Nettie Stevens
Nettie Maria Stevens was born in 1861 in Cavendish,Vermont. She was an American biologist and geneticist, whose research proved that chromosomes determine the sex of an organism. She completed in only two years the four-year course at Westfield Normal School in Massachusetts. Nettie graduated with the highest academic scores in her class. She recieved her B.A. in 1899 and her M.A. in 1900 at Stanford.
Nettie studied Tenebrio molitor beetles and found that unfertilized eggs in female beetles always contain an X chromosome. Sperm from male beetles contain either an X chromosome or a Y chromosome. She found that eggs fertilized by sperm carrying the X chromosome produce female beetles. The combination of egg and Y-chromosome sperm produce male beetles.
Edmund Beecher Wilson, a biologist from Columbia University in New York City, made this same discovery at about the same time as Nettie. Nettie also established that chromosomes exist as paired structures in body cells.
Nettie Stevens was not credited very well for her discovery. Instead, someone else was given the credit even though Nettie had done all of the work.
Nettie gained notoriety after her death in 1912, from Thomas Hunt Morgan. He stated:
Modern cytological work involves an intricacy of detail, the significance of which can be appreciated by the specialist alone; but Miss Stevens had a shre in a discovery of importance, and her name will be remembered for this, when the minutiae of detailed investigations that she carried out have become incorporated in the general body of the subject.
Rebecca Skloot has done a marvelous job telling the story of Henrietta Lacks; the woman who changed science!
It was her cells that became what is known as HELA cells or immortal cells. Her story is interesting to me because of her impact on the science community. Her cells allowed scientist to perform
Rosalind Franklin: Seeing a woman as a scientist during this time is somewhat rare, so the fact that she has taken up this profession show that she is persistent, dedicated, and smart. The only problem is that she is undervalued because of her gender. She is also very quiet and reserved because she’s in a different country.
..., the name of Henrietta Lacks needs to be introduced to the world since she is the woman who generated HeLa cells, because the name of the person who generated HeLa cells is still unknown. By doing this, her family will be honored and respected by others.
Thaddeus Stevens was a congressman from Pennsylvania who was a member of the House of Representatives during of the time of the Civil War and Reconstruction. He was the leader of a radical wing of the Republican Party called the Radical Republicans. Stevens was one of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives who focused much of his political life on civil rights. He believed in equality for all men whether they were rich or poor, no matter what color their skin. Stevens was instrumental in drafting the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which was meant to protect the civil right of all Americans regardless of their race or gender. He was nicknamed the “Great Commoner” because he championed the plight of the everyday man. Stevens also advocated very harsh policies toward the southern states during the time of Reconstruction. Even though many of his ideas were controversial, he was regarded as a very important national figure during and immediately following the Civil War.
Susan Smith could have been a normal woman. If you passed her on the streets you wouldn’t know that she would turn out to be a killer. Susan had a secret though, a deadly secret. Susan Smith was a cold, calculating killer, capable of murder in cold blood. I believe Susan had many factors contributing to the state of mind she had before the murder of her two sons, like her traumatizing childhood and the many dysfunctional relationships she had.
Prior to the successful cultivation of HeLa cells, failure was met with every attempt to grow cells in culture. This roadblock became the focused work of Dr. George Gey of Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins served most of the impoverished black community seeking care in the immediate Maryland area. This provided a goldmine for medical research that was justified by its “generosity” and Samaritan charter. Henrietta Lacks decision to seek care for her cervical cancer unknowingly designated her as arguably the single greatest contribution to science and medicine. After the realization that human cells had finally been successfully harvested and reproduced, Dr. Gey immediately distributed the cells and his methodology to anyone who asked. As the explosion of research on HeLa cells swept across the scientific community many of Dr. Gey's colleagues urged him to publish or patent cells to take credit for his for work but his dedication to the work rather than the credit prevented him from doing much publishing if any at all. The implica...
African American Contributions in Science Throughout American history, many African Americans have been overlooked in the field of science. Some powerful minds and great inventors haven’t been re-introduced to new generations. African Americans have contributed a great deal to the advancements of our country and one of the major fields they have made contributions to is in the field of science. Many successful African Americans have been overshadowed by their Caucasian counterparts.
He entitled his findings English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (Galton, 1874). He also pioneered the use of twin studies. He would survey sets of twins, which resulted in findings that supported his theory of heredity. Galton found that the twins he surveyed showed many similarities, even if their environments had been very different for a long period of time. Twin studies are still used today to study the effects of nature versus nurture (Goodwin, 2012, p. 153-154).
People running around with underwear on their head, a fake suicide over the Niagara Falls, forest rangers who are positive they seen Bigfoot, and sheriffs who make x-rated videos on a rented video camera and forget to take the tape out. These are some of the wacky stories Krista Bradford experiences during her career as an anchor on tabloid television. She tries to convince the reader that TV tabloids are trashy in the article “The Big Sleaze published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1993.
He was also the first to take a nucleus from a fully contrast tadpole intestinal
George Cooper Stevens was born in Oakland California on December 18, 1904. His parents were Landers Stevens and Georgia Cooper who at the time had their own theatrical company called Ye Liberty Playhouse based out of Oakland. In 1922 his parents decided to make a change and move their family to Glendale California, leaving behind their company of live theater to find work in the movie industry. After moving, his parents were able to find little parts in low budget films getting their feet wet in the movie industry. George was inspired at a young age and growing up in a family where theater was there lively hood he left behind his education to pursue a career in film. George at age 17 got a job as an assistant cameraman at the Hal Roach studios. After two years of learning and shooting low budget western films he became a director of photography. After some time Stevens had his first credited film at Roach Studios called Roughest Africa (1923) (Hopwood, 2014). Later on in life he took all the knowledge he had learned and spent over a year editing his film Shane. His films were popular and in the late 1930’s as he became his own producer/ director. He had also enlisted in the army and with his own 16mm camera filmed many famous events such as the Normandy Landings, the liberation of Paris and of the liberation of Nazi extermination camp Dachau. It was said that the post war films he made when he returned had a “somber and deeply personal tone” (Hopwood, 2014) and many think this was a result of the terrible things he saw while overseas.
When most people think of the Scientific Revolution, they think of scientists such as Galileo, Newton, Brahe, and Boyle. However, many people do not even know about the many women who played a vital role in the scientific advancements of this period. Even when these women were alive, most of society either ignored them or publicly disapproved their unladylike behavior. Because of this, these women were often forgotten from history, and very little is known about the majority of them. Although their names rarely appear in history books, the female scientists of the Scientific Revolution still impacted the world of science in several ways. In fact, all of the scientists listed above had a woman playing an influential role assisting them in their research. However, assisting men in their studies was not the only role open to women; several women performed experimentation and research on their own, or advancing science in some other way, even though the society of the time looked down upon and even resisted their studies.
Nettie Stevens was an American women who was born in Vermont on July 7th, 1861. Her mother died when she was only two years old. Her father remarried and the family moved to Westford, Massachusetts. Growing up as a women during this time it was hard to get education. Nettie’s father was a carpenter and was able to afford giving his children the opportunity to go to school. Stevens was a very bright student. She attended a Westford Academy where she graduated 2 years before her graduating classmates. She became a teacher and supervisor but wanted to further her education.
Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey. Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT, 1988. Print.