Lab Girl

National Bestseller Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography A New York Times Notable Book Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist. In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father’s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform lab work “with both the heart and the hands.” She introduces us to Bill, her brilliant, eccentric lab manager. And she extends the mantle of scientist to each one of her readers, inviting us to join her in observing and protecting our environment. Warm, luminous, compulsively readable, Lab Girl vividly demonstrates the mountains that we can move when love and work come together. Winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Film Prize for Excellence in Science Books Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, TIME.com, NPR, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews

From the bestselling author of Lab Girl comes a slim, urgent missive on the defining issue of our time: here is Hope Jahren on climate change, our timeless pursuit of more, and how the same human ambition that got us here can also be our salvation. Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. The Story of More is her impassioned open letter to humanity as we stand at the crossroads of survival and extinction. Jahren celebrates the long history of our enterprising spirit--which has tamed wild crops, cured diseases, and sent us to the moon--but also shows how that spirit has created excesses that are quickly warming our planet to dangerous levels. In short, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions--from electric power to large-scale farming and automobiles--that, even as they help us, release untenable amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. She explains the current and projected consequences of greenhouse gases--from superstorms to rising sea levels--and shares the science-based tools that could help us fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of warming and a capsule history of human development, The Story of More illuminates the link between our consumption habits and our endangered earth. It is the essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it.

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a long-time collaboration, in work and in life; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see and think about the natural world. Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book might have been a revelatory treatise on plant life. Lab Girl is that, but it is also so much more. Because in it, Jahren also shares with us her inspiring life story, in prose that takes your breath away. Lab Girl is a book about work, about love, and about the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren's remarkable stories: about the things she's discovered in her lab, as well as how she got there; about her childhood--hours of unfettered play in her father's laboratory; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work "with both the heart and the hands"; about a brilliant and wounded man named Bill, who became her loyal colleague and best friend; about their adventurous, sometimes rogue research trips, which take them from the Midwest all across the United States and over the Atlantic, from the ever-light skies of the North Pole to tropical Hawaii; and about her constant striving to do and be the best she could, never allowing personal or professional obstacles to cloud her dedication to her work. Jahren's insights on nature enliven every page of this book. Lab Girl allows us to see with clear eyes the beautiful, sophisticated mechanisms within every leaf, blade of grass, and flower petal, and also the power within ourselves to face--with bravery and conviction--life's ultimate challenge: discovering who you are.

A “beautifully written” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) memoir-manifesto from the first female director of the National Science Foundation about the entrenched sexism in science, the elaborate detours women have take to bypass the problem, and how to fix the system. If you think sexism thrives only on Wall Street or Hollywood, you haven’t visited a lab, a science department, a research foundation, or a biotech firm. Rita Colwell is one of the top scientists in America: the groundbreaking microbiologist who discovered how cholera survives between epidemics and the former head of the National Science Foundation. But when she first applied for a graduate fellowship in bacteriology, she was told, “We don’t waste fellowships on women.” A lack of support from some male superiors would lead her to change her area of study six times before completing her PhD. A Lab of One’s Own is an “engaging” (Booklist) book that documents all Colwell has seen and heard over her six decades in science, from sexual harassment in the lab to obscure systems blocking women from leading professional organizations or publishing their work. Along the way, she encounters other women pushing back against the status quo, including a group at MIT who revolt when they discover their labs are a fraction of the size of their male colleagues. Resistance gave female scientists special gifts: forced to change specialties so many times, they came to see things in a more interdisciplinary way, which turned out to be key to making new discoveries in the 20th and 21st centuries. Colwell would also witness the advances that could be made when men and women worked together—often under her direction, such as when she headed a team that helped to uncover the source of anthrax used in the 2001 letter attacks. A Lab of One’s Own is “an inspiring read for women embarking on a career or experiencing career challenges” (Library Journal, starred review) that shares the sheer joy a scientist feels when moving toward a breakthrough, and the thrill of uncovering a whole new generation of female pioneers. It is the science book for the #MeToo era, offering an astute diagnosis of how to fix the problem of sexism in science—and a celebration of women pushing back.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren | Summary & Analysis Preview: In her memoir Lab Girl, Hope Jahren describes the life she’s lived and the knowledge she’s learned as a scientist trying to find her way in the world. Focusing mostly on a period of professional development that stretches from 1997 to 2008, the bulk of the narrative follows Jahren from her first appointment as a professor in Atlanta to her current job at the University of Hawaii. Navigating personal and professional challenges including bipolar disorder, meager budgets, and sexist work environments, Jahren and her eccentric lab manager, Bill, learn a lot about themselves, each other, and the mysterious lives of plants. Growing up in Minnesota, Hope feels starved for human connection. Her parents and her three older brothers are quiet, distant, and seemingly emotionless. The only sure love in her life is the feeling she experiences in her father’s laboratory, a place where she feels happy and curious… PLEASE NOTE: This is summary and analysis of the book and NOT the original book. Inside this Instaread Summary of Lab Girl Summary of the Book Important People Character Analysis Analysis of the Themes and Author’s Style About the Author With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways, summary and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Many extraordinary female scientists, doctors, and engineers tasted independence and responsibility for the first time during the First World War. How did this happen? Patricia Fara reveals how suffragists, such as Virginia Woolf's sister, Ray Strachey, had already aligned themselves with scientific and technological progress, and that during the dark years of war they mobilized women to enter conventionally male domains such as science and medicine. Fara tells the stories of women such as: mental health pioneer Isabel Emslie, chemist Martha Whiteley, a co-inventor of tear gas, and botanist Helen Gwynne Vaughan. Women were now carrying out vital research in many aspects of science, but could it last? Though suffragist Millicent Fawcett declared triumphantly that 'the war revolutionised the industrial position of women. It found them serfs, and left them free', the outcome was very different. Although women had helped the country to victory and won the vote for those over thirty, they had lost the battle for equality. Men returning from the Front reclaimed their jobs, and conventional hierarchies were re-established even though the nation now knew that women were fully capable of performing work traditionally reserved for men. Fara examines how the bravery of these pioneer women scientists, temporarily allowed into a closed world before the door clanged shut again, paved the way for today's women scientists. Yet, inherited prejudices continue to limit women's scientific opportunities.

From an engineer and entrepreneur, a conversation-changing parenting book about how to engage young women in science, technology, engineering, and math, filled with practical advice for both parents and educators. As the female CEO of a tech startup, Dr. Cristal Glangchai was outnumbered twenty to one. At Google, Twitter, and Facebook, women currently fill just ten to twenty percent of technical jobs. While career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math have increased dramatically in the past twenty years, the achievement gap between men and women has only grown wider. In VentureGirls, Glangchai offers a unique solution based on her own experience as an engineer and entrepreneur as well as the founder of the VentureLab, an academy of entrepreneurship and technology for girls. Practical, accessible, and filled with success stories, VentureGirls argues that a key part of raising strong, confident young women is giving them the tools of entrepreneurship to engage in STEM. Entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting companies, Glangchai writes, it is a skillset and a way of thinking that is particularly useful in the fields of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Entrepreneurship involves identifying needs, brainstorming creative solutions, innovating, and taking calculated risks. In short, it’s about having a vision and making it a reality. The true value in learning and practicing entrepreneurship, Glangchai argues, lies in nurturing and growing an overall mindset—the ability to learn from failure and to work well with others to bring your ideas to life. Deeply informative, warm, and grounded in real-world experience, VentureGirls includes a plethora of activities and lessons that focus on strengthening kids’ ingenuity and resilience. VentureGirls is essential reading for anyone who wants to raise girls and young women who realize their strength, engage in the world, and feel empowered to make a positive impact.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller and TikTok Sensation! As seen on THE VIEW! A BuzzFeed Best Summer Read of 2021 When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman's carefully calculated theories on love into chaos. As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships--but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees. That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor--and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding...six-pack abs. Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.