Random women who deserve to be noticed

[northland10]

Laura Netzel, Swedish composer born 1 March 1839.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Netzel

[Suranis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_355

Agent 355

355 (died after 1780) was the supposed code name of a female spy during the American Revolution who was part of the Culper Ring spy network. She was one of the first spies for the United States, but her real identity is unknown.[1] The number 355 could be decrypted from the system the Culper Ring used to mean "lady."[2] Her story is considered part of national myth, as there is very little evidence that 355 even existed,[3] although many continue to assert that she was a real historical figure.

Biography

The only direct reference to 355 in any of the Culper Ring's missives (1778–1780)[6] appears in a letter from Abraham Woodhull ("Samuel Culper Sr.") to General George Washington,[7] where Woodhull describes her as "one who hath been ever serviceable to this correspondence."[8]

While the true identity of 355 remains unknown, some facts about her seem clear. She worked with the American Patriots during the Revolutionary War as a spy, and was likely recruited by Woodhull into the spy ring.[1] The way the code is constructed indicates that she may have had "some degree of social prominence."[2] She was likely living in New York City at the time,[9] and at some point had contact with Major John André and Benedict Arnold.[10][11] One person who has been named as the possible identity of Agent 355 was Anna Strong, Woodhull's neighbor.[9] Strong allegedly helped the Culper Ring by signaling to its members the location of Caleb Brewster, who raided British shipments in his whaleboat around Long Island Sound after he was given a secure location by Strong.[6]

Another theory is that 355 may have been Robert Townsend's common-law wife. Stories about Townsend state that he was in love with 355. John Burke and Andrea Meyer have made a different case for 355's involvement in the spy ring, using circumstantial evidence that she may have been close to Major John André and also to Benjamin Tallmadge, thereby protecting Woodhull from accusations of being a spy.Other possible candidates for 355 include Sarah Horton Townsend and Elizabeth Burgin.

It is also occasionally believed that there was no Agent 355 at all, but rather that the code indicated a woman who had useful information but was not "formally connected to the ring." The code itself may have referred to "a woman", not an agent who was a woman.

355 is thought to have played a major role in exposing Arnold as a defector and in the arrest of André, who was hanged in Tappan, New York.[1] She may have been a member of a prominent Loyalist family, which would have put her within easy reach of British commanders.

The then pregnant 355 was arrested in 1780 when Benedict Arnold defected to the Loyalists.[8] She was imprisoned on HMS Jersey, a prison ship, where she may have given birth to a boy named Robert Townsend Jr.[1] She later died on the prison ship. However, Alexander Rose disagrees with this narrative, stating that "females were not kept aboard prison ships," and that "there's no record whatsoever of a birth." Strengthening the idea that Agent 355 may have been Anna Strong is the fact that Anna's husband, Selah Strong, was imprisoned on Jersey and she was supposedly allowed to bring him food. Her presence on the ship may have led to the legend that Agent 355 was herself imprisoned there.

Agent 355 has become a part of popular fiction.

[Suranis]

I'm reading this at the moment. Its about the Irish Servicewomen who left Ireland to serve with the British Army in World War One.



its a very dry book and the layout is pretty bad. But its still interesting.

Interestingly, the whole thing about Women serving in the war came about for very Practical reasons. Essentially, they realized that the specialized training needed to be signalers and telegraph people meant that large amounts of men were being kept away from the front. Also the Signillars who worked laying signal wire were bieng lost at a very high rate as it was dangerous work. So the idea of bringing in women who worked in the General Post Office came up. This rapidly snowballed into bringing in more low skill workers as well like cooks and cleaners.

This was not without resistance of course. The Army Chiefs insisted that The Womens Auxiliary Army Corps were NOT part of the army, even though the women received uniforms, and were expected to conform to military discipline and received military punishments. However attitudes changed fast. by the end of 1917 Women "officials" were being increasingly refereed to by their rank as opposed to "Maam" or "Miss", and saluting was becoming common.

The Women were very well paid. A cook or cleaner could expect to receive £18 a year in domestic service, but they got a minimum of £24 a year in the army for the same work. The top end of the scale for women with hundreds of Women under her authority received £500. They were in general extremely well treated. Their work was commended, Plus, women were from the start working on the most secret communications. Rumors of "fornication" and other illicit stuff were found to be false, as in general the women seem to have been very stoic in their behavior as were the men around them.

All in all the experience seems to have been very positive for the Women involved.

Of course, like the men, when they returned to Ireland their contributions were insulted by the general Irish population that preferred to forget that lots of Irishmen and Women went to fight and die for the British Army, and still stayed Irishmen, and their contribution was forgotten. While the women were never put into the Front line, some did die. They were torpedoed by U boats, bombed, and died through simple accidents.

