In the legends of early computer science you've probably heard of mathematician Grace Hopper she programmed Harvard's giant Mark one computer during World War 2 and helped make programming a language accessible to non-mathematicians How did you know so much about computers that. I didn't personally this hour the women who made the neck and the stories that have not been told and high school seniors have been in the news lately we'll meet one who wrote an algorithm designed to hunt down gender bias in movie reviews and news programs she created after experiencing gender discrimination herself we'll get that story after this. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm nor Rahm White House officials say there is no time or place set yet for a meeting between President Trump n. Korean leader Kim Jong un White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said today the meeting won't happen at all unless North Korea Takes some concrete steps 1st if we can get to a place where North Korea is denuclearize I think that is a massive step and it's something that will make the entire globe much safer and even President Moon has said that this is because of the leadership of President Trump she said for the 1st time in a long time the u.s. Is in a position of strength in dealing with North Korea the European Union says it expects to be among those trading partners that will not be subject to new u.s. Tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brussels Teri Schultz reports intense transatlantic negotiations continue European trade commissioner Cecilia mom's Germans expressing Europe's outrage that President Trump went ahead with plans to impose a steel tariff she says this is the wrong way to handle mutual concerns about overcapacity in the global steel sector and monster notes the e.u. Is particularly disturbed by Trump's justification of the moves as a national security necessity be a fence we are allies we work together we cannot possibly be a threat to national security in the u.s. So we are counting on being excluded most Jim says Trump's intentions are not yet clear regarding Europe she says she expects more details at a meeting with u.s. Trade representative Robert light hisor Saturday for n.p.r. News I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels that apartment of Education has released a document that shows it wants to protect companies that service student loans from state efforts to crack down on them N.P.R.'s Corey Turner reports in states around the country loan servicers have been accused of misleading student borrowers and mismanaging loan payments as a result a handful of states are suing and many more have begun toughening requirements forcing loan. Companies to be more transparent this document from the department says that the state rules should not apply because loan servicers are governed exclusively by Federal Law The move comes after a bipartisan group of 26 state attorneys general urged Secretary Betsy Deval to quote reject an ongoing campaign by student loan servicers and debt collectors to secure immunity for themselves from state level oversight and in force meant Cory Turner n.p.r. News Washington the Labor Department says the u.s. Economy added 313000 jobs last month the greatest increase in more than a year and a half the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4 point one percent economists say this shows more people have entered the labor force and are more confident about finding work stock prices continue to rise at this point the Dow is up $376.00 points the s. And p. Is up $41.00 this is n.p.r. News from k.q.e.d. News I'm Brian Watt alarming developments in Napa County a state run facility there considered to be the largest veterans home in the country is on lockdown after reports of a shooting and a hostage taking heat east head Goldberg joins us now Ted what have you learned about what's going on at the young Bill veterans home grow Brian a spokeswoman for the California Department of Veteran Affairs says law enforcement responded to the home the veterans home this morning after reports of gunfire near the facilities main dining hall all of the residents and staff are sheltering in place inside the veteran's home and Napa County fire official told The Associated Press that an armed man has taken 3 hostages the school district there the Napa Valley Unified School District says the elementary school in the area was briefly placed on lockdown but that has since been lifted we have not yet heard of any injuries k.q.e.d. Is Alex Emsley is also here he has been monitoring dispatch audio Alex what are you hearing. Well it appears that police officers that are surrounding this facility now have caught some glimpse of a suspect repeatedly they've described a person with a shotgun and an m. 4 assault style rifle with a scope wearing unknown body armor yellow colored shooting glasses and they've given snipers the green light Wow. Alex Emsley and Ted Goldberg meaning him is actually heading to the scene she will update us throughout the day I'm Brian Watt this is k.q.e.d. News. Thank you Brian and support comes from adaptive insights maker of software for people who plan to visit adaptive insights dot com to learn more about its business planning cloud and support for n.p.r. Comes from a mile from Mile like you the mile like you app automatically tracks business miles to streamline and maximize to do actions or expenses the mile i.q. App is available for download in the App Store and Google Play and by the listeners of k.q.e.d. We should see rain tomorrow around the bay area particularly in the South Bay Monterey heading north through the Santa Cruz area and into the South Bay Tonight a 10 percent chance of showers tomorrow the chance increases to 30 by Saturday night a 50 percent chance of showers or rain I should say temperatures today around the bay low to upper sixty's. