nanila: fulla starz (lolcat: science)
[personal profile] nanila2012-03-25 09:08 pm

Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock



Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a Nigerian-British space scientist and science communicator. She's worked in academia and industry, and she's on BBC Two right now, talking about the origins of space exploration in "In Orbit: How Satellites Rule...". Catch it on iPlayer if you're not watching it now!

+3 )
nanila: wrong side of the mirror (me: wrong side of the mirror)
[personal profile] nanila2011-10-03 10:48 am

Dr Wangari Maathai

This week’s theme is Female Nobel Laureates. Sadly, there are so few - and correspondingly even fewer of colour - that this really will only fill one week.

Dr Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work in Kenya. I learned of her death last week from [personal profile] ajnabieh’s entry about her, from which I extract this quote from Wangari Maathai’s 2008 Blackwell Award acceptance speech. The Blackwell Award is given by the Hobart and William Smith Colleges in honour of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman in America to receive the Doctor of Medicine degree, to a woman “whose life exemplifies outstanding service to humanity.” The list of awardees can be viewed here.

Planting trees can be politically dangerous )



+5 )
nanila: One of the members of Parkour Generation being awesome (exercise)
[personal profile] nanila2011-09-20 11:20 am

Farah Rangikoepa Palmer

Dr Farah Palmer, of Tainui descent, was the captain of New Zealand’s national rugby union women’s team, the Black Ferns, from 1997 to 2005. The team won the World Cup twice, in 2000 and 2005. During her captaincy, the Black Ferns lost only one test match. She is now a senior lecturer in sports management at Massey University.



+4 )
nanila: fulla starz (lolcat: science)
[personal profile] nanila2011-06-02 10:02 am

David Suzuki

Japanese-Canadian scientist, broadcaster and environmentalist. He is an ardent proponent for applying the concept of sustainability to the way that humans interact with the rest of nature.

“In the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again.”



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nanila: (old-skool: science!)
[personal profile] nanila2011-05-31 07:44 am

Simon Singh

Punjabi-British particle physicist turned successful science writer. I’ve seen him speak twice in public - once in a small venue where he discussed alternative medicine in the context of his book Trick or Treatment and once at a benefit for Bletchley Park where he gave an amusing introduction to cryptography. Smart, engaging and witty.



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nanila: (me: walk softly and carry big stick)
[personal profile] nanila2011-05-30 05:30 pm

Arundhati Roy

Booker Prize-winning Indian novelist, essayist and activist.

"And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside." -- from The God of Small Things

"Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." -- from War Talk


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nanila: (batou: them's fightin' words)
[personal profile] nanila2011-05-23 10:36 am

Maya Angelou

Poet, playwright and civil rights activist. "I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt."



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nanila: (old-skool: science!)
[personal profile] nanila2011-05-02 08:47 am

Jim Al-Khalili

Iraqi-British theoretical physicist and populariser of science.



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Shen Yao


Shen Yao, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii, 1938 - gelatin silver print (Source)

Via curate.