North America | United States | Adventure

The women of NASA are looking to the lunar horizon

Source:
Growing up, Holly Ridings, Anne McClain and Nujoud Merancy dreamed of space. But they didn't let those dreams rest to become flights of childhood fancy. Now, all three women work at NASA. McClain is an astronaut who just returned from a six-month stint on the International Space Station. Merancy is the Exploration Mission Planning and Analysis lead for the Orion spacecraft that will be part of the Artemis mission in 2024. And Ridings is the first female chief flight director. And they're all working toward the goal of landing the first woman on the moon by 2024.
North America | United States | Science

24-Year-Old Biochemist Wins Miss Virginia Title After Doing A Science Experiment As Her Talent

Source:
24-year-old biochemist Camille Schrier was crowned the new Miss Virginia recently, after showcasing her talents onstage in the form of a science experiment. While the usual ‘talents’ in these pageants often amount to singing a song or pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Ms. Schrier stepped out in lab coat and goggles to wow the judges with a demonstration of the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. After carefully mixing a solution of chemicals into beakers, Schrier’s experiment concluded with an explosion of blue and orange foam, which is known as the “Elephant Toothpaste” r
Asia | Kyrgyzstan | Career

Kyrgyzstan’s space women blast off from male dominance

Source:
Having grown up in one of the poorest and most conservative regions in Kyrgyzstan, 17-year-old Begaiym Isaakova never imagined she would work in tech, let alone be part of a team of young women building the country's first spacecraft. By age 15, Isaakova was shocked to see her peers in Jalal-Abad being married off, but not too surprised. The message that girls should prioritise knowing how to serve men started early and was everywhere, including in schools and homes. Instead of being sent down the aisle in a country where early and forced marriage - including by bride kidnap - is common
North America | United States | Medicine

Pioneering Black Woman Physicist Invents Nanotech Treatment That Kills Cancer Cells

Source:
The United States only officially began to outlaw racial segregation in the 1950s, and women have only been given equal academic opportunities at some top institutions since the 1980s. Columbia University, for example, didn’t allow women to apply until 1983—and the other Ivy League schools didn’t allow women until the 1960s and 1970s, themselves. These advancements in academic opportunity have helped to pave the way for women and people of color to contribute even more heavily to social and scientific progress, but African-Americans continue to make up a minority of pioneers in thes
North America | United States | Science

Meet the 29-year-old woman behind the first-ever black hole image

Source:
The world was mesmerized this week by the first-ever image of a black hole, captured by a network of eight linked telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration. But in the days since, attention has turned to a second image: That of the 29-year-old woman who made it all possible. Computer scientist Dr. Katie Bouman has been credited with leading the creation of an algorithm that successfully photographed the halo of dust and gas situated 500 million trillion kilometers from Earth.
North America | United States | Science

The First All-Female Spacewalk Has Just Been Scheduled by NASA

Source:
It is a big step for women. If all goes according to plan, on March 29, astronauts aboard the International Space Station are scheduled to conduct the first all-female spacewalk. Anne McClain and Christina Koch will venture out together about 240 miles (400 kilometres) above Earth and make history. Adding to the significance of their mission, the spacewalk will take place during Women's History Month.
Europe | Denmark | Science

WiFi Experiment Done By Five 9th Grade Girls Got Serious International Attention. THIS Is Why…

Source:
Researchers from England, Holland and Sweden have shown great interest in the experiment done by 5 girls from northern Jutland in 9th grade. They did an experiment for a biology test, so brilliant, that it has attracted international attention among acknowledged biologists and radiation experts. The girls got really surprised by the sudden attention from all around the world. “It has been such a rollercoaster ride. I still cannot believe it”, says Lea Nielsen, one of the girls. “It’s totally overwhelming and exciting. It’s just not something you experience every day”. a
South Asia | Afghanistan | Science

Finally, visas in hand, Afghan girls depart for the U.S. and a global robotics competition

Source:
When Afghan 10th-grader Fatemeh Qaderian learned that her girls’ robotics team had been denied visas to attend an international competition in Washington — despite applying twice — the 14-year-old said she “lost hope.” “We worked hard and spent a lot of time,” said Qaderian, who flew back and forth with her teammates from their hometown in western Afghanistan to apply at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. “I called my parents and told them what happened, and they were upset, too.” Those emotions morphed into elation as Qaderian and her teammates boarded a plane at Kabul Interna
International | Science

This science fair winner is taking on global drought using oranges and avocados.