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow Here's a number for you from 1000000 number 1984 No I'm not talking about the George Orwell novel I'm talking about the year that women's numbers started to decline in computer science until 1904 the number of women with computer science degrees had been rising steadily those studying computer science went from 15 percent women in 1970 to 35 percent in 1904 and then it all started to go down today women only hold about a quarter of computing jobs this problem this problem is well documented and much be mown but it might surprise you to hear that before this decline women had their hands all over tech remember the hidden figures of gnats as human computers that's not the only story of women's early participation in tech women where programmers and engineers helped build some of the structure of our modern internet Univac to Arpanet to hypertext they built social networks they helped the Internet become a place where. Information had meaning and interconnection and don't forget Ada Lovelace who wrote the 1st algorithm for a computer here to tell some of these stories is clear evidence she's author of a new book a broadband The Untold Story of the women who made the Internet and you want to know if you're a woman who was on line or just into computing in its early days give us a call our number a full 47248255 each for foresight talk where you can tweet us at psi Friday on the Welcome to Science Friday Claire. Thanks it's nice and nice to have you you told my producer this book came from a crisis of faith you had about your place as a woman on the Internet Yeah well I grew up online essentially I'm of the generation where although I can remember a time before the weather it's not very clear for me I grew up learning how to write on the internet I saw text on the screen and empowered me as a young writer my father worked for Intel I had computers in the home growing up I always felt that the Internet was my country in some way but in the last few years I started to feel a little bit disconnected from it unsure if as a woman I had a place on the internet anymore I felt more vulnerable I felt like it was harder to express myself as freely as I had in my early days online so yeah the book comes from that that it's out there to resolve your issues that I don't know about the future but I'm certainly much more confident about the past when we were 1st we 1st broadcast our show on the Internet in 1993 we did a show called What's this thing called the Internet I would love to hear that it's great we play a lot it it's true that our guests are mostly men we had Brewster Kahle and Carl Malamud And we're also spoke with Gene Polley Nizer net the member that want it all and we heard from several women including a university research librarian who raved about how the Internet had changed her work so where do you where exactly do you think women stories and. And why have they been left out of the history of the Internet well the Internet is an interesting case because it was developed by the Department of Defense and to serve the needs of computer scientists and engineers at the highest levels of academic computer science so by definition it was a very male dominated environment in terms of the infrastructure but women have always found ways to position themselves even within those kinds of spaces I mean one of the most fascinating characters I think in my book is a woman who ran what was called the network information center of the early Arpanet the 1st version of the Internet she was the secretary the air traffic control the librarian the sort of head information resource of the network she wasn't a computer scientist but she brought a lot of value to organizing the information on that network and connecting people on it which tends to be a theme if you look at the history of women in computing and also in my book you know as Jack finally That's Jake finally yeah you're reading your book I learned a lot of new stories I've been reading living the internet for my whole career but 2 of the names you write about are absolutely familiar you to love lists and Grace Hopper Yes now I have a particular soft spot for Grace Hopper because she I remember she did an interview with David Letterman in 1986 and we has one of my favorite clips I played as much as I can and you work on the original computer in this country right now is very fortunate the Navy I mean to big computer and United States Mark one of Harvard called Mark want to harbor in those days the thing was at the one feet long 8 feet and 8 feet deep and that was the pocket model. Used to put it on a little tiny corner which now now what how did you know so much about computers that I didn't I didn't 1st one yeah. In fact I had to learn a lot of things one day commander in came around to my desk and said you're going to write a book or I should i can't write a book you said you're in the. Maybe now I wrote a book you had to write a book and that was outlining the entire manual of the computer and that really set the stage for other people who follow right she was the best Her name is not credited on that manual by the way is that right you know so she just didn't just program the Mark one she also helped make programming excessive bull to the rest of us and for people who came later yes exactly I mean she when she came into her job as a programmer there was no precedent there's no established system she had to learn how the machine works from wiring diagrams and from taking it apart she bootlegged her own engineering education and then she didn't only sort of refine the methods by which we operate programs on those on those old school computers but after the war she dedicated a great deal of her career to establishing systems by which programmers could make that their job could be made easier centrally and she invented the 1st compiler she pushed for what was then called automatic programming which was a way for programmers to step to a level above the machine level and sort of begin to think more