Dedicated to the women who have graced the pages of history, from ancient to modern times.
They were carefully wrapped and boxed for the long journey down under - and arrived in very good condition!Colin Bull began fighting in 1959 to get the U.S. Navy to allow women scientists to go to Antarctica, and kept it up until he won, a decade later. He couldn't understand the Navy's reluctance.
Eventually the Navy relented, and allowed women scientists onto the continent in 1969. Bull, then director of Ohio State University's Institute of Polar Studies, assembled an all-women scientific research team that arrived in Antarctica in October 1969, for a four-month research expedition. The following month, they also became the first women to step onto the South Pole.
Today about a third of the Antarctic scientists are women. Hundreds of women have worked in the program, some of them leading research stations and heading major expeditions. More than 50 are working at the South Pole during the 2009-2010 summer season.
The Navy, which had established McMurdo Station, the main American base in Antarctica, as a military outpost in 1956, had been adamant at the time. They would not transport women onto the continent. The National Science Foundation, which funded the program, did not challenge Navy policy.
The number of researchers, on the rise world-wide, jumped by 56% in developing countries between 2002 and 2007.
According to a new study published by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
In comparison, their number increased by only 8.6% in developed countries during the same period*.
In five years, the number of researchers in the world rose significantly, from 5.8 to 7.1 million.
The greatest gain was made in developing countries: 2.7 million researchers were counted in 2007, versus 1.8 million five years earlier.
These countries increased their global share of researchers from 30.3% in 2002 to 38.4%.
The biggest increase was seen in Asia, whose share went up from 35.7% in 2002 to 41.4%. China is mainly responsible for the gain, having gone from 14 to 20% in five years.
The increase in Asia occurred at the expense of Europe and the Americas, whose shares went down respectively from 31.9 to 28.4% and from 28.1 to 25.8%.
“The increase in the number of researchers, notably in developing countries, is good news. UNESCO welcomes this development, although the participation of women in science, which UNESCO promotes notably through the l’OREAL-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science, is still too limited,” said Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO.
