Concern over lack of diversity of Nobel Prize Winners The Nobel Prize committee explains why women win so few prizes The last Nobel Prize of 2017, in economics sciences, was awarded to Richard Thaler “for contributions to behavioral economics.” All six prizes given to individuals this year have gone to men, apart from the Nobel Peace Prize which was awarded to a coalition of 100-plus NGOs from around the world. The Swedish Academy says that, in aggregate since the prize was founded in 1901, women have won 49 out of 923 prizes. About one in every 20. Göran Hansson, vice chair of the board of directors of the Nobel Foundation, said: We are very proud of the laureates who were awarded the prize this year. But we are disappointed looking at the larger perspective that more women have not been awarded. Part of it is that we go back in time to identify discoveries. We have to wait until they have been verified and validated, before we can award the prize. There was an even larger bias against women then. There were far fewer women scientists if you go back 20 or 30 years. This week however, also marks the time that the Nobel Prize comes under fresh scrutiny from critics around the globe. With every year
Regular marijuana users have more sex The researchers found that the women in the study who said they hadn’t used marijuana in the past year reported that they’d had sex an average of six times in the previous month. Women who did report using marijuana in the past year reported that they’d had sex more frequently, an average of seven times in the previous month. The findings were similar for men, according to the study, published today (Oct. 27) in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Men who said they’d used marijuana in the past year reported having sex an average of seven times in the previous month, compared with an average of six times for men who said they hadn’t used marijuana in the past year. The researchers used data from three cycles of survey, one given in 2002, one given from 2006 to 2010, and one given from 2011 to 2015. The participants were men and women ages of 15 and 44, but the researchers limited their analysis to respondents ages 25 and 44. Across all cycles of the survey, both men and women who used marijuana reported a higher frequency of sexual activity. The researchers noted in the report that the study isn’t proof that marijuana use causes increased sexual activity; however, “the data imply that regular marijuana use will not impair sexual function or desire.” The research is an “impressive study because of its size,” said Joseph Palamar, an associate professor of public health at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, who studies drug use and sexual behavior and who was not involved in the new study. But Palamar stressed that the findings show a correlation, not cause and effect. In other words, using marijuana more frequently doesn’t directly cause more sexual activity.
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that passes, science becomes increasingly interdisciplinary and, now more than ever, the greatest advancements tend to be the ones with international collaborative efforts involving thousands of individuals. Why then does the prize reserve its honour for a maximum of three individuals? This pernicious trend is damaging to science and there is evidence to suggest that it reinforces the stereotype that women cannot perform as well as men. Astrophysicist Katie Mack said on Twitter that, “we should keep in mind that demographics of the winners reflect and amplify structural biases.” The need for female role models in STEM subjects is critical to achieving some form of equality for generations to come, and having more female Nobel Prize winners is a perfect way to enact change.
Bloodhound 1000mph car completes first public run The Bloodhound supersonic car has completed its first high-speed test run, reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour on a runway at Cornwall Airport Newquay. The car, which is designed to go up to 1,000 miles per hour and will attempt to break the land speed record next year, was driven by Wing Commander Andy Green, a Royal Air Force fighter pilot who set the current record of 763 miles per hour in the ThrustSSC 20 years ago. The successful trial is a measure of validation after nearly a decade of work and represents a step toward Bloodhound’s planned record-breaking attempt in South Africa’s Hakskeen Pan desert, which is likely to happen next year. The not-for-profit Bloodhound project based in Bristol UK, combines aircraft and automotive technology, with a larger aim of interesting schoolchildren in engineering. It is led by 71-year-old Richard Noble, who brought the land speed record back to the UK in 1983 and was also the project director of the team behind the current best of 763mph, Thrust SSC, achieved 20 years ago. “It was very straightforward,” Mr Noble said of the runs. “What I think was important was the demonstration to people of the real power of the car.” Bloodhound uses a Eurofighter Typhoon EJ200 jet engine made by Rolls-Royce. Three Norwegian Nammo rockets will later be added to provide a boost to get the car to 1,000mph. Perhaps more immediate and in many ways impressive is Bloodhound’s educational impact: its schools programme, which uses data from the project to inspire children, reached 129,000 pupils last year. Image credit © Flock London
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