Bumper Nobel year for women
Angela Saini
Friday, 09 October 2009 10:13 UTC
In celebration of the achievements of fellow females, I wanted to remind everyone that for the first time this year there were three female Nobel laureates! AthenaWeb has a lovely editorial explaining who they are.
-
Replies
-
Yay! And actually there are four female laureates (since Hertha Muller got the literature prize).
-
Fantastic!
And congratulations as well to winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel prizes, including
- Catherine Douglas at Newcastle University’s school of agriculture who shares the award for the discovery that giving cows names such as Daisy increases their milk yield.
- Elena Bodnar of Hinsdale, Illinois, for patenting a bra that, in an emergency, can be converted into a pair of gas masks.
- Katherine Whitcome at the University of Cincinnati and colleagues for a detailed explanation of why pregnant women do not topple over.
-
Ruth, thank you for mentioning the Ig Nobels.
I think that the fact that the bra can be converted into TWO gas masks shows a sharing attitude that might not be so evident if invented by a man. Such as a man inventing a way of turning his jockey shorts into ONE gas mask. Such an invention might indicate, perhaps, a little lack of concern for others.
My not realizing that there was a problem in why pregnant women don’t fall over shows a serious lack of imagination on my part. I have never given it a thought. Could this be because I am a man? I hope not.
-
I did topple over! Mind you, it was an icy, snowy night in Yorkshire. The problem, as I recall, was getting back up again.
-
Larry, there isn’t a problem, but perhaps there is a solution in why women don’t topple when pregnant. A solution that could solve other problems.
Hmmm. don’t invent anything to do with jockey shorts. That’s my advice.
-
