Two years ago I posted a Women in Science calendar for a possible purchase item for seniorwomen.com. This week one of the subjects of that calendar received a Nobel Prize for Medicine, *Elizabeth Blackburn.
This year I might suggest She Is an Astronomer calendar.
The calendar is a "cornerstone project of the International Year of Astronomy has produced a colorful calendar for 2010 featuring accomplished women astronomers from around the world."
"With this calendar we aim to help reconstruct the history of women in astronomy, which, as in other fields of knowledge, is poorly known. We have highlighted exceptional women whose contributions to the advancement of science deserve to transcend anonymity and occupy a place in history. We have tried to give visibility and to value the contributions of women astronomers from different epochs and countries."
The women who are profiled as astronomers are:
Isaura Fuentes-Carrera (Mexico)
Yolanda Gomez (Mexico)Elisabete M. de Gouveia Dal Pino (Brazil)
Minnie Mao (Australia)
Sera Markoff (the Netherlands)
Karen Pollard (New Zealand)
Debra Shepherd (USA)
Ewine F van Dishoeck (the Netherlands)
Patricia Ann Whitelock (South Africa)
(*Editor's Note: In 2004, Elizabeth Blackburn was one of two scientists dismissed in 2004 from the President's Council on Bioethics: "Dr. Blackburn believes that she was dismissed because she disapproved of the Bush administration's restrictive position on stem cell research. According to Dr. Blackburn, she and Dr. May frequently disagreed with the administration's positions on the ethics of biomedical research. She was removed from the panel soon after she objected to a Council report on stem cell research. In an essay in the April 1, 2004, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Blackburn recounted how the dissenting opinion she submitted, which she believes reflects the scientific consensus in America, was not included in the council's reports even though she had been told the reports would represent the views of all the council's members." Union of Concerned Scientists)The illustrated calendar can be downloaded from: http://www.sheisanastronomer.org/index.php/downloads/calendar. We did have a problem with the download, by the way, but perhaps that will be resolved.
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