I wish the book was easier to read, but its an interesting subject that I was never taught about. Recommended if you get a chance to read through it.

[Suranis]

NYC Water
·
Out of the Archives: It wasn’t so long ago that a woman in a tunnel was newsworthy, but geologist Diane Dennis’s routine presence inside City Water Tunnel No. 3 in the 1980s surprised many and landed her in the Daily News, the New Yorker, and DEP’s own newsletter. Among other important tasks, Diane was mapping rock types and formations along miles of blasted tunnel to reveal patterns in the rock, allowing DEP and contractors to anticipate excavation problems and drilling costs. Mapping also helps prevent accidents by identifying weak rock that is more liable to collapse. In 1987, Diane noted, “One problem with being the only girl is that you can't do anything without everybody knowing." Her visibility, though, contributed to the normalization of women working in historically male spaces.

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[Suranis]

Vet Radio Syndicate

The highest ranking female officer in the US Army is General Laura Richardson, who is currently in command of Southern Command. She joined the Army in 1986, and has 37 years of service.

She is from Kansas City, Missouri and is 60 years old. She earned a Combat Action Badge while serving with the 101st Airborne while serving in Iraq. As today is Woman's Day, let us celebrate our female warriors.

Hand salute Ma'am.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

I luvs this thread!!!!!!

[Suranis]

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A Mighty Girl

While her mother is a household name, few people know the story of Irène Joliot-Curie, the daughter of Marie Curie and the winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. To read about Joliot-Curie's groundbreaking discovery of artificial radioactivity, which helped transform medicine and save millions of lives through cancer treatment, visit https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=24756

For a fascinating book about both Irène Curie and the pioneering physicist Lise Meitner, we highly recommend “Radioactive!: How Irene Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World," for ages 10 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/radioactive-curie-meitner

Adult readers can learn more about Irène Curie and her mother, Marie Curie, in the excellent book, "Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science's First Family" at http://amzn.to/1MuzjyP

Irène Joliot-Curie and her mother are also featured in a book of poems about famous women and their daughters for ages 12 and up, "Borrowed Names" at https://www.amightygirl.com/borrowed-names

You can also find many books, posters, and toys featuring Marie Curie for children and teens in our "Marie Curie Collection" at http://amgrl.co/1MhMhPV

And for one of our favorite toys to get kids excited about chemistry from a young age, check out this colorful set of Periodic Table Building Blocks at https://www.amightygirl.com/periodic-ta ... ing-blocks See less

[Suranis]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/inte ... n-everett/

International Space Station Program Deputy Chief Scientist Meghan Everett
The headshot image of Michelle Zajac
Michelle Zajac
Mar 25, 2024

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Meghan Everett, wearing dark dress pants and a light-colored blouse with buttons and a ruffled collar, smiles at the camera as she sits at the edge of one of the International Space Station modules inside the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The edges of the module mockup are blue, with a yellow and black striped warning strip present on the step where Meghan is sitting. Blue handrails are present on both sides of the module mockup, and a wide variety of labels are visible on all of the module mockup surfaces within.

“Don’t be afraid to go after the things that you’re dreaming about that aren’t necessarily possible right now. We do things all the time now that were impossible 10 years ago! Figure out how to make the impossible possible, if it’s what you want to do.

“One of my cornerstone pinnacles [is], ‘Show up to work [and] life with integrity and intent.’ So, accomplish your goals with integrity, intent, and a mission. Stick to that and have the confidence to do that, and be OK with messing up and failing, and have fun with those things.

“And if you are not doing something that you love, and you’re not having fun, then think about what those things are and go towards that.”

— Meghan Everett, International Space Station Program Deputy Chief Scientist, NASA’s Johnson Space Center

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

[RTH10260]

"Quanta spoke with Blum about her path into mathematics, how to help women succeed in the field, and what computer science can tell us about consciousness. The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity."

The ‘Accidental Activist’ Who Changed the Face of Mathematics
Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind.

Ben Brubaker Staff Writer
January 3, 2024

Introduction

Lenore Blum’s long career has spanned the breadth of mathematics and computer science. She’s done influential work in logic and cryptography, and she formulated an entirely new model of computation. And though she didn’t set out to do so, she’s also devoted a significant chunk of her time to building institutions to help women follow in her footsteps.

“I had never wanted to think of myself as a woman mathematician,” she said. “But I started realizing I had a role to play.”

Her personal life, too, has led her to unexpected places. Born in New York City in 1942, Blum moved to Caracas, Venezuela, at the age of 9 when her father went into business with a relative. There she met Manuel Blum, who would become her husband of 62 years and a pioneering computer scientist himself. In Caracas, Blum also discovered the other great love of her life, mathematics.

