Tag: Meet a Scientist (Page 4 of 5)

Meet a Scientist Website

If your child is interested in becoming a scientist, then she or he should check out the I Want to be an ‘ologist page at the Natural History Museum. Learn about a paleontologist (Andy Ross), an entomologist (Zoe Adams), a mineralogist (Mike Rumsey), a zoologist (Miranda Lowe) and a botanist (Mark Spencer).

Wow, I wish I had been able to see information like this when I was a kid. Although if I had read the one about the entomologist I might never have become one 🙂

If you don’t see the ‘ologist your child is interested in, leave me a comment and I’ll try to find you someone appropriate.

Meet a Scientist Monday: Anna Botsford Comstock

Anna Botsford Comstock was a literal pioneer, born in a log cabin in western New York State in 1854. She was also a pioneer in many other ways. She was one of the first female students at Cornell University, starting in November of 1874. She was one of the first four women to be inducted by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society founded in 1886. Eventually she became the first woman Professor at Cornell University, in Nature Studies.

Why did I choose Anna Botsford Comstock this week? Actually it is a personal story. I was introduced to Anna while I was a graduate student at Cornell University. The entomology building that I worked in was named after her and her husband, entomology professor John Henry Comstock. The fact her name was included on the building intrigued me and I wanted to find out more about her. Not many college campus buildings in that area are named after women. I later found out that a dorm at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is also named after her.

Anna had many talents. She was an artist. Early in her career she learned wood engraving and she illustrated many of her husband’s entomology textbooks. Her work was exhibited at the 1893 Exposition of U.S. Women Painters and is still cited by scientific illustrators today. She also was interested in literature and poetry, and wrote a novel that sold well. In addition to writing, and scientific illustration, she was an editor, a teacher and as well as arguably, a scientist. Her thesis for her Bachelor of Science degree was on “The Fine Anatomy of the Interior of the Larvae of Corydalus cornutus.” She eventually became part of the Nature Study Movement, and wrote and taught about natural history.

As I discovered more and more about Anna Botsford Comstock, I began to realize what a special person she was. She had a positive impact on many of the people who met her, and also on the generations that followed. For example, in her biography of Rachel Carson, author Linda Lear reveals Rachel Carson’s mother had read Anna Comstock’s nature writings. She then passed her interest to her daughter Rachel, who went on to write the highly influential book, Silent Spring.

Anna Botsford Comstock’s most monumental book, Handbook of Nature Study, was self-published in 1911 because no publisher was interested in a 938-page book on nature study. Ironically, the book no one would publish is still in press and still popular. It has gone through 24 editions and has been translated into 8 languages. Anna’s work led her to be called “the mother of the nature study movement” and to be inducted into the National Wildlife Federations’ Conservation Hall of Fame. Visit the Handbook of Nature Study Blog to see how people are still using and enjoying her work today.

Relevant Readings

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

Trees At Leisure (1916) by Anna Botsford Comstock
This one of Anna’s personal favorites.

Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature by Linda Lear

Meet a Scientist Monday: Barbara McClintock

After a few posts about science in the garden, have you wondered whether any scientists have made discoveries using gardens or garden plants? The answer is that a whole “field’ of science (sorry ☺) was discovered in a garden and it is still progressing due to work on garden plants.

You’ve probably heard that the science of genetics was born in a monastery garden in the 1860’s. Gregor Mendel was a monk who carefully worked out genetic inheritance by growing garden pea plants. He work was ignored for about 30 years, until a few other scientists came up with the same ideas and rediscovered the importance of Mendel’s experiments.

In an interesting parallel, a woman named Barbara McClintock was born about the same time as Mendel’s work was being rediscovered, in 1902. As a child, Barbara liked playing sports and spent a lot of time outdoors. By the time she was a teenager she discovered she liked learning new things and decided to go to college. At the time women were not always encouraged to go to college, but she was determined to go. She went to Cornell University without even having enrolled, and they let her in.

Barbara liked Cornell and studying science so much she stayed on as a graduate student, getting her PhD in botany. She studied the genetics of corn plants. She studied what the clumps of DNA called chromosomes looked like in corn plant cells, years before scientists discovered what DNA was and how it worked. She also went out to the field and planted the corn, so she knew each plant and where it came from. When she worked in the corn field she wore “knickers” she had specially made, at a time when most women only wore dresses.

Barbara_McClintock_(1902-1992)(Acc. 90-105 – Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s, Smithsonian Institution Archives Persistent URL:Link to data base record Repository:Smithsonian Institution Archives View more collections from the Smithsonian Institution.)

After graduating, eventually she got a job as an assistant professor at the University of Missouri. Her job only lasted a few years because she didn’t always follow the rules and did unusual things. Once when she realized she had forgotten her keys and found her work building was locked, she climbed up the front and crawled through a window. Assistant professors were not supposed to climb buildings.

Finally Barbara found a position at a research laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. There she spent many years growing corn and studying corn genetics. Soon she realized that the corn seeds were not coming out in the colors expected based on simple genetics. Interested in finding out why, Barbara worked hard and came up with an answer. The only problem was that the answer was that the genes were jumping from place to place. Because her answer was so different from what anyone expected, many other scientists didn’t understand or didn’t believe her. Her work was kind of like Mendel’s, ignored and forgotten by and large.

The good news is that Barbara persisted and finally people did begin to understand what she had discovered. In fact, scientists were so impressed with her work that in 1983 she was given the Noble Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

So you see, studying plants in a garden can lead to great things.

For more information:
The National Library of Medicine has files of Barbara McClintock’s actual papers/correspondence and photos under The Barbara McClintock Papers.

Books: (Covers and titles are affiliate links to Amazon)

Barbara McClintock: Genius of Genetics (Great Minds of Science) by Naomi E. Pasachoff

Barbara McClintock: Pioneering Geneticist (Makers of Modern Science) by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser

Barbara McClintock: Pioneering Geneticist (Unlocking the Secrets of Science) by Kathleen Tracy


Books for adults:
A Feeling for the Organism, 10th Aniversary Edition: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock by Evelyn Fox Keller

I read this book as a graduate student and remember it had a large impact on me. Now I recently re-read it and see that it has some flaws, but is still interesting reading.


For another viewpoint, try: The Tangled Field: Barbara McClintock’s Search for the Patterns of Genetic Control by Nathaniel C. Comfort


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