Cinque dei "Nature’s 10"

I giornalisti di Nature sono di “Catholic tastes” come si dice in inglese. Fra le 10 persone che “hanno contato” nel 2017, Davide Castelvecchi ha scelto non i premiati con un Nobel, ma

Marica Branchesi, a member of the Virgo collaboration, which operates the gravitational-wave detector near Pisa, Italy. Branchesi bridged the divide between observational astronomy and the physics-heavy realm of gravitational-wave research — fields that, until recently, had little reason to work together.

Grazie a lei

for a few weeks starting on 17 August, it seemed as if every telescope on Earth and in space was looking in the same direction,

verso la fonte di emissioni prodotte dalla collisione di due stelle di neutroni. All’intervista dell’INAF, aggiungo che finalmente non è più ricercatrice precaria  a Urbino ma “Assistant Professor” – e forse precaria lo stesso, h/t Andrea – all’Istituto Gran Sasso dell’INFN.
Elie Dolgin celebra una bambina, non gli inventori della terapia che l’ha salvata:

The simplest gestures can be the most powerful. At a US Food and Drug Administration meeting in July, 12-year-old Emily Whitehead rose from the audience and walked up to the man [il padre Tom] presenting at the lectern. Without a word, she grasped the back of his arm. “I just thought it would help him if I stood by him,” recalls Emily, who five years earlier was the first child in the world to receive an experimental treatment called CAR-T therapy.

Sara Reardon racconta gli exploit di Scott Pruitt, chiamato da Trump a distruggere l’Environmental Protection Agency e l’ambiente:

After taking office in February, he immediately set to work blocking or repealing dozens of environmental rules, including regulations on emissions, mining and hazardous waste.  […]

In October, Pruitt announced that scientists who hold EPA grants would no longer be allowed to serve on the agency’s independent advisory committees, owing to what he called a conflict of interest. As a result, the agency dismissed half the members of several scientific-advisory boards. Most of the positions have since been filled with current industry employees and scientists who have industry ties.

But many scientists feel sidelined, and EPA employees, in particular, worry about their future. The Trump administration has proposed a 40% budget cut to the agency’s research and development office, which would mostly eliminate staff-scientist jobs.

L’eroina malgré soi di Nicky Phillips è Jennifer Byrne, la genetista dei tumori che ha già provocato la ritrattazione di parecchi articoli:

has spent countless evenings over the past two years on her laptop trawling the literature for flawed — and potentially fraudulent — articles.

[She] has so far spotted dozens of papers with DNA-sequence errors. Most of them have other suspicious features, such as poor-quality graphics and chunks of text that overlap with other manuscripts. Byrne suspects misconduct is involved in some cases, although that hasn’t been proven. Her tenacious work is now making waves.

Alexandra Witze ha scelto un’avvocata:

Ann Olivarius had to add 20% more staff to her firm just to handle the phone calls. Women were ringing her law practice in Maidenhead, UK, in droves this year, asking for help with their #MeToo stories of sexual harassment.

For decades, Olivarius has dealt with high-profile cases of sexual misconduct and assault at academic institutions. But the astonishing developments of 2017 — with powerful men in science, entertainment, journalism and other industries losing their jobs over sexual misconduct — have created a tipping point even for her.

“Sexual harassment in science is just like Hollywood: everyone knows who the Weinstein is.” E tutti sanno che il Weinstein di turno è protetto dai suoi pari e le sue vittime minacciate di rappresaglie o estromesse.  Credo che si sappia anche qui e la domanda resta sempre: perché le italiane tacciono? (Salvo per criticare Asia Argento…) In altri paesi qualcosa sta cambiando, le donne si alleano, anche con gli uomini che le ascoltano e le aiutano a superare quel muro di omertà.
A parte nei luoghi delle femministe, la conversazione resta “nel privato”. Da tempo non guardavo i tweet sotto l‘hashtag Quellavoltache, la maggior parte sono tuttora misogini, anti-femministi, benaltristi… tristi.