Melissa Harris-Perry & Doc McStuffins Rock The House

There was a great segment on diversity in science on the Melissa Harris Perry show this weekend.  Topics include the Doc McStuffins Disney cartoon which promotes women in science, and the involvement of the Girl Scouts with STEM.  The guests include Dr. Aletha Maybank, Anna Maria Chavez, Christianne Corbett and Danielle Moodie-Mills. 

One quote that stuck out for me was As Mooide-Mills says , "Be visible and be fabulous!" There are many times that minorities that are underrepresented in science get discouraged because they don't say examples of people that look like them teaching in their schools or being popularized by the media. And those that are - such as Neil Degrasse Tyson - can be seen as "exceptions". The visibility of women and Blacks within science well help us all push things forward. That's one of the reason why I created this site

More about the We Are Doc McStuffins movement is covered in this MSNBC piece.

If you find yourself singing Doc McStuffins' "Time For Your Checkup" song, don't blame me - it's infectious!

If you see the video below, please click here

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Michelle Obama also made a key point that scientists are not unreachable goals that are only intended for those with the resources - everyone should be able to achieve it.

If you can't see the video below, please click here.

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Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. Made History Today

On Feb 9th, 1995, Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. became the first African American to perform a space walk (EVA for extra vehicular activity).  A space walk essentially consists of leaving the confines of a spacecraft while in space. You may have seen astronauts moving around the outside of a spacecraft to make repairs and make other observations.

From Dr. Harris's bio, "he enjoys flying, sailing, skiing, running, scuba diving, art and music." Talk about well rounded, considering that he also holds degrees in medicine and bio medical science. Some people are just awesome. He's also a member of my fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Dr. Harris founded the Harris Foundation with the mission "to invest in community-based initiatives to support education, health and wealth". Check a video from the foundation below - if you can't see it, click here.

The March for Diversity in Science Pushes On

City Town Info has created a nice infographic concerning women in science. While some numbers regarding income and representation may be bleak, there is positive news - more and more young women are becoming interested in science careers. The challenge is keeping this interest fresh by keeping science interesting throughout the crucial elementary and high school years.  We need to make sure that scientists are shown as role models, such as those that I posted about at the end of last year.

Courtesy of: Citytowninfo.com

Telescopes: Can You See What I See?

The Hubble Space Telescope has been delivering us images from deep into space for years. It's soon to be successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will be launched "later in the decade". The length of time required for testing is very important. The Hubble launched with flawed mirror technology that led to several expensive fixes while in orbit.

An example of NASA technology influencing things that we may use in our everyday life is below. From NASA:

For example, the optical measuring technology developed for the Webb, called "wavefront sensing" has been applied to eye health and has allowed improvements in measurement of human eyes, diagnosis of ocular diseases and potentially improved surgery.

The most powerful space telescope ever built, the Webb telescope will provide images of the first galaxies ever formed, and explore planets around distant stars. It is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Check out a video on the Webb telescope by astronomer Tony Darnell below. If you can't see the video, click here.

Source: NASA via @LaurenAlloyce

The Challenges of Science on the Web

Get it? Spider .. web? Yeah ...

Source: Quickmeme

The Science Online conference was held this weekend in Maryland.   I wasn't able to attend, but NPR held a fascinating Science Friday show on the state of science in this world of blogging, social media, and traditional websites. 

I created my blog to deal with two problems that I've seen with science reporting online: 1) it's too jargon heavy and doesn't focus on the common user and 2) it's grossly inaccurate. The following exchange between host Ira Flatow and Bora Zivkovic, blog editor at Scientific American deals with this:

ZIVKOVIC:  When you're straight-out science reporting, there's really no need to include or allow inclusion of opinions that are completely unscientific.

FLATOW, Host: But we live in an age, at least in the United States, where some people, now, in the last few years, possibly politically oriented, say that, you know, science is just another matter of opinion, you know.

ZIVKOVIC: Yeah, that's their opinion. That doesn't mean that opinion is correct, either. Because unlike other opinions, scientific opinion has to be backed up by empirical information, by empirical data, and it's a self-correcting - at least long-term - self-correcting endeavor. So an individual scientist may have biases or opinions, but science as a whole is a way of knowledge that actually is trying to represent nature as it really is.

You can stream the show on NPR or download it here.

For more about Science Online, check out their Flickr album, #scio13 Twitter hashtag, and overall website.