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COLLEAGUES were recently racking their brains to remember the names of women whose contribution to science has been forgotten – as has happened to Marthe Gautier (see "Who really decoded Down's syndrome?"). Conversation turned to reasons why girls might be discouraged from becoming scientists and, bang on cue, an article appeared, entitled "Barbie could dampen a young girl's career dreams", about a paper concluding just that – see doi.org/r2f.
So who played with Barbies, yet still reached the exalted heights of working at New Scientist? A hand went up: "I mummified my Barbies at the age of 11 using a combination of spices and oils I made up out of thin air after my class learned about the Egyptians," one of us confessed. "My mother found the mouldering mess in the ...
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