Rounding out our trio of influential women in science is astronomer Vera Rubin, whose observations and calculations provided the first empirical evidence of a mysterious unseen entity lurking throughout the universe. In the 1970s, while observing the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, Rubin and her collaborator Kent Ford noticed that the stars in this spiral galaxy appeared to defy the fundamental laws of physics. The entire galaxy, it seemed, was spinning at the same speed—despite most of the mass being concentrated in the center. In fact, the outer stars were moving so fast that they should have been hurled out of the…
Comments closedMonth: December 2020
Up next in our series on women who reshaped science is Marie Maynard Daly—the first Black woman in America to earn a PhD in Chemistry. At a time when scientists were only just discovering the function of DNA as hereditary material, Daly made many foundational discoveries about the chemical structure of nucleic acids and histones—the proteins that DNA wraps around. Perhaps even more influential though are Daly’s studies investigating the health impacts of cholesterol and sugar. Daly was one of the first scientists to discover the link between cholesterol and hypertension, which can lead to heart attacks. Her work as…
Continue readingThe Ghosts of Science Past: Part 2—Marie Maynard Daly and the Dangers of Cholesterol
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To close out this difficult year, this month’s blog series is going to look back at a few of the titans of scientific discovery from years past. This week, we return to the topic of nuclear fission with the story of Lise Meitner—an Austrian physicist who discovered the fundamental mechanism behind nuclear fission. Meitner’s story is pocked with the sexism and anti-Semitism that characterized Europe in the early 1900s. But despite the adversity she faced, Meitner made one of the most pivotal scientific discoveries of her time—one that would make nuclear power (and nuclear bombs) possible. Lise Meitner was born…
Continue readingThe Ghosts of Science Past: Part 1—Lise Meitner and the Discovery of Nuclear Fission
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