career choice.’ These four messages tested best among the girls:

Live your life, love what you do. Engineering will challenge you to turn dreams into realities while giving you the chance to travel, work with inspiring people and give back to your community.

Creativity has its rewards. Women engineers are respected, recognized and financially rewarded for their innovative thinking and creative solutions.

Make a world of difference. From small villages to big cities, organic farms to mountaintops, deep-sea labs to outer space, women engineers are going where there is the greatest need and making a lasting contribution.

Explore possibilities. Women engineers often use their skills to go into business, medicine, law, or government. An engineering education will prepare you for many different careers.

In light of engineering’s persistent public image problem, these messages—which are aligned with the values and aspirations most important to girls—are convincing girls that engineering is exciting, meaningful, and definitely worth considering as a career. These messages are used throughout Engineer Your Life, and the coalition encourages the entire engineering community to adopt them in all your outreach activities and materials.

What a cool campaign! Just check out the EYL videos:

Initiatives like this give me hope that the next generation of engineers will include a lot more motivated women with the expertise and confidence to narrow the gender divide. For good.

Rebecca Skloot

Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about “faith, science, journalism, and grace.” It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women–Skloot and Deborah Lacks–sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah’s mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line–known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta’s death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Skloot’s portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family. Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society’s most vulnerable people.

- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

An excerpt is available online as well as details on the Immortal tour. I’m so excited for Rebecca and already anticipating her book’s debut!

As a female professor, are you called rude and abrasive while your male colleagues who make similar statements are simply labeled assertive? Has your department head discouraged you from taking an assignment, saying that because you have children you might not be able to handle it?

If things like that have happened to you, yell: “Bingo!”

The Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law is unveiling a new online game on Thursday called Gender Bias Bingo. The game is intended for women, although men who have overheard biased statements or have faced bias because they are fathers can also play.

Clicking the link led me to:

Visitors to this site are asked to choose a square and submit a representative story or quote from their experiences. The goal is to teach more of us to recognize gender bias while demonstrating the ways it can push women away from an academic career path. Director Joan C. Williams also explains the noteworthy economic angle:

“It does not make economic sense, particularly in these economic conditions, to keep recruiting women and then keep driving them out,” says Ms. Williams, who points out that a start-up package for a research scientist can cost as much as $1-million. “There had never been built, as far as I could tell, a clear explanation of why it’s cheaper to keep her.”

While it’s too early to tell how the mission of Gender Bias Bingo will play out, it’s certainly a unique new initiative. Not only does the game highlight the myriad of struggles facing women in the ivory towers, but it serves as a kind of tangible record–a visible means to display the ugly marks left across academia by such behavior. In a small way, this might reflect that gender bias is less acceptable than ever. At least, I hope so.

What do readers think?

According to Abel, just eight of the 192 individuals awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine are women. As he writes:

To have Blackburn and Grieder win the prize is an incredible accomplishment for any scientist, but one that I think will pay huge dividends in helping our young women (and the mini-women that some of us Dads have) in appreciating that they too can be a world-class scientist.

I couldn’t agree more. Congratulations to Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak!