Science Topics on BBC Women's Hour

BBC Women's Hour - Listen again
2011 is the International year of Chemistry - If girls do better than boys at A level Chemistry, why don't more young girls dream of a truly exhilarating career in science. How can we change this? Dr Patricia Fara, a science historian from Clare College Cambridge discusses.
Discussion starts at 34 minutes 20 seconds -http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011

American equal rights campaigner, Sylvia Ann Hewlett says that evidence gathered across Europe suggests that offering women a lengthy absence from work harms their career.
Discussion starts at 24 minutes 20 seconds - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00xhgms/Womans_Hour_18_01_2011


(taken from UKRC GetSET Women News)

Bedtime story book: Earth to Stella

 Bedtime reading has an important role in our life, and we're frequent visitors to our local library to increase the diversity of the books we read. I'm naturally attracted to kids books about space, and so we read quite a few. Anyway to cut a long story short, I thought it would be nice to review some of them.

Right now we're reading "Earth to Stella" by Simon Puttock and Phillip Hopman (Amazon UK link, Amazon USA link). I don't intend to provide an exhaustive review, but here's list of my likes and dislikes:

Likes

1. The main character is a girl. Having a (imaginary) space adventure. That's unusual - and you won't be surprised that I like it. The picture of Stella in her bedroom shows this is no passing interest either - she has a lot of space toys in her room.

2. The relationship between the girl and her father comes across as genuine and loving. He joins in her imaginary adventure providing messages from "Earth to Stella"

3. I love that her bouncing on the moon ends with "Earth to Stella: no jumping on the bed". It's just cute.

3. There's real scientific information about what the stars look like close up, and that they have different colours.

Dislikes


1. A comet is described as "zooming past with a fiery tail" (and on the page after the correct description of stars). OK this is an imaginary space flight, but I think that's a missed chance to stick in a bit more real science.

2. The bug aliens are a bit weird. Again it's imaginary, but where do they come from?

In summary I mostly like this one, and it does have some real scientific information.

In researching this post (OK by Googling "Earth to Stella"!) I found this list of reviews of children's books by the (US) National Space Society. Looks like a useful resource.

What can men do to help?

While I'm here, looks like the AAS women's session happened yesterday. I found this nice summary over at "Rocket Scientista" of the discussion which focussed on one of my favourite topics: "What can men do to help?".

While I think the experience for men of being in the minority at the womens sessions may be an eye opener for them at how much you notice being just one of a small number of your gender in a room (and I wish more of them would come and experience it), I would love for those meetings to be more representative, as (like Rocket Scientista) I don't think anything is going to change until more men care about the problem too.

Elementary Parenting

A nice post over at the AAS Women in Astronomy Blog by Hannah discussing how much easier parenting is when your kids are elementary school aged: "Elementary Parenting".

This is nice to hear. My oldest will start school in September, and while we'll have a little one in the house for quite some time to come (since the youngest is still just 10 months old), it's nice to know an easier life may be around the corner.

To be honest from this side though school looks more complicated than preschool: we'll have to get her there on time every day. We'll need to sort out after school care, and something different for all the many holidays. I'm sure we'll sort it out, and this might just be fear of the unknown, but it certainly looks more complicated. And I don't think the cost savings will be huge (from the UK) since we get quite a big subsidy for the over 3s already (15 hours free care during the school year). For us it was that transition which made a big difference to our pockets.

Two is hard

Well it's been a long time, and I hate blogs that are just lists of excuses, but I have to say two kids is hard... much harder than one! I'm also loosing interest in anonymous blogging - I find it actually reduces what I can say as I don't want to give too much away. And every (female) astronomer I've met knows who I am anyway so it seems a bit pointless! So I'm not sure where this blog is going in the future, if anywhere......

Anyway enough of that, here's a update:

First the good news - after a wonderful 6 months maternity leave I'm back at work and getting busy with several exciting projects. I can confirm (anecdotally) the increase in productivity pregnant women have second time round - I have 4 (first author) papers published in the last year. I won another grant for 2 more years funding, so I got a promotion and a payrise (still a postdoc, but now a better paid one!). All this makes things look a whole lot rosier.

