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A suggestion for a Google Doodle for Speaking Up for Us . 26th December 2012 Mary Somerville's 232nd Birthday Other possible dates: 29th November 2012:  160 years since Mary Somerville died.  Notable events:  1831 - publication of "The Mechanics of the Heavens" 1832 - invention of the word "scientist" 1834 - publication of "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" 1836 - admission to RAS (with Caroline Herschel) Mary Somerville, portrait by Thomas Phillips, 1834. From the  Scottish National Portrait Gallery .  Mary Somerville (1780-1872) was an innovative and talented science communicator, with an extraordinary (and mostly self taught) grasp of mathematics in an era when most women had no access to formal education. As a direct result of her work, calculus was introduced to the English speaking scientific world, the idea of physics (as a single subject containing topics such as optics, thermodynamics and astronomy) was invented, and the term "sc...

A couple more fun things on the Transit of Venus. First, a blog post about actually using measurements to calculate the distance to the Sun:  Easter Island Transit of Venus , by David Rodriguez. I particularly like this plot, showing the timing measurement versus position relative to the centre of the Earth: And the calculation isn't bad, 151+/-20 million km. Only a factor of 10 error larger than the best scientists in the world could do in the 18th century .  Also really neat is this 3D image made by Peter Lawrence ( @Advertvision on twitter) which uses image of the transit taken almost simultaneously in the northern Norway (by Pete) and Australia (by expert im ager Paul Hause). You can see the parallax of Venus on the disc of the Sun with your own eye, and use red-green 3D glasses to see it in 3D. Must find a pair... :)

Given how much time I've spent lately trying to interest others in the transit of Venus, I got pretty excited myself, so I couldn't resist a trip out to Langstone Harbour on the East coast of Portsea Island to try to get a view. I was tempted out of the house by some tantalising gaps in the cloud on the sunrise horizon. This great tool which shows the direction and altitude of the Sun's path during a day can show you where I was. Sunrise of course to the North East this close to the Solstice (only due East on the Equinoxes). Unfortunately it stayed cloudy most of the time. I got a glimpse of the part of the Sun on which Venus was transiting (through my safety glasses), but not long enough to spot the small disk of Venus. Below is a storify of my transit of Venus 2012 experience, including some pictures I took of the clouds! ;) [<a href="http://storify.com/KarenLMasters/my-transit-expedition" target="_blank">View the story ...

Here are details of our transit of Venus activity taking place on board HMS Warrior this Tuesday 5th June 2012 at 1.30pm and 2.30pm. This event is free with a valid entry ticket to HMS Warrior. PLEASE NOTE: it really is Tuesday not Monday. The BBC Things To Do Listing should update soon. Here is the listing on the HMS Warrior Site . I made the below worksheet to give out at the event. We'll also have a solar telescope, and safe solar viewers to give out.

Ann Martin has started the blog Speaking Up   to hi-light the amazing women who are not being honoured by Google Doodles . Ann tells us that in the USA to date Google has honoured 15 individuals, and not a single woman. She says internationally, they have honoured 50 men, and 6 women in 2012. Here in the UK Doodles  in 2012 have honoured 17 men, and 0 women (count them for yourself at the link I have, it actually is quite amazing). We're even trailing the USA. Ann's blog each month hi-lights some of the amazing women with birthday's that month who could have been honoured. From her May article , I was particularly struck by the last entry - that of Chein-Shiung Wu (or Madame Wu, sometimes called the First Lady of Physics). She would have been 100 years old yesterday (born May 31st 1912). Chien-Shiung Wu. Photographer unknown. Chien-Shieng Wu is one of the 16 women profiled in a book I own called " Nobel Prize Women in Science ", by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne. The ed...