Male Hubble teams getting more telescope time

Researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) which runs the Hubble Space Telescope program, have found that there continues to be a gap between the number of projects given the go-ahead by male principle investigators (PIs) versus those headed by females.

Principle Investigators (PIs) are typically listed as the lead on proposals and when they are male, the researchers report, the chances are greater that their project will be approved.

In their paper uploaded to the preprint server arXiv (soon to be published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) the researchers note that efforts have been made to get rid of gender bias, but there still appears to be room for improvement.

It's not easy getting time on Hubble, researchers must form teams and then come up with something relevant and interesting to study.

After that, they have to write a proposal and submit it to STScI, after review the proposal is accepted or rejected, only a quarter of those submitted wind up getting telescope time.

Unfortunately, it seems that the odds are diminished even further if the PI is female. Not by much, the researchers report, just by four or five projects each proposal cycle, but that's enough to cause concern, especially in light of the fact that program officials have been trying to eliminate such perceived bias.

They've tried giving talks to reviewers, to explain the problem in the hopes it will cause them to be less biased, they've tried moving team members name to the back page, and even using just an initial for the first name of the PI. None of its worked, and the researchers don't know why.

They acknowledge that it's possible that female led proposals are simply not as interesting or as well thought out or written, in some cases, but also point out that very few if any proposals are written by only female teams, they're all filled with both men and women. Gender appears to only play a role for the PI.

The researchers have been studying the problem for two years, and are still mystified by the lack of change, they note that the problem is more pronounced when the PI is more senior, the difference is smaller for recent graduates, suggesting that the problem may solve itself given time.

They also note that Hubble isn't the only program with the problem, some small studies have suggested that female led proposals meet with less success on other observatories as well.

More information: Full paper: arxiv.org/abs/1409.3528

Space Station to welcome 1st Female Russian Crewmember This Month

A Russian cosmonaut is poised to make a bit of history this when she launches to the International Space Station this month, even if she considers the mission a routine spaceflight.

When cosmonaut Elena Serova launches to the station on Sept. 25 with two other crew mates, she will become the International Space Station's first-ever female Russian crew member and only the fourth female cosmonaut to reach space.

She'll also be the first female Russian cosmonaut to fly in the 17 years since cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova's STS-84 space shuttle mission in May 1997 but Serova, 38, said she doesn't see her mission any differently than that of a male cosmonaut.

"I wouldn't say I am doing more ... than what my colleagues are doing," she said in translated remarks during a preflight briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in July.

Elena Serova will be the fourth female cosmonaut to fly in space during Expedition 41/42 in 2014.

Credit: NASA

Serova pointed out that women have gone into space before, and that her focus is on fulfilling her assigned duties as a flight engineer.

"I want to perform my job really well," she said.

In 1963, Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) was the first nation to fly a woman in space, sending Valentina Tereshkova aloft in June of that year on a mission that lasted nearly three days in Earth orbit.

The Expedition 41/42 crew includes, from left, Barry Wilmore (NASA), Alexander Samokutyaev (Roscosmos) and Elena Serova (Roscosmos).

Credit: NASA

Svetlana Savitskaya was the second Soviet female cosmonaut, making two flights into space in 1982 and 1984 and staying aboard the Salyut 7 space station.

She also was the first female to peform a spacewalk.

The United States didn't send its first woman to space until 1983, when Sally Ride blasted off.

Dozens of women from the United States and other nations have flown since, but only one other from Russia: Kondakova.

She made two trips to the Mir space station, in 1994 (on a Soyuz capsule) and 1997 (on a space shuttle).

Serova has said she's been fascinated by space since childhood, and that she always felt visiting the final frontier was possible.

"The door to space was opened to all women by Valentina Tereshkova," she said in a NASA interview.

Female astronauts have a lower threshold for space radiation than males

22 astronauts and Johnson Space Center's first female director, Carolyn Huntoon, met in the fall of 2012 to honour the late astronaut Sally Ride and her legacy. 

Seated (from left): Carolyn Huntoon, Ellen Baker, Mary Cleave, Rhea Seddon, Anna Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Ellen Ochoa, Sandy Magnus. 

Standing (from left): Jeanette Epps, Mary Ellen Weber, Marsha Ivins, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Bonnie Dunbar, Tammy Jernigan, Cady Coleman, Janet Kavandi, Serena Aunon, Kate Rubins, Stephanie Wilson, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, Megan McArthur, Karen Nyberg, Lisa Nowak 

Credit: NASA

Why are there more men than women in space? The answer might not be as straightforward as you first think.