More good news - despite a slightly bumpy ride, and the annoyance that the new baby can't go to the same nursery as my older daughter the childcare situation is pretty good. The baby is within walking distance, so instead of the mammoth pumping I did for my first baby I just wander over there at lunchtime to nurse. I have been able to get away with no trips away from him yet (and he's 10 months old) with the help of my wonderful husband and parents who have come with me and the baby on a couple of trips I couldn't get out of. Oh and my new grant allows me to claim childcare for conferences, so we have a couple of big trips planned bringing both kids with us (last year for that before my daughter starts school in September - how time flies!).

And the bad you probably know. Funding for astronomy is decreasing or flat. No-one has jobs. I have two years, but my husband's postdoc officially ends this summer. I've been a postdoc for 5 1/2 years so the clock is ticking pretty loudly on my career. Yada yada. The only advice is to try to wait it out - funny thing is it just seems to keep getting worse.....

So the only solution is good research. With that I'v got to get on with work. An exciting paper in the draft phase - my favourite part of research. :)

Oh and Merry Christmas!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Astronomum on the birth of her beautiful new baby! We wish you all the best, and look forward to hear about your adventures as a two time astronomom!

We now have five kids between the three of us, including three babies less than a year old - hopefully we will be able to keep these posts coming!

Pink Stinks

Came across this website recently: Pink Stinks. Looks like a good resource for Mothers (and Fathers) of girls. My daughter does claim (at 2 1/2) that pink is her favourite colour - and I do sometime wonder where that comes from. Most of the clothes she is given as gifts are pink, although we tend to favour more neutral colours, and now with a boy on the way I'm kicking myself that more of the baby clothes weren't neutral. Oh well!

A Minor Inconvenience of Early Pregnancy

(Note: this was written on July 24th 2009, but I've delayed posting until I told all my friends and family about the new baby, since my "annonymity" here is extremely suspect! And in fact this excuse is now a poor one too - what can I say - life happens!)

With both little one, and now little one number 2 (expected this spring) I have suffered from what most people would call minor morning sickness for most of the first trimester. First time around this started around week 7 and went on until week 14 or so, and comprised mostly severe sensitivity to smells (no malls, grocery stores, or takeout were possible, and walking down the street was exciting!), constant mild nausea, increased motion sickness, and vomiting 3-4 mornings every week (for 7 weeks!). I remember clearly being so miserable around week 8 that I begged the doctor to see me, sure there was something wrong. She had nothing useful to say, but showed me an ultrasound image of little one's heart beating, and told me that it was OK to live off potato chips for weeks if that was all I could keep down. The baby would take all the useful nutrients she said, and I could cope with a few weeks of poor nutrition! That all made me feel much better, and is something I'm keeping with me.

This time around everything started much earlier. Almost as soon as we found out I was pregnant the vomiting started. So far I've had less issues with motion sickness, but I had a couple of weeks when I vomited every morning, and occasionally during the day. I've been very worried that it's still so early too - imagining the horrors ahead of me. The worst of the vomit coincided with little one having stomach flu, so I may have had a bit of both - I think the only time I'll ever be even slightly happy that little one was vomiting! Things came to a head one evening of our recent trip away where I struggled through dinner and then vomited spectacularly outside the restaurant. Not good form! Since then I've been feeling much better. Yesterday (8 weeks exactly) was a bad day - vomit both in the morning, and evening (following a smelly bus ride home), and today I feel quite ropey, but no vomit yet.

The point of blogging about this though is to comment on the impact this has on my work. It's very hard to get the energy together to "mess around" with astronomy when all this is going on. I've been doing much better this time than I did the first time when it was all such a shock that being pregnant - before I was supposed to even tell anyone - would make be feel so bad. Most books describe all this as a "minor inconvenience" of early pregnancy. There is also in general very little sympathy. Either you hide it because you don't want people to know, or they're so happy to learn you're pregnant that the fact that you're green and can't eat isn't noticed. Somehow you're not supposed to complain because "it will pass", and after all you're making a baby. The only helpful reading I've found on the subject is in the book "Pregnancy Sucks" (Amazon Link) which I happened across by accident during this period in my first pregnancy. This book is funny, and will probably make you feel better.

After many weeks of dealing with this I can now also give my advice. Accupressure travel bands really seem to work. It might be in my head - but I'll take it. Also if I eat bread sticks (or crackers) and cheese before getting out of bed in the morning that seems to help a lot - and anyway vomiting recently chewed plain food is much more pleasant than vomiting on an empty stomach. I suggest avoiding crepes with nutella and banana, and cherry tomatos. These are not fun coming in other direction. In fact avoid anything acidic or with much of a flavour. And it will pass. Venting about it online might help too...

