WiE-UC December Newsletter

THE IRON LADY

The Iron Lady is a biographical drama about Margaret Thatcher, the first elected woman and longest-serving prime minister in the United Kingdom in the 20th century Meryl Streep shows a brilliant performance representing Margaret in an enticing and exciting storytelling of the crucial moments in Thatcher’s life. The movie shows the life of Margaret in the present, where she is shown as an imperious but aging figure while having flashbacks of the defining moments of her life. This allows the viewer to understand and follow the struggles she faced to become the first woman prime minister and the challenges she had to overcome while in office and after. This movie has a good look, a powerful performance, and the occasional robust and probing scene telling the fascinating story of a prominent figure in politics and an excellent example of what women in power experience.

SOURCE: HERESLOOKINATYOUSQUID WORDPRESS COM

Mariana Fernandes

Biography

CHIEN-SHIUNG WU

Chien-Shiung Wu was born on May 31st, 1912, Liuhe, Jiangsu province, China and died February 16th, 1997, New York, N.Y., U.S. Her mother, Funhua Fan, was a teacher and her father, Zhong-Yi Wu, was an intellectual and engineer. Chien-Shiung was quite close to her father who encouraged her to pursue education as far as she could despite women in China were often discouraged to pursue higher education at the time. Adding to her greatest idols are female scientists such as Dr. Marie Curie and Dr. Jing-Wei Gu.

Chien-Shiung Wu was a leading figure and pioneer in the field of physics. The Chinese-born American physicist is mostly known for conducting the Wu experiment, which proved that identical particles do not always behave in the same manner Wu graduated from the National Central University in Nanjing, China, in 1934 with a degree in physics and then was encouraged by Dr Jing-Wei Gu to travel to the United States to pursue graduate studies in physics. After receiving a Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1940, she taught at Smith College and was the first women faculty member hired in the physics department at Princeton University. In 1944 she undertook work on radiation detection in the Division of War Research at Columbia University where she joined the Manhattan Project, a research and development undertaking during World War II that aimed and succeeded to produce the first nuclear weapons.

Amongst her big scientific achievements, Wu married Luke Chia-Liu Yuan, a Chinese-American physicist, in 1942. The couple later had a son, Vincent Yuan, in 1947. She officially became a U.S. citizen in 1954 and continued her research at Columbia by investigating beta decay, as she had been previously at Princeton.

SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES

Wu tested in 1956 the proposal that that parity isn’t conserved for weak nuclear interactions with a group of scientists from the National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D C , by observing the beta particles given off by cobalt-60 She observed that there is a preferred direction of emission and, therefore, provided the first experimental proof that the principle of parity conservation does not hold in weak subatomic interactions

Wu announced her results in 1957. The success of this and similar additional experiments brought worldwide acclaim not only to Wu but also to Tsung-Dao Lee of Columbia and Chen Ning Yang of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work.

In 1963, Wu experimentally confirmed Richard P Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann’s theory of conservation of vector current in nuclear beta decay in collaboration with two other Columbia University research physicists. In addition, she later investigated the structure of hemoglobin. Receiving in 1975 the National Medal of Science and serving as president of the American Physical Society that year as well, Wu was considered one of the premier experimental physicists in the world She was awarded in 1978 the inaugural Wolf Prize in Physics and was nicknamed the "First Lady of Physics "

Mariana Alme

Achievement

VALENTINA TERESHKOVA

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, born on the 6th of March 1937, Bolshoye Maslennikovo, Soviet Union, was the first woman ever sent to space, after going through a rigorous process of selection.

On the 13th of June 1963, she went aboard the Vostok 6 capsule, within the Voskhod program. She stayed in space for 3 days, realizing a total of 48 earth orbits, after which she landed in Khazakhstan.

The data she collected was helpful to medical studies, revolving around the human body in spaceflights, as well as helping identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere

This mission granted her the two most important distinctions in the Soviet Union; “Hero of the Soviet” and “Order of Lenin”.

SOURCE: THEFAMOUSPEOPLE COM

Ana Guedes

Curiosity of the month...

Have you ever seen the movie Hidden Figures? Did you know that it was based on a true story?

The movie revolves around Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan, three African American female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the Space Race. Katherine Johnson is best known for calculating trajectories for NASA missions, more especially, for calculating flight paths for the Project Mercury Mary Jackson was NASA’s first Black female engineer and, after earning the most senior engineering title available, she accepted a demotion to become a manager of both the Federal Women's Program, in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, and of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering, and mathematics careers.

Dorothy Vaughan, in turn, supervised the programming department, becoming the first African American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.

In addition to the awards each has received (all of them received the Congressional Gold Medal), it’s good to see that these women are being acknowledged for their worth and for what they’ve brought to us

SOURCE: THEGIZZLEREVIEW COM

Sofia Diogo

Recipes with WiE:

BÛCHE DE NOËL

Long before it was considered as the traditional Christmas’ dessert in France, the log that lit in chimneys on this festive night already expressed in almost all European traditions a diverse set of beliefs and customs that always bring together two common elements: wood and fire, that consume each other mutually, but whose union expresses the response to desires and human hopes: fertility rites, purification of sins, ancestor worship, warmth and energy of the home.

4 e g g s 1 0 0 g o f s u g a r 6 5 g o f f l o u r

1 5 g c o c o a 2 5 g c o l d m e l t e d b u t t e r 4 t a b l e s p o o n s o f c r e a m 1 t a b l e s p o o n o f m i l k 2 5 0 g o f c h e s t n u t p u r e e

F o r t h e t o p :

F o r t h e f i l l i n g : 7 5 g o f s u g a r 4 t a b l e s p o o n s o f w a t e r 2 e g g y o l k s 1 0 0 - 1 7 5 g u n s a l t e d b u t t e r 5 0 g d a r k c h o c o l a t e m a r z i p a n s t a i n e d w h i t e , g r e e n a n d r e d

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Line a tray (30×25 cm) with greased parchment paper. Beat the eggs with the sugar until the mixture thickens and turns lighter. The flour and cocoa are sifted together and added to the mixture, followed by the butter. Pour the preparation into the mold, distributing the dough well. Bake in a preheated oven (190°C) for 15 to 20 minutes or until firm Unmold onto parchment paper dusted with powdered sugar Remove the paper that lined the mold and roll the cake together with the sprinkled paper Let it cool in a net

2. For the filling, beat the cream and milk until thick and mix in the chestnut puree. The cake is rolled out carefully Unroll and spread with the chestnut cream Roll it up again carefully

3. Prepare the topping by making caramel with sugar and water Put the caramel in thread over the yolks, stirring constantly Continue to beat until the mixture thickens and cools Beat the butter and add it to the previous mixture. Melt the chocolate with a tablespoon of water in a bainmarie and, after cooling down a bit, add it to the previous mixture. Cover the cake completely and decorate it giving it the shape of a Christmas log that is adorned with marzipan motif ( i l Christmas tree, candy canes, etc.).

WiE Recommend

Want to see women in important roles?

In Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Shuri not only leads the lab where she creates things never seen before but also takes part in leading the nation!

If you have time, don’t miss the chance to see this woman accomplish things many have ever only dreamed of accomplishing!

SOURCE: IMDB

Mariana Almeida

Sofia Diogo