According to physiological models used by NASA, female astronauts have a lower threshold for space radiation than their male counterparts, meaning opportunities for space exploration are more limited for them.

Radiation exposure from a long time spent in deep space or on the surface of certain planets is thought to cause an increase in the probability of developing cancer.

According to NASA, the added risk of a male developing cancer on a 1 000-day Mars mission lies somewhere between 1 percent and 19 percent.

The odds are worse for women. In fact, because of breasts and ovaries, the risk to female astronauts is nearly double the risk to males.

This means that while all astronauts are somewhat are limited in the missions they can fly, the limitations on female astronauts are far harsher.

The work of the ongoing EU Project SR2S ('Space Radiation Superconductive Shield') may change this.

Driven by the belief that technology can be sufficiently developed to allow both genders to withstand a long duration stay in space, SR2S aims to solve the issue of radiation protection for all astronauts within the next three years.

But how can the project deliver this level of protection to radiation? According to project organisers, the SR2S superconducting shield will provide an intense magnetic field, 3 000 times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field and will be confined around the space craft.

The magnetic fields will extend to about 10 metres in diameter and ionizing particles will be deflected away.

Project organisers say that shielding the astronauts from ionising radiation in this way is a prerequisite to realistically plan for exploration missions to Mars, Near Earth Asteroids (NEOs) or for setting on the Moon surface.

Speaking about the evolution of SR2S, Project leader Professor Roberto Battiston (seen in the video above) said, 'We believe we will succeed in this goal of solving the radiation protection issue.

In the last few months the international teams working at CERN have solved two major technical issues relevant to the superconducting magnets in space [...]

These developments open the way to larger and more effective space radiation shields and in turn facilitate deep space travel for female astronauts'.

Professor Battiston added, 'Researchers must focus on both genders in current and future studies. The next exploration challenges, deep space travel to Near Earth Asteroids (NEOs) and long duration stay on Mars and on the moon, require an effective way to actively shield astronauts.'

Female brain super sensitive to stress

Researchers studied the brains of male and female rats, focusing on two regions known to play a role in learning and stress: the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure located deep within the brain, senses stressful situations. The prefrontal cortex, in the front of the brain, is necessary for higher cognitive functions.

“These two structures are intimately connected to one another,” says Tracey Shors, a professor of psychology at Rutgers, who is lead author of the study reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. “Therefore, we examined whether they communicate with one another to influence learning after stress.”

The researchers exposed male and female rats to stress, and then presented them with an associative learning task. During training, the rats learned to associate one event with another that occurred later in time. They played a tone and later stimulated the rats’ eyelids to elicit a blink.

After the stimulus was taken away, most of the male rats responded to the tone by blinking on their own. Most of the females, however, did not blink in response to the tone, indicating that they had failed to learn that association. But the research also contained a neurological surprise.

When Shors and her colleagues disrupted the connections between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in some of the females, those females were able to learn the association.

“This wasn’t true for males,” says Shors. “So, males and females are using different brain structures to learn after stress. In other words, females can learn after stress if the prefrontal cortex can’t ‘talk’ to the amygdala.

From this, we conclude that males and females can use different brain circuits to learn after stressful life events.”

Shors says sex differences in the brain may explain why women are so sensitive to stress, and why they are more likely to suffer from stress-related diseases such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Given these data, maybe we should consider these gender differences when we design treatments for such disorders,” Shors adds.

More from Tracey Shors at Scientific American

IS Sex just an Illusion

The only difference between these two faces is their degree of contrast. Yet one appears female and the other male. That's because female faces tend to have more contrast between the eyes and mouth and the rest of the face than male faces.

Richard Russell, the Harvard University neuroscientist who created the illusion, has previously found that increasing the contrast in female faces makes them more attractive. Conversely, reducing contrast makes a male face easier on the eyes.

Visit the Visual Illusion of the Year (2009) Competition and see if you have won

Female(?) Robot asks for Directions

Robots are getting better at finding their way around unknown areas, and making their own maps as they explore. But robots lost in urban areas don't need to rely on their own faculties to get from place to place, German roboticists have shown.

Their mobile robot simply rolls up to any humans nearby and asks for directions. By using that strategy, their robot has become one of the first to be properly let loose in the real world, not just carefully controlled environments.

Martin Buss's team at the Technical University of Munich dumped their mobile robot outside the university and instructed it to find its way to the Marienplatz in the centre of Munich, some 1.5 kilometres away.