August 26th Update: I'm just now about 14 weeks, and this pretty much seems to have passed. I've actually even had a couple of mostly nausea free weeks (but not vomit free - this time I have had some odd spells of "stealth vomit" where without warning I just throw up. That was new!). I've even been managing to get a lot of work done. A couple of papers (finally) at the submission stage, and some other very interesting projects going well.

Jan 5th Update: Now just a few weeks from my due date and I have to say this pregnancy has been *much* more productive than the last one. I have submitted 3 papers (still working their way through the referee process) and have another close to submission. I'm really hoping for a few more weeks to finish stuff up a bit more before taking my leave.

And one last update: AstroMaman and AstronomyMommy are both busy with their adorable babies now roughly 6 and 8 months old respectively.

She's an Astronomer Forum

Starting quietly (for now) is the She's an Astronomer Forum, part of the IYA2009 Cornerstone project. The project aims to raise issues related to gender equity in astronomy; the forum is the place they provide for us all to discuss those issues.

7 Depressing Strategies

How do you make the best of a bad situation? Women in the US often cannot afford to even take of the federally mandated minimum 12 weeks leave after the birth of their children. This article from the US News Money section cites that US women offered the federal minimum take an average of 6 weeks off after the birth of their baby (to put this in perspective, most women are not given medical permission to exercise until at least 6 weeks after this major physical event), while those with paid leave take an average of 10.5 weeks.

Never-mind say authors Caitlin Friedman and Kimberly Yorio, we'll tell you how to cope with going back to work with a baby who cannot yet hold their head up - they review their book in the article. Interestingly most of their suggestions seem to be completely at odds with the statistics quoted above them. They suggest you aim to be completely out of the loop for "several weeks", but to keep in touch towards the end of your leave. They advise you spend time during your leave finding good childcare, commenting that this can often take up to 6 months.

Amazing Picture of the ISS

Thanks to The Bad Astronomer for posting some amazing pictures of the International Space Station taken by Ralf Vandebergh (from the ground using just a 10 inch telescope, and manual tracking). I just had to share. Mr. Vandenbergh must have an amazingly steady hand, and huge reserved of patience! The one I reproduce above also shows as an inset the Space Shuttle approaching the ISS.

When I was hosting star gazing parties fairly often (as a graduate student) I would enjoy nights when the ISS was going to be visibly passing overhead. (You can find such information for any given location on Heaven's Above). I was always amused to see the many skeptics, some of whom clearly had trouble believing I could know such a thing. We would go out onto the deck just a few minutes before the scheduled pass - usually after much persuading on my part. Then came the waiting, and the doubting (on their part, not mine). Finally the ISS would appear lit up by the Sun as a moving bring spot, arc over the sky and disappear (when it passed into the Earth's shadow). After that I always got a lot more respect.

Paid Parental Leave in Different Countries

Thanks to Women in Astronomy for pointing out this work illustrating the different levels of paid parental leave guaranteed in 18 different countries. I wanted to reproduce the figure here. I think I've already made my opinions of the US federal minimum of 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave quite clear. This kind of makes my point for me I think!

I'm not sure why Canada was left of - 52 weeks of paid leave would put them right in among the Scandinavian countries! Way to go Canada!

Owl Babies - dealing with Mum being away.

The favourite book in our house right now is "Owl Babies", by Martin Waddell. We read this pretty much every night, and it never fails to produce smiles of delight in little one when the owl babies' mother flies home. It occurred to me while reading it last night that since this book is actually a great tool for helping children deal with time when their Mummy must travel for work I should share it here. (AstroMaman already posted one of the tools they use in their house when one parent has to be away in Counting Days.)

In the story the owl babies wake up to find their Mummy is gone. They think about where she's gone (probably out hunting to get them food) and they try to deal with their worries as they wait for her to come home (what if she got eaten by a fox). Just as they are giving up hope, in she flies (to the delight of both the owl babies and my little one). "What's all the fuss, you knew I'd come back" she says. The owl babies agree - and finish "I love my Mummy". At the moment we only have this as a library book, but I think I'll be buying it to keep soon.

