Ames Library News

On this Theme Thursday, we explore Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientifist Problem of His Time. Though focusing on a male contribution to scientific knowledge, Dava Sobel is an New York Times author and American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. She was presented with the Klumpke-Roberts Award for outstanding contributions to public understanding and appreciation of astronomy in 2008. In 2006, she was the Robert Vare Nonfiction Writer-in-Residence at the University of Chicago. She received the 2001 Public Service Award of the National Science Board for fostering public awareness of science.

From Amazon, “Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that “the longitude problem” was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution. The scientific establishment of Europe-from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton-had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution-a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is the dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest, and of Harrison’s forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.”

On this Theme Thursday, we dive into the Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a book with an interesting take on who has control of women’s bodies. In the world of the near future, who will control women’s bodies?

“Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable…,” from Amazon.

On this Theme Thursday we’re going to highlight a woman who expanded on Darwin’s theory and has pushed the theory of evolution into modern times. “Although Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution laid the foundations of modern biology, it did not tell the whole story. Most remarkably, The Origin of Species said very little about, of all things, the origins of species. Darwin and his modern successors have shown very convincingly how inherited variations are naturally selected, but they leave unanswered how variant organisms come to be in the first place.

“In Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution, renowned scientist Lynn Margulis shows that symbiosis, which simply means members of different species living in physical contact with each other, is crucial to the origins of evolutionary novelty. Ranging from bacteria, the smallest kinds of life, to the largest—the living Earth itself—Margulis explains the symbiotic origins of many of evolution’s most important innovations. The very cells we’re made of started as symbiotic unions of different kinds of bacteria. Sex—and its inevitable corollary, death—arose when failed attempts at cannibalism resulted in seasonally repeated mergers of some of our tiniest ancestors. Dry land became forested only after symbioses of algae and fungi evolved into plants. Since all living things are bathed by the same waters and atmosphere, all the inhabitants of Earth belong to a symbiotic union. Gaia, the finely tuned largest ecosystem of the Earth’s surface, is just symbiosis as seen from space.

“Along the way, Margulis describes her initiation into the world of science and the early steps in the present revolution in evolutionary biology; the importance of species classification for how we think about the living world; and the way “academic apartheid” can block scientific advancement. Written with enthusiasm and authority, this is a book that could change the way you view our living Earth…” from Amazon.

Ours has been an Information Society for years, but we’ve recently seen how information can be manipulated and faked. Libraries worldwide have the responsibility to help citizens identify fake news and misinformation, as reflected in the Core Values of Librarianship, as defined by the American Library Association. Whenever you come into the library for a class with one of the Ames librarians, we’re working with you to build critical thinking and information evaluation skills.

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The International Federation of Library Associations shared this infographic in January. The questions and concepts presented by the infographic apply to the evaluation of misinformation, disinformation, alternative facts, and fake news. Read beyond and ask the experts, but most importantly, check your biases.

We encourage everyone to evaluate facts critically, holding policy makers, friends, family, neighbors, and all citizens to high standards of information usage. Facts are facts – choosing to ignore facts or putting alternative spins on them do not make them any less factual.

Theme Thursday today looks at the ten women who have won Nobel Prizes in the past century. Though they are few in numbers, their accomplishments have revolution modern science and how we look at everything today.

“Since 1901 there have been over three hundred recipients of the Nobel Prize in the sciences. Only ten of them — about 3 percent — have been women. Why? In this updated version of Nobel Prize Women in Science, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores the reasons for this astonishing disparity by examining the lives and achievements of fifteen women scientists who either won a Nobel Prize or played a crucial role in a Nobel Prize – winning project. The book reveals the relentless discrimination these women faced both as students and as researchers. Their success was due to the fact that they were passionately in love with science…” from Amazon.

MARIA GOEPPERT MAYER (1906 – 1972)

MARIE CURIE (1867 – 1934)

GERTY THERESA CORI (1896 – 1957)

FRANCOISE BARRÉ-SINOUSSI

ELIZABETH H. BLACKBURN

CAROL W. GREIDER

ROSALYN YALOW (1921 – 2011)

DOROTHY CROWFOOT HODGKIN (1910 – 1994)

COMPLETE LIST OF FEMALE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS, BY SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE:

PHYSICS

• 1903 – Marie Curie. “For joint research on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.”
• 1963 – Maria Goeppert Mayer. “For discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure.”

CHEMISTRY

• 1911 – Marie Curie. “In recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements.”
• 1935 – Irene Joliot-Curie. “In recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements.”
• 1964 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. “For her determinations by X-ray technique of the structures of important biochemical substances.”
• 2009 – Ada Yonath. “For studies of the structure and formation of the ribosome.”

PHYSIOLOGY/MEDICINE

• 1947 – Gerty Theresa Cori, nee Radnitz. “For the discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen.”
• 1977 – Rosalyn Yalow. “For the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones.”
• 1983 – Barbara McClintock. “For her discovery of mobile genetic elements.”
• 1986 – Rita Levi-Montalcini. “For the discoveries of nerve growth factors in cancer cells.”
• 1988 – Gertrude B. Elion. “For the discoveries of important principles for drug treatment.”
• 1995 – Christiane Nusslein-Volhard. “For the discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.”
• 2004 – Linda B. Buck. “For the discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system.”
• 2008 – Francoise Barre-Sinoussi. “for the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus.”
• 2009 – Elizabeth H. Blackburn & Carol W. Greider. “For the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.”
• 2014 – May-Britt Moser. “For the discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.”

Read more here.