symbolically about their work which is I would argue what sort of catalyzed the development of programming as a discipline as an art form and as a language should I remember from the back in the day Cobol she invented Cobol which was used by everybody the grandmother was kind of all yeah Yes Amazing yeah at the same time the grace was changing the field of programming a group of women were programming the Eniac the 1st successful ballistic demonstrations why exactly did then they didn't get credit until many years later they did not get credit for it for 50 years until they finally got sick and tired of it all and thought to tell their own stories which is very important for women to remember to do sometimes and why were they not well back in those days there wasn't much of a distinction made between hardware and software software was you know considered to be the menial manipulation of the hardware it was kind of subservient to the hardware it wasn't you know it took many years for programming to be seen as a kind of art form or something with the real power to change the world. The people who operated the ne Act were you know they came from Applied Mathematics they were doing sort of the grunt work of the scientific age they were mathematicians but really they were seen as on the level with you know telephone operators or secretaries It was seen as clerical work not as significant so it wasn't until the significance of that work became clear that well of the people want to take the credit for it as they always do if you didn't have an advanced degree or a degree in Computer Science or some sort of thing of the men and you were in like that yes I would you commit Yeah exactly I mean part of the decline of women in computing coincides with the development of the sort of professionalization of the field when it's important they came recognised programming was sort of implicitly there was a semantic shift you know they stopped calling it programming they started calling it software engineering and software engineering has its own established sort of professional canon and it's got a clear chain of you know a linear chain of educational press Harmon's that you have to have in order to become an engineer so that kind of edged women out of the field just as they were most needed and we can thank Elizabeth Jane finally for our handy dandy domain sorting system dot edu dot com Yeah she's sort of a one woman Google of her time yes she was the one person I mean back in the early days of the Arpanet the Internet there was no interface for navigating those resources if you wanted to use a computer at a distance you had to know what was on that computer and so what Jake did was she created the sort of white pages the yellow pages of the Internet she was the one person who knew where everything was if you had a question about the Internet for 20 years you called a phone number in her office and she answered or one of her employees answered and told you how to have access to the thing you needed to frame I'm going to think about id stories about women or Internet pioneers who happened to be women I think it's a story about underdogs frankly you know. Who happen to be women yes for me listen I think. It's not so much that I want to counter great man history with great woman history I think people often do that with people like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper that easy to point to and say here's this amazing woman for me what's more interesting is simply providing more complexity and more nuance to the stories of the technologies that have changed our world and one way to do that is to tap into the amazing resource of all these extra people that were also in the room at the time and hear what they had to say about what it was like if there is if there is there a benefit to a gender difference between the women who were designing computers and the men did the women bring a certain feeling to it that the men didn't I always want to stay away from this idea that there is something essentially you know feminine about a certain approach to computing that being said if you look at the history of computing and you're looking for women you tend to find them in these spaces that are more user oriented Now that might just be a consequence of where it was easier to you know get purchase as a as an academic or a computer scientist as a woman but I think that there may be something there you know I think that a concern for and care for users and how people actually employ technology is really really important and it has been somewhat ignored I think in other history because you were reading your book you see the women of the ones who are the communicators yet and for sure they realize the power of communication and the way to open up computers to everybody is to my you know great opera did find a way to communicate with them exactly I mean Grace Hopper was I think her biggest legacy is that she fought really hard to make computers accessible to non-programmers which at the time was not an easy feat but we talk a lot about machines and when we think about the history of computers we think of a sequence of machines but really it's not the machines that change the world it's the users and I think emphasizing the importance of use is something that we need to be really be doing especially more and more now as technologies really have an outsized effect on you know the disruption of communities and cities and entire workplaces and environments and it's all about the user are number 84472425. 