Galileoscopes

This year is the International year of Astronomy (IYA2009). The project sponsors a number of cornerstone projects, one of which is close to my heart - She's an Astronomer. Another neat cornerstone project is the Galileoscope. This is a low cost, high quality telescope designed to make astronomy accessible to all. I've been meaning to get one (although a bit turned off by the high shipping cost to Europe, which for one telescope is more than the cost itself!), but I thought I'd write a quick blog post about it as a reminder to get around to doing this.

What prompted the post this morning is that I just noticed Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) just wrote a review about his Galileoscopes which arrived this week. He includes a useful link to simpler assembly instructions than are included in the box.

Breast Feeding is Offensive

Just wanted to share this blog post from Green Kiddos, which pokes fun at the whole "breastfeeding is offensive" argument.

Baby Gaps and Paying for Maternity Leave

A couple of interesting posts recently over at Female Science Professor which are very relevant here at present since 2/3 authors (not me!) are out on Maternity Leave.

In the first Baby Gap FSP muses on the impact a noticeable "baby gap" can have on your career. At some level this was something I worked quite hard to avoid when I had little one (early 2007). I managed to get both 2007 and 2008 first author papers out (2008 - just under the wire!). One of the comments mentioned the issue of a delayed baby gap, which I may be facing in 2009 (despite 2 first author papers *so close* to being submitted - the referee process can be so long I may miss the end of the year). FSP's post itself doesn't bother me, although her comment that

The lack of a baby gap on my CV is more owing to luck than to anything superhuman that I did

followed by a list of several superhuman things (in my opinion) including being organised enough to have projects close to finishing up, being able to persuade someone to give her a light teaching load, and finding ways to work while the baby was sleeping (instead of sleeping herself, which might have been my choice!).

But some of the comments (as uaual) are truly depressing reading. I do not explain that I had a baby in my CV, however I have recently put in several fellowship applications that ask for the number of years of full time research positions (excluding breaks) that I have worked since getting my PhD. In this case I can take off 3 months (oh lucky me) for the birth of little one making me eligible for some of the fellowships which have strict time limits for 3 months longer. I'm not sure what the right way to deal with it is. On the one hand I had a baby and I continued to be productive afterwards, which surely shows that I'm dedicated to this profession. On the other hand I had a baby - which clearly shows (see below) that I don't care about this profession....

In her second post, Paying for It, FSP debates the issue of who should be paying for maternity leave, particularly for students and postdocs payed (in the US) directly from research grants. In my opinion this is not at all tricky to determine. Society benefits when people have children, therefore society should pay. I truly believe the US is scandalous in having a "laugh in your face" 12 weeks of mandatory *unpaid* maternity leave. That's it. I was lucky when I had little one in the US that at my place of work I was considered a university employee, despite being a postdoc, so I did get 12 weeks at something like 75% pay (although a close friend in slightly different circumstances did not count and therefore got 12 weeks upaid - or nothing). I did later learn to my surprise that my maternity pay came out of the research grant, which ran out before the end of my contract resulting in a 3 month unpaid gap (some of which I filled) between jobs. So ultimately I paid for it later.

Again the post itself is pretty mild, but the comments get quite wild. This one is very eye-opening:

I would say that postdocs shouldn't get babies in the first place: they should work very hard in order to be able to compete to get that sought after job at a good university. Taking a maternity/paternity break as a postcdoc (or PhD student for that matter) is essentially saying that you don't really care much about your research.

Later he explains he's a 45 year old father of a toddler, and he appears to be based in the UK. I really hope he's not an astronomer. What an attitude.

I hear a lot that during the postdoc years is a bad time to have kids, but I've never seen it put so bluntly that clearly some people see it as not taking the job seriously. I really hope this guy is in the minority.

Stomach Flu and a Well Deserved Break (not at the same time!)

Well it's been an exciting couple of weeks in the "Astronomum" household. Little one got an unprecedented 12 1/2 days off daycare! It started with some vomiting - resulting in the classic 48 hour ban from the nursery. Little one clearly was sick, although not seriously, so I decided that we'd just make the most of it, and we actually had a lovely day out visiting our city sponsored bunnies (still makes me smile!).

This "ban" of course ended on a Friday afternoon - the weekend before a (completely planned) week long break in another city. Little one and I hung out together (and some of the time with her grandparents) while my husband attended a scientific conference. It was a truly lovely break, and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with little one and seeing all the funny things she gets up to.

