Sunday, February 11, 2018 - 03:59
This International Day of Women and Girls Science (11 February 2018) we want to highlight the example and discoveries of the astronomer Vera Rubin (1928-2016).
Rubin was a American astronomer who made the main contribution in science to detect the existence of the dark matter. She defied the consolidated laws of astronomy with her discovery on movement of galaxies. Vera Rubin’s work concluded that the galactic rotation curves follow a flat movement and she also provided evidence for the existence of galaxies superclusters. Her work was initially challenged but finally has been recognised as a “Copernican-scale change” in Astronomy.
Friday, November 25, 2016 - 16:55
Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who made important advancements in abstract algebra and theoretical physics. The theorems that she proved about general relativity and elementary particle physics are known as “Noether’s Theorem”.
Her fascinating life and struggles within science are once again available through the portrait and fictive letter created by artists Jennifer Mondfrans.
Friday, September 2, 2016 - 10:34
Let's start the new academic year with the fascinating life and discoveries of Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) via the portrait and fictive letter created by the artist Jennifer Mondfrans.
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) is a Chinese American scientist in physics who made outstanding contributions to the cyclotron particle accelerator, one of the main tools for the current advances in physics. In the beginning of the twenty century she was one of the first women to have access to education in China, and progressively she had became one of most valued physics scientist in the world.
Friday, May 27, 2016 - 14:16
GenPORT joins the celebration of the International Day of Action for Women’s Health (#May28) with this short post on Barbara McClintock, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology (1983).
As on previous occasions, the fictious letters created by Jennifer Mondfrans provides an artistic approach to the life, discoveries and personality of Barbara McClintock.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - 12:36
We want to celebrate International Women’s Day (8 March 2016) with a tribute to the outstanding work of Rosalind Franklin – who serves as a further example of past and present struggle towards gender equality in science.
Thursday, February 4, 2016 - 17:38
The World Cancer Day offers the perfect opportunity to recall the work and life of Irene Curie, daughter of Pierre and Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Together with Fréderic Joliot, she continued to build on the achievements of her parents in radiology and discovered “induced radioactivity”, a form of human-made radioactivity that later on has been used in the treatment of cancer. For their findings, both scientists were awarded with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - 13:56
Henrietta Swan Leavitt was the astronomer who discovered the relation between the variable brightness of stars and their pulsation periods, a mechanism the laid the foundation for estimating cosmic distances. Although her contributions were crucial for the further advancements in astronomy, she did not receive any public recognition of her achievements during her lifetime. The mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler tried to nominate her for the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1926, however Henrietta already had died four years earlier in 1921.
Friday, November 27, 2015 - 17:41
On the eve of the 2015 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony (10th December 2015) we want to draw the attention to Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) as the first women who won a Nobel Prize back in 1901. In fact, she was the first person to receive this important scientific award twice: the first in 1901 in Physics and the second in 1911 in Chemistry.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - 16:09
Taking the opportunity of the Ada Lovelace Day (October 11th) we will start publishing a series of posts dedicated to historical women scientists. This will happen in collaboration with the San Francisco based artist Jennifer Mondfrans and her work entitled “At Least I Have You, To Remember Me” - displaying portraits of women scientists accompanied by fictive letters from the past to the present reader – you.