5 hour we're talking about the lower in talking with Claire Evans who is author of broadband The Untold Story of the women who made the Internet and were trying to tell a little bit of their story there's so many stories that you have to limit how many women you could talk about yes I did I didn't when I 1st started working on this book I felt the real burden of responsibility of wanting to include every single excluded name and I think I could have written an encyclopedia there are so many stories beyond the ones that I included in the Book Volume 2 broader band the sign it's personal Oh well that's good is that you already have the title thing like publishing would go for it are you going to take a break come back more on talk more with that clear Evans author of the broadband The Untold Story of the woman who made the Internet also we're going to talk about some of the early Internet that Stacy Horn is again to join us she's going to be talking about the early days of what was the Internet like maybe you can go back and remember what it was like in those days in the early eighty's if you were part of it give us a call 8 for 472 for a 255 and also fee if you're a woman who was involved in computing in those days you can also reach your 244724255 or tweet us at Science Friday we'll be right back after this break. I'm Ira Flatow this is Science Friday from n.p.r. On support for k.q.e.d. Comes from like me in makers of Go To Meeting a collaborative meeting platform with over 18000000 monthly users designed to connect people from anywhere in the world on any device learn more and go to meeting dot come and stand for children's health and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital delivering nationally recognized complex neurosurgical care for comprehensive pediatric neurological conditions such as brain tumors and epilepsy Stanford children's dot org On the next fresh air we hear from most and Hammad this timely bestselling novel is about knowing when it's time to flee or. Entry and what happens when you do one become an immigrant in another country that's hostile to immigrants lives in the more Pakistan but is also lived in California New York and London joined. Fresh air it's up this afternoon one with a rebroadcast tonight at 7 o'clock right now it's 1220. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow we're talking about the beginning the untold story of the women who made the Internet the broadband book by Claire Evans. About her new book a lot to talk about and one of those women is with us right now before there was a Facebook or even a Friendster if you wanted to go online to make friends in let's say 990 you might join a b.b.s. Remember those bulletin board system there was no graphic interface for the net yet typed everything on that little green screen remember and you could join any number of conversations about arts culture politics or just the weather the well in San Francisco was one of those places but here in New York Stacy Horn from her apartment in Manhattan built one such network just for people in New York City it was called Echo the east coast hangout and its thousands of members made in person they formed friendships talk politics even live tweeted so to speak news events what they could do in those days and more remarkably Echo was the rare space on the Internet that was full of women they had their own private channels on Echo to talk with each other and they were put in charge of moderating conversations on an equal basis with men's safety horn joins us here in our studios welcome Stacy great to be here thank you remember those start at the beginning of those of those days I gather you remember our well I was a student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program and why you and we had an assignment to call the well which I instantly became addicted to called every day throughout graduate school and when I was in my last semester I was logged into the well and someone said oh I heard you're going to start the East Coast version of the well which actually had never occurred to me but the 2nd I heard it I thought Oh yeah and I typed back yeah that's what I'm going to do you know I'm going to start of the east coast version and I could drop the course I was taking picked up another course called Writing a business plan and put it more. And then your catchphrase for Echo was Echo has the highest percentage of women in cyberspace and none of them will give you the time of day. Yeah yeah why what did you mean by that well because I didn't I want in women viewed as how they really are and they're not there for your entertainment and amusement they're there for their own reasons so I wanted to have that attitude right from the start now you make sure you had a voice in how Echo was run every separate chat room or conference had to be a female host a male host Yeah I wanted people women when they logged in to not feel that this place was run by men it was there were just as many women in charge as men so that they. Again weren't there at the behest of men and weren't being controlled by men and told how to speak by men there were women in charge of all of course like anything else it also has had its share of ill right you know what was it like to be the 1st person to deal with the troll I think internet troll horrible like whatever anyone tells me to look back probably the 1st thing I'll remember is panic like I started echo with all these wonderful dreams of community in conversation and the people got together the conflict the rose which of course when you think about is like dogs but at the time I didn't know what I was doing there was no troll manual but you but you must still have realized that this fight the trolls there's great value in creating this community overshadowed the trolls and in a way there's a great value for trolls if you can somehow manage to at least mitigate their conversational skills or communication skills a little bit you can safely online get into the heads of someone that you disagree with and someone you find a born a ghost. The working yes it's a lot smaller required there's enough days but we're still around and it is still have there have a goodly interface you know it's just kind of how do you do that you go to a website now or why do you get on I have to mail you even mammo to get it and now now now now we're on the Internet but you have to learn commands is