Now it's back to work, and serious paper writing. Unfortunately I have to be on the job market for serious yet again this year and I need to deal with my "poor" publication record (instead of griping about it). So I really shouldn't be sitting her writing this!

Looking like an Astronomer

I've been having my 15 minutes of (very minor) fame this week. I'm not sure how to blog about the details of all this while remaining anonymous. I might give up on that next week as it will all get much more interesting, but for now I'll remain cryptic and just tell you that for some reason there was interest in writing about me as a role model for women in science in the local and university papers - so I had to have my photo taken.

So obviously I made some effort to not look like the stereotype of a scientist. I wore a dress, and jewelry and even (shock horror) make-up. I think I did a good job. The photographer for the local paper commented that I didn't look how he expected. In his own slightly sexist way he went on to comment about how it was weird that his picture of a scientist was an old guy with white hair. He said I look nothing like Patrick Moore and that's a surprise according to him.

There was a builder in the kitchen/common room the day I was having my photos taken and he was obviously curious and asked the reason for all the attention. I explained to him and he looked a bit taken aback. "Women in science he said.... hmmmm.... you're not one of these doctors are you?". I said I did have a doctorate in astronomy. Obviously something he didn't expect either.

As women in science we are surrounded mostly by men who are quite used to our presence (in their own way). It doesn't take much to be reminded though that to the vast majority of the public the idea of women doing science is still totally alien.

iPlug

I love Apple. I've actually never owned a PC, and have been a convert since buying my first laptop with my har won savings in graduate school (one year a laptop the next have my wisdom teeth out). Anyway I always thought the plugs Mac makes are quite ingenious. It's the same in any country apart from a neat little bit you can interchange which goes into the plug socket (and which I'm sure has a cool name). Great I thought - if/when I move country all I have to do is buy that little bit.

But Apple, ever after their "iMonopoly" only sell those little bits in packs of 6 including every an adapter for every region - and that pack costs something like $30. That's right - you spend money to buy again the same plug adapter that came with your computer (along with one for every other region in the world - but still). You can't buy them separately.

But postdocs - ever ingenious - have come up with a solution. We move around a lot - all over the world. And we buy computers often. After our transatlantic move I had 2 US plugs, but not the kind I needed.... I offered to swap (via dept. wide email) - and within minutes (literally) had 3 offers. You can't use more than one at a time I suppose. In the end the person didn't even want my spare US adapter. But recently another postdoc asked for it. Well not so recently I suppose, but I recently got around to finding it and giving it to her. And in return - I am to get a European adapter. Somehow this neatness and recycling has given me so much satisfaction I wanted to blog about it - plus I'm stuck on a plane going to a conference (without little one) so I have time on my hands!

Since moving I have bought a new computer - so now I have 2 UK plugs. I'm sure one day this will be useful and I will swap with a grateful postdoc just moving into the country, or perhaps a frequently travelling Mac loving astronomer.

The Birth Survey and Pre-Natal Yoga

I don't think I have ever blogged before about how much I appreciated and valued my experiences with prenatal yoga. I attended pre-natal yoga classes once or twice a week throughout my entire pregnancy. Because we have moved since little one was born, I have not kept in touch with any of the women I met in the yoga classes, but their friendship was extremely valuable to me while pregnant and in the early weeks/months of little one's life. In fact I liked pre-natal yoga so much that now I find ordinary yoga a little too impersonal and rushed most of the time.

I found that pre-natal yoga was not only good for my pregnant body, but also my mind. Each session I attended started with each woman introducing herself, her stage of pregnancy and talking about the symptoms she was experiencing. The teacher would both start and end with helpful information about treating symptoms, and other useful hints. I credit pre-natal yoga (and Ina May) with giving me the strength and courage to go for a natural childbirth. It also helped me get through the rough weeks of morning (and all day) sickness at the beginning of my pregnancy.

My favourite pre-natal yoga teacher has a blog which I still keep up with. On her blog this week she featured The Birth Survey which just seems like such a good idea that I also wanted to mention it. The idea is that women (in the USA) can input their experiences with prenatal and childbirth providers. The eventual aim is to have a database of experiences which pregnant women can then use to inform their choices over where to deliver and who to have take care of them during pregnancy. It is quite a long survey, but you can save and return to it later.