As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: Stop Being Terrified of Chemicals.

Some people consider losing one’s V-card to be a huge life-changing deal, while others find

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As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: Why Are There So Few Female Scientists? There's soap in your mayonnaise! As a scientist with a degree in chemistry, the surge…

Women are massively under-represented in physics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects, at all levels, firstly I will explain why this matters, then I will discuss what we can do about it. What's the problem? In the UK, female students made up about 20% of all those studying A-level physics (a qualification which is needed for most university level physics courses.) More worryingly, almost half of schools have no female students who continue to study…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: On Dry Ground and in Floods. When I was sixteen, my parents were still able to convince me to attend “Bring…

What looked like a slurry of chocolate milk was pouring through the tunnel under a road near my home in Boulder, Colorado. This was on September 12, 2013. A couple of days earlier, this tunnel contained a dry creek bed, a bike path, a few shady characters and a strong smell of pot. My dog and I regularly walk through it en route to a park on the Rocky Mountain foothills. But on September 12…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: The Little Blind Bookworm in Your Brain.

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Interpreting a research study can be daunting, and no matter how involved…

Preface: The Amedi lab, whose 2012 work I'm profiling here, struck again just last week with a similar finding about the extrastriate body area. I hope, if you have already been struck with fresh wonder by their latest, that this post serves to deepen your interest. Kind of like when I discovered RuPaul's Drag Race in its second season, and quivered with anticipation when I realized there was a whole first season that was still…

It’s four-thirty am, and everything is dark and quiet in the Sunshine State. The people here won’t wake until the rays hit their faces, reminding them to play their morning round of golf. I jot down Google Maps’ perilous journey in my Rite-in-the-Rain field notebook, and set off. My road companions are 18-wheelers shipping cargo, giants next to my small white rental sedan. In the darkness, their headlights are my only reassurance that I’m not…

I do Bad Mommy science. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. I am a doctoral student in epidemiology and biostatistics, and my particular area of research is in reproductive and perinatal pharmacoepidemiology. This means that I study medication use in pregnancy and its possible effects on both the mother and her children. I’m especially interested in medications that affect the central nervous system, like psychiatric meds and some pain medications, and their possible effects on…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: On the Honeybee and Her Friends and Relations. It’s a question I get asked with great frequency. Sometimes, it’s a question…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: Let's All Panic About Antibiotic Resistance! Honeybees have the best PR. Starting in kindergarten we learn to have a warm feeling about…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: Lava Flows and Glass. For the past six years, I’ve been working on my doctorate, which focuses in part on the immune…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: In Which We Learn About Endosymbiosis. For most of my dissertation, I spent easily half of my work hours staring down a microscope with…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: The Drop-Off. Ed. note: This one is a little butcher and more science-y, but I feel like I learned a lot! And there are…

As The Toast searches for its one true Gal Scientist, we will be running a ton of wonderful one-off pieces by female scientists of all shapes and sizes and fields and education levels, which we are sure you will enjoy. They’ll live here, so you can always find them. Most recently: Why We Study. “You know about the drop-off between women who get PhDs and women who become faculty, right?” It was my first interview…