that right yeah so yeah you use your mail somebody how to get into Yeah yeah and I send this letter or whatever I call it retro trying to make it sound appealing. Also with me is clear everything Casey joining us now author of broadband and whole story of women who made the Internet clear you joined echo the process of writing the book right did I did I lurked around on Echo for some time it's a pretty fascinating thing for someone who grew up on the web to experience you know you don't realize how much your understanding of how the world's information is navigated. Is predicated on sort of hyperlinks and conventions that are more graphic but Echo is something that you have to sort of dive into this textual universe it's very fascinating and the fact that it's been around for so long it's that this amazing time capsule continues thoughts and feelings and reactions to all these important historical moments and all these mundane things as well and they all exist in the same sphere and you can navigate it and you can sort of you can sort of be a ghost flying through the entire history of New York City it feels like Yeah because we saved everything all the conversations that take place are still there well as someone who was so involved in the early on line communities how do you feel about social media and the new Internet now is that or are you on Facebook. Like I love that I love it I want a better it's just it's like saying What do you like better a book or a movie or a phone call or email everything has its place I love it all what would you think the women in your book would have thought if they don't I don't know I ask that question of pretty much everyone that I talk to that still a lot of what they think of the Internet today this. Varying degree of responses some of the people that were involved in the really early days don't even really see it as the same thing you know they they see the thing that they were involved with and they see this thing now and they're like they don't it's a totally different beast same as Stacey just said a lot of people are annoyed with spam and advertising and you know data tracking all the things that we find to be upsetting today but you know that's the great thing about the Internet is there's space for all different kinds of use and one of things I love about. Facebook presence is that I feel like Edwards use Facebook like I know like you're talking a lot in the comments in a way that I don't I find that really fascinating 44724255 is our number let's go to Cincinnati and Sunita Welcome to Science Friday and I will thank you know taking my call Go ahead. So I was a woman in computer science in the early ninety's I finished my degree in the early ninety's and you know when I started my degree I actually did not have any background in computing had never touched a computer and you know my dad taught Well I think you might like this because you know my career with subject in high school was math. So but I just didn't have the confidence and at that time you know you didn't have the mentorship I didn't even know that I needed a mentor at that point but you know having not having a mentor and not having that confidence and then you know in motion my classes they were mostly guys so I was actually involved in the honest program and I dropped out of it because I just you know you found out of place a lot of times so but I did go on and you know for my master's I did a degree in geography which was mostly you know applying computing like computer Qatada and G.I.'s and after that I worked for a few years in i.t. And then you know following that I did leave because of family reasons so that was one of the reasons I called that you know when you think about a lot of the woman who were in computers even at that time many of them are not in computer science careers anymore and some of those reasons. Are Family reason because you know when I try to negotiate flex time or part time work I wasn't successful in doing that. So you're saying you know now you're saying that women today are a little have a little better because they're there there's more sympathy for women's issues. I think there is more of an awareness for women's issues you know there is I think people at least talk about you know the balance between balancing work and family life there is at least a conversation I think at the time when I was dealing with some of these issues if you brought it up then you know your boss or the people that you worked with might feel as somebody who is not committed to their job with a career. And. They're you know and some of us also didn't think of it you know we were I guess when I look back I think you know I thought of my job as a job not necessarily as a career and there is a big distinction between the truth sometimes when you get a reaction thanks thanks for calling. Interaction Yeah I mean she touched on some issues that come up again and again in this history which is that mentorship is really important community and sort of representation seeing yourself surrounded with other people in the workplace or on line really matters that's why I think the fact that Stacey made you know female moderation a big part of echo is a really powerful thing a very simple thing to do and of course you know companies making space for childcare obligations because those are not just women's issues those are everyone's issues and you recognized early on in echo that by separating and creating groups just for women's issues or women to talk to each other that that was important Absolutely but actually while she was talking I just flashed on when I was initially trying to get financing for Echo and going from bank to bank an investor an investor they not only said no they just looked at me with disdain in pity that I thought that communicating with other people over your computer was ever going to be a thing. That's really interesting because phones to Menlo Park California Beverly Hi welcome to Science