Source:
Science whiz Kiara Nirghin, a grade 11 student at St. Martin's School in Johannesburg, came up with an idea that could make a big difference in drought-stricken regions. "Currently, South Africa is experiencing one of the worst droughts in its history," said Nirghin. "I started looking at it, and not only is it affecting my community, it's a worldwide problem. From there, I started looking at, 'OK. What could I do to lessen the impact that the drought had on South Africa's food supply?' — which is one of the main things that it is affecting." Using orange peels and avocado skins, Nirgh
South Asia | Australia | Health

25-Year-Old Student Discovers Way to Kill Superbugs WITHOUT Antibiotics — Science Freaks Out

Source:
The outlook for humanity is, indeed, bleak. However, thanks to a handful of research students from the University of Melbourne School, we may have hope after all. Ph.D. student Shu Lam, the study’s lead researcher, believes they’ve found a way around antibiotic dependency in the battle against bacteria. “We’ve developed a new class of antimicrobial agents, which are very unique. They come in the form of tiny star-shaped molecules that are made from short chains of proteins,” Lam told VICE. “We found that they are very effective at wiping out [bacterial] infections in mice and
South Asia | Australia | Science

Female students dominate Australia’s largest STEM event

Source:
Female high school students took centre stage at the largest STEM event ever held in Australia: the combined National Finals of the F1inSchools Technology Challenge, Subs in Schools Technology Challenge and Land Rover 4X4 in Schools Technology Challenge. The inaugural Subs in Schools competition was won by an all-girl team 'Athena' from St. Peters Girls School in Adelaide. The second and third placed teams in the 'rookie' (Development) class of the F1 competition were all-girls. When the three top teams stood on the podium to receive their trophies there were nine girl students and four male
International | Science

Two women turn plastic to food with a powerful mushroom

Source:
There’s a lot of plastic in the world. So much that it seems overwhelming to comprehend and figure out what the world will do with the tens of billion tonnes of plastic waste produced each year. However, there are innovative solutions popping up each day, like cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Another such inspiring solution “stems” from a rare mushroom and it just might save the planet, by solving the plastic problem and another. Here’s how this got started. In 2012, researcher at Yale University discovered Pestalotiopsis microspora--a type of mushroom that can survive s
Europe | U.K. | Science

Women in Science: Meet the Stemettes star inspiring more girls into STEM

Source:
If there was ever someone to inspire girls into science, Anne-Marie Imafidon is the woman for the job. Imafidon is the co-founder of Stemettes, an award-winning social enterprise encouraging girls into the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths, and she has an intimidating CV. Having passed GCSEs in maths and ICT aged 10, she holds the current world record for the youngest girl ever to pass an A level in computing – she was 11. Two years later, she received a scholarship to study maths at a top US university. Imafidon then went on to become one of the youngest to be awarded
International | Science

Meet the Latina scientists who helped find Albert Einstein’s gravitational waves

Source:
Two Latinas are at the top of the scientific team behind this week's huge announcement involving the gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago. Not since the theory of relativity has such a monumental breakthrough been made in the world of astrophysics — a $1.1 billion set of instruments finally detected the extraordinarily faint ripples in the fabric of space and time, waves caused by cataclysmic events such as star collisions. Einstein predicted them in 1916 as part of his general theory of relativity. On the lead researchers in the find are Argentina-born Dr