海角大神

Picture a scientist. Lab coat or safety goggles? Microscope or telescope? Wild hair or no hair?

I鈥檝e been picturing scientists a lot this week, thanks to a study in which researchers looked at 50 years of children drawing scientists.

About 3 in 10 students draw pictures of women. That鈥檚 good news, researcher David Miller says: It鈥檚 the it鈥檚 been in five decades.聽

In 1983, when Dr. Miller looked at about 5,000 children鈥檚 drawings done between 1967 to 1977, less than 1 percent of the students drew women. And all 28 of those artists were girls. Since then, 28 percent of children routinely draw women. The Draw-a-Scientist Test shows how stereotypes can change over time.

What鈥檚 changed? Not only are there more women working in STEM fields, they are also more visible, from efforts like to the women computer scientists and their allies who, after a computer security conference announced just one female speaker out of 22, planned an alternate conference .

Take . Katsuko Saruhashi was the first woman in Japan to earn a PhD in chemistry and studied radioactive fallout in the Pacific from US nuclear testing. (The Saruhashi Prize now is given to top natural scientists who are women.) NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson shot to such fame after 鈥淗idden Figures鈥� that toymaker Mattel modeled a doll after her. Marjory Stoneman Douglas is now also a household name, for tragic reasons, reviving interest in the conservationist鈥檚 work to save the Florida Everglades.

But my favorite picture is one I have not seen. 鈥淚 still find myself choking up when I show it,鈥� the BBC鈥檚 Quentin Cooper told . Students drew a picture, got to meet a real scientist, and then were asked to draw another picture. One girl鈥檚 first picture was a man in a lab coat. Her second was of a smiling woman holding a test tube.

The picture鈥檚 caption was one word: 鈥淢e.鈥�

Now, here are our five stories for today.