Males are waste to Wolbachia. These tiny bacteria live inside the cells of many different kinds of insects, and as their hosts reproduce the Wolbachia can hitch a ride from generation to generation. But Wolbachia are only transmitted in the female’s egg cells; sperm are much too small to fit any bacteria inside. This means that for Wolbachia, males are a dead end, unable to transfer any bacteria on to the next generation. To maximize…

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…

Scientists at NASA want to create a super-cold freezing chamber for normal reasons that have nothing to do with the rumored escapees from Arkham Asylum last night. "Thompson says that he and his team of NASA scientists intend to lower temperatures in the lab to 100-pico-Kelvin, or  just “one ten billionth of a degreeabove absolute zero,” the temperature at which it is theorized, that thermal activity of all atoms ceases. The researchers theorize that when…

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…

A famous author once said, “Any sufficiently opaque science fiction narrative is indistinguishable from a Christ allegory.” (Or something along those lines.) We should expect any movie set in low earth orbit to at least consider why we don’t see any dudes with harps perched on clouds. Science fiction draws theological metaphor to it like ravenous bug aliens to abandoned space stations, but reviewers and critics tend to avoid discussing the spiritual roots of a…

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…

Some beasts were meant to have eyes; some were not. Starfish, which already operate in that terrifying and nebulous shadow world of animals who behave like plants (oddly enough, these are more frightening than plants that behave like animals), were not meant to. A starfish is a mouth wrapped in a hand. A starfish is a waking nightmare that moves by hydraulics. They are already sentient, living hands with a mouth at the center that spend their…

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…

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: Get Some Sleep. Many times in my life, beginning very early but increasing exponentially after I became a psychology major in college, I have…

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: How to Build a Galaxy and Fight an Army. Hi, Toast! As a brief instroduction, my own research is focused in the areas of…

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: Parasite Tales for Every Occasion. This column is sponsored by the author herself, who nicely waived her fee. It was an epic battle.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. An all-woman team of spelunking scientists has retrieved hundreds of fossils from a 100-foot-deep (30-meter-deep) cave in South Africa — including the cranium from what appears to be a prehistoric humanlike creature. Yes. Yes. Of course that is what today needed; an entirely female team of cavers to fling themselves into the steaming, black corners of the earth and retrieve the bones of our ancestors, clawing…