Friday. Beverly are you there I'm here I go ahead. So one story that I want to highlight that I think is left out is a story of a limb Conway So I would put her in a similar league to Baby Grace Hopper maybe like you know the league compared to brisk Grace Hopper but she's also a key problem in computing. Called very large scale integration which is modern computers have many many processors instead of just one processor and the problem is that a program like your program is a linear set of instructions that you just take out of the top and go to the bottom how do you run those 2 computing cores at the same time. So at i.b.m. She was one of the key team members to help solve that problem the catch is little Conway is transgender and did that work as a man. So she did that work as a man and then she changed to a woman and to protect herself she hid her past including that key part of computing history and then rose again from the bottom just a mere programmer to the top again and she's now a tenured professor at University of Michigan she literally wrote the book on a very large scale integration while she was there ox and I was completely flabbergasted when I read about her because I personally study it the stuff she invested in school my senior year in a lot of questioning and computer engineering degree you know willing clears up do you want to read right. Now there are so many great story thank you for calling it out with that story that's remarkable I've heard of when Conway the thing about this book I really hope I can get across is that I really don't want people to look at this look and say Well Ok the stories have been written you know we're done now there's so many more so many more that even I don't know and I've spent years thinking about this stuff it's remarkable how many incredible women have been involved in the development of computing So if you had to pick out one story out of the you know it's like asking you know your kids would like to do a lot of the most the most on told story and most. The most the most you know one thing that really knocked me out reading about this stuff is the history of hypertext you know we think about the web as being a hypertext thing like that right now we that's our main association but hypertext conventions and the sort of advanced thinking about have a Texas developed for a decade before the development of the World Wide Web by a group of predominately female computer scientists and researchers and they thought about things like how can we create systems where we connect information to one another through links and we never lose that in. From Asian So they designed systems where links could go 2 ways they could go in several directions at once where they weren't imbedded in the documents themselves that in fact lived in this layer above the documents so that we would never have what we experience today on the web with a 404 error where you if you lose a page then you lose that piece of information that's connected to it there could have been a 1000000 different ways that the Web could have gone and I think often about you know what if some of these systems had taken the place of the Web What kind of world would be would be living in today this is Science Friday from p.r.i. Public Radio International. Talking with Claire Evans off of the author of a broadband handled story women who made the Internet Stacy Horn founder of echo here in New York so I can let you end with that thought how would you know how could the Web be better if it had gone in another direction listen I mean right now we take for granted that when we create a link it might not last forever I think the break of link rod is you know every 9 years you know that's about the that's like the length of a links life but the information that's contained in the connection between 2 ideas is just as important as those individual ideas themselves and the way that we can navigate. The world of information with constructive creative attitude you know that those are the sort of core conventions of early hypertext so I don't know how we can think about where we have that Stacy did you see the wave going in this direction I mean when you were starting out where did you you know this did you see the commercialization that that's the thing that surprised me the most is how quickly you know absolutely not I was always trying to get companies to get online and to use the Internet I didn't see that as a bad thing. I think I always say that I saw a lot of it coming because a lot of it had been on echo in the well other places that I was visiting you could see what was taking off and what wasn't so the only thing that was a real surprise to me was how that would all be transferred to telephone. You mean to phones I mean yes we have instead of the most computer in the motive now I still think telephone. So with that this is you still find that shocking surprising I saw phones becoming hot below that wasn't the surprise the surprise was that they would replace computers for people personal and within all Newton member the original Apple New Yes 1st little carry old device went nowhere Yeah it was something before it's time yeah so where do you think he should go today Ruth is he starting over to go again or starting what would you do. Differently honestly the only thing I can think I would do differently is I never felt a graphic interface for Echo but as Claire was talking I was thinking what really would I do differently in the only thing I can think of and I'm not sure how I would implement it is the ability to look into people's eyes. You know one of the interesting. Things you talk about and the difference between social media is that the 1st the 1st designers and I only have a minute to make this point you weren't allowed to give out your real name right that the your your idea your back in the back in the day had to be some phony name so that you couldn't bring politics into the discussion of the military into the