North America | United States | Leadership

Self-righteous internet goons are calling one of America’s top female scientists sexist

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The internet came down like a ton of bricks yesterday on Alice Huang. The 76-year-old microbiologist and virologist has been a Harvard Medical School professor, New York University dean of sciences, and president of both the American Society for Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also, according to most of the things published about her in the past 24 hours, an idiot. Huang’s offense was to pen an advice column in the journal Science Careers in response to a (presumably) female postdoc who asked what to do about a male supervisor who ke
International | Science

Testosterone Rules for Women Athletes Are Unfair, Researchers Argue

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Elite women athletes are currently barred from competing in top-tier competitions, such as the Olympic Games and World Championships, if their testosterone levels are too high. But for women with naturally high levels, this regulation may be premature, as the only two large studies done on testosterone levels in professional athletes give conflicting results on how to define the normal levels for women, researchers argue in a new editorial. Despite the lack of data, the 2011 policy has already barred some women, such as Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, from competing on the world stage.
North America | United States | Science

Women Getting Science Ph.D.s Still Face Gender Barriers

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Thousands of college students across California are graduating this month with science degrees. Some dream of careers as researchers and professors, like the people who taught them. But women working toward doctoral degrees in science face gender barriers that can derail their progress. Data from the National Science Foundation show the number of women earning Ph.D.s in all branches of science has trended up over the last two decades. By 2013, women made up half the doctorates awarded in life sciences. That’s the good news. The bad news is having a doctorate in any branch of science does
International | Science

Female Scientists Told To Add A Male Author To Their Study

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A scientific journal sparked a Twitter firestorm when it rejected two female scientists' work partly because the paper they submitted did not have male co-authors. Evolutionary geneticists Fiona Ingleby and Megan Head collaborated on a study of gender bias in academia. They found that women with a PhD in biology published fewer articles than their male peers, which the authors argued showed gender bias, reports Times Higher Education. When the women submitted the study to peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, a male reviewer came back with some pretty shocking suggestions.