Scienza e torte al cioccolato

Sul New York Times di oggi viene intervistata Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Solving a Mystery of Life, Then Tackling a Real-Life Problem), premio Nobel per la medicina nel 1995.
63 anni, direttrice del Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology a Tubinga, ha organizzato una fondazione che porta il suo nome per aiutare le donne scienziate a non dover compiere la tragica scelta tra la ricerca e la famiglia.
La Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation è nata grazie a soldi della stessa Christiane e al contributo di Unesco-L’Oréal’s Women in Science Program.
Se non bastasse, Christiane è anche molto simpatica, ironica e ottima cuoca (soprattutto di torte al cioccolato).
Un paio di risposte sono davvero gustose.

Q. Did you foam last year when Lawrence Summers, then the president of Harvard, suggested that women were less likely to have “an intrinsic aptitude” for scientific careers?

A. He missed the point. In mathematics and science, there is no difference in the intelligence of men and women. The difference in genes between men and women is simply the Y chromosome, which has nothing to do with intelligence.

What troubles me is that some might think: “Well, if the president of Harvard says this, it must be true. He’s just being attacked because he said something politically incorrect.” What Summers said was scientifically incorrect.

(e a proposito di ricerca e libertà)
Another thing, we have since 1990 this Embryo Protection Law, which says that eggs are human beings from the time of fertilization. Cells in a Petri dish are considered the same as a full human!