After overcoming many obstacles, she made her way to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, she specialized in a branch of logic called model theory, which analyzes the common features of different mathematical theories derived from the same underlying assumptions. Blum received her doctorate at age 25 for developing a new way to apply this high-level perspective to mathematical structures called algebraic field theories.

Upon graduating, Blum received a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship, but she soon found the path to a traditional academic career closed off to female mathematicians. That’s when she first got involved in advocacy. She played a leading role in founding the Association for Women in Mathematics and went on to establish many influential programs for supporting women students.

But she never lost sight of mathematics and the nascent field of computer science. In the 1980s, Blum began to work with the mathematicians Stephen Smale and Michael Shub to develop a formal theory of computation using continuous real numbers instead of zeros and ones.



https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-acci ... -20240103/

[Suranis]

https://www.beat102103.com/news/belfast ... ut-1151955

Belfast-born woman becomes UK's newest astronaut
Rosemary Coogan, © PA Media
Beat News April 22, 2024 11:26 AM



A Belfast-born woman has gained her astronaut wings, graduating from space training as a new European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut.

After completing one year of rigorous basic astronaut training, Rosemary Coogan, along with Sophie Adenot, Pablo Alvarez Fernandez, Raphael Liegeois, Marco Sieber and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg received astronaut certification.

After receiving the certification at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, the astronauts have become eligible for spaceflight.

An astrophysicist with two master’s degrees from Durham University and an astronomy doctorate from Sussex, Ms Coogan was selected to join the Esa’s astronaut training programme in 2022, after beating more than 22,500 applicants.

She will become the UK’s third astronaut, following Helen Sharman, who became the first Briton in space in 1989, and Tim Peake, who went to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2015.

Basic astronaut training involved honing skills in spacecraft systems, spacewalking, flight engineering, robotics and life support systems, as well as survival and medical training.

They will now move on to the phases of pre-assignment and mission-specific training, paving the way for future missions to the ISS and beyond.

Speaking at the graduation, Ms Coogan said it had been a “long-standing” dream of hers to become an astronaut.

She added: “We are often asked, I think all of us have been asked ‘When was the moment you decided that you wanted to become an astronaut? When was the moment you decided you wanted to do it?’.

“And I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself, and for a lot of us, it really has been something that has always been in our heads.

“Perhaps if we didn’t always know exactly where it was going to lead, exactly how it was going to come to this stage, I personally have always been fascinated in space.

“And now to find out that, as an astronaut, you can go there, and you can do this fantastic science and bring that back, it’s everything come together as a dream.”

Welcome to 'The Hoppers'
https://t.co/AXNJLvlGOr
pic.twitter.com/xyS0BcDWvf

— European Space Agency (@esa) April 22, 2024

The astronaut class of 2022 has been dubbed the Hoppers, being given the name from their predecessors – the Shenanigans of Esa’s 2009 class.

The UK Space Agency’s head of space exploration, Libby Jackson, said: “It is absolutely fantastic to see British astronauts a part of the European Space Agency programme.

“We’re a very proud contributor to the European Space Agency, and a strong contributor to the overall human and robotic missions.

“Astronauts are the very visible part of the whole space sector.

“So it’s really important for the UK that our astronauts – Rosemary, John and Meg – they are champions not just for human spaceflight, but for everything that goes on in the UK across space.”

Former Paralympian John McFall is part of a feasibility study to see if he can fly as a disabled astronaut, while Meganne Christian is a reserve astronaut who could join the programme if someone else drops out.

For now, all five new European astronauts will be assigned for missions to the International Space Station to carry out scientific experiments.

Until being assigned to their space flight mission and advancing to the next training phases, they will take part in operational tasks within Esa.

They will also undergo refresher training sessions, maintain physical fitness, participate in public relations efforts, and contribute to education and outreach activities.

NI Space, which supports the development of the regional cluster, said Ms Coogan’s graduation is a “truly momentous occasion for the space sector in Northern Ireland”.

Robert Hill, space adviser and cluster manager at NI Space, said they hope Ms Coogan’s appointment will encourage more future astronauts from the region.

“Northern Ireland is quickly becoming a global leader in the sector and has been involved in a number of high-profile projects recently, including the James Webb Space Telescope, and to have Rosemary representing Northern Ireland as our first-ever astronaut is the icing on top of the cake,” he said.

“With rapid expansions in science and technology that enable us to explore more of our universe, there has never been a more exciting time to be part of the space sector.

“We hope that Rosemary’s appointment to the ESA will inspire more and more young people in Northern Ireland to consider a career in the industry, which provides endless opportunities.

“We’re really looking forward to following Rosemary’s journey and will be cheering her on during her first mission.”

Reporting by Nina Massey, PA Science Correspondent

[AndyinPA]

[John Thomas8]

Rebecca Roberts:



Sian Anderson: