12 incredible women you've never heard of who changed science forever

Sure, most people have heard of Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin, Jane Goodall and Sally Ride.But for every female scientist whose work has been recognized and celebrated, there are thousands who have been accidentally or purposefully forgotten.For a few, that might change, thanks to a beautiful new book, "Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World," by artist Rachel Ignotofsky.While she highlights some of the classic women in science, she's also profiled some less familiar facesand discoveries.Here are a dozen of our favorites.Florence Bascom: Helped us understand how mountains formFlorence Bascom (1862-1945) discovered her love for geology on a childhood trip with her father and a geologist friend of his.She worked for the US Geographical Survey, particularly specializing in the Piedmont Plateau between the Appalachians and the Atlantic coastal plain. She was voted one of the top 100 geologists in 1906 in an edition of a magazine called, ironically, American Men of Science.In addition to her research, she also taught several important geologists ofthe next generation at Bryn Mawr College.Marjory Stoneman Douglas: Championed the ecological importance of The EvergladesMarjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) moved to Miami to write for the Herald, where her father worked. She left to work for the Red Cross during World War I, then returned to the Herald before branching out on her own as a writer.She was able to see the value and importance of the Everglades despite finding them "too buggy, too wet, too generally inhospitable." She wrote a book called "The Everglades: Rivers of Grass," which raised awareness about the threats the ecosystem faced.She successfully led the opposition to an Army Corps of Engineers plan that would have reduced flooding but destroyed the Everglades. In addition to conservation, she also fought for women's rights and racial justice.Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: Figured out what the Sun was made ofCelia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979) was the astronomer who discovered that the sun is made of hydrogen and helium.She went to college in Britain for botany, then attended by chance a lecture given by a prominent physicist, which she found so intriguing she changed fields (the lecturer, Arthur Eddington, became an important mentor for her). She moved across the Atlantic to study at Harvard, where she spent the rest of her career.Her dissertation was called "the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy." In addition to our sun, she also studied variable stars, taking more than a million photographs of them with her team.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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