Minds to admire.

Friday past, HaT had a section on Claudia Alexander because they’d obviously been watching the same tv show as me and been struck by the same scientist appearing in it too. To whit:

I saw this marvelously enthused woman on my television last night as one of the experts on the Voyage to the Planets series, talking about her time as project manager at JPL for the final stage of the Galileo space probe’s extended mission in the orbit of Jupiter, where additional orbits gathered information particularly about the moons Europa and Io after the primary mission had fulfilled its 2 year overview study of the Jovian system.

Reading tigtog’s rundown reminded me of some other women who’ve rocked my world lately.

First off, the SBS nature documentary that has had my family entranced, Inside Nature’s Giants, the 4th and final episode I watched with my kids today. It’s been a fantastic blend of filmed autopsy, location shooting, animated segments explaining anatomy and great scientists. My particular fave is the scientist who is the world’s expert on giant beasts and what makes them tick, Dr Joy Reidenberg.

About the whale dissection, Dr Reidenberg says:

“I am always awed by how magnificently large and streamlined whales are,” says Dr Joy Reidenberg, the comparative anatomist who oversaw the in situ dissection amid gales, driving rain and hail. Working against the effects of rapid decomposition and an advancing tide that threatened to engulf the whale, Reidenberg’s team had only a few hours to complete the dissection. “It’s a messy operation,” Reidenberg explains. “You have to dissect it from the inside out. At one point I crawled under the ribcage to get to the heart. All you could see were my boots sticking out.”

The team excised over 200 feet of guts, which were loaded onto dumper trucks and laid out on tarp sheets the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Other markers of the whale’s immensity included jaws weighing three tons each, a heart the size of a small car and a windpipe wide enough, says Reidenberg, “that I could actually wear it like a dress”.

From Inside Nature’s Giants: A gory attempt to disprove ‘intelligent design’ theories

Wednesday night I was lucky enough to encounter a mind to admire in the flesh as I sat in Erskineville Town Hall listening to Gloria Lemay explain why CPD is a crock and how babies mold, pelvises expand and women simply birth, given enough time, support, hydration and love. It was a profound moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life when Gloria said there is no such thing as CPD. I’m guessing many other women present will remember that too and use the knowledge they gained to improve their own births, and the births of other women.

Thanks, Gloria!

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