discussion and that which is just the opposite social media isn't it yeah well the nature and on the media has changed a great deal and it's changed the way that we relate to one another used to be we would use avatars to protect ourselves and we use that retards to troll and harass people on Echo you're not allowed to be anonymous Yeah and that was always the case yeah because well because I felt people would be more careful and responsible about what they said if they knew that everyone was going to know who was saying it and where you write yes. She was right about everything but if that doesn't seem to work on Facebook where people you know they have their names well people are more civilized among each other but not now between people that they say is. Part of the group will have to bring this up again next time because we've run out of time Stacy Horn founder of The New York social network echo back in 1900 player ever means author of broadband The Untold Story of the women who made the Internet it's out now a great read congratulations thank you so much on their book at the we have a have a little bit of it on our website Science Friday dot com slash your broadband and you just heard the story of the women on the Internet and next week we're going to tackle a question of the Internet's present why women are being left behind in the cryptocurrency craze. That's what we do here we'll be back after this break stay with us. I'm Ira Flatow this is Science Friday from p.r.i. 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Woody Guthrie saying about her Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed her a divorced teenage mother who loved parties and fun and just happened to be the deadliest female sniper in history yet it just goes that still it would be due partly Shango Soviet sharpshooter on the world. You can hear the world later on this afternoon it starts it to support for k.q.e.d. Comes from another planet entertainment presenting John Baez at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Sunday November 18th tickets available this Friday March 9th the ticketmaster dot com and the fox Oakland dot com And by challenger school dedicated to inspiring children to embrace challenge and find joy in self-worth through achievement open enrollment is happening now locations and information at Challenger school dot com The m. Phil veterans home in Napa is currently on lockdown this is just off Highway 29 and . Fell after reports of shooting earlier this morning we understand several people have been taken hostage by an armed gunmen there are no reports of injuries we are following the story and we will have the latest with k.q.e.d. News that'll be at 4 minutes after 1 o'clock right after news from National Public Radio. This is Science Friday I'm Ira Flatow back in high school did you build a project for the science fair mine was a punch card reader if you're of a certain age you know what I'm talking about if not there are a lot of other ideas that might impress science fair judges let me give you a few How about analyzing the chemical makeup of stars to discover just how exactly supernovas explode or why not 3 d. Printer nano scale device to suck up toxins from antibiotic resistant bacteria those are 2 real examples of projects in this year's regeneration Science Talent Search a science competition founded and produced by Society for Science and the public there are more than 1800 students from high schools around the country that answered and now just 40 brainy finalists remain there in Washington d.c. For the final judging now and we've got a couple of them on the line today only share them with you my next guest is a one of the finalists her project an algorithm that can sniff out gender bias in movie reviews and news articles nature part just Sarti is a senior at Northwood high school in Irvine California she joins us by Skype Welcome to Science Friday in Egypt. How we have to thank you now you designed an algorithm to detect gender bias in Texel look at the relationships of certain words like stronger smarter with either men or women tell us about that. So oftentimes societies will see males are far too strong as strong as smart and females referred to as kind or caring and I wanted to examine this and the fray so I did that is through statistical analysis and I found that we often do associate males and females with those stereotypical adjectives but I also notice that was really interesting is that we associate males with some female sketchbook logic so not only will we call them stronger smarter but will also call them kinder caring and from here I move on to algorithmic I know says to see if I can create an algorithm to detect these biases so there's a sentence he is strong and I took out the word he could the computer guy asked whether he or she should go in there and so now I have a program that allows anyone to put any document they have into my program and it will give you a biased score basically telling you how biased your document is well could you expand this thing into other kinds of biases like racial bias political bias. Yes that's one of the great things about this project is that it's so easily extends to different types of biases like I mention in the sentence he is strong if I replaced the word that I was looking for which is he or she was sort of racial pronoun like African-American or any term like that I can easily detect the biases that we use described different races I can do the same thing with age and political RINGBACK biases that we have now I know you use neural networks and things like that for this project how did you learn to use all of these computer programming tools. So for me I think this is all inspired by my project I started off realizing that there is a problem with gender bias and I wanted to do something about it such came up with this project and I want to objectives really measure bias in society and I knew that to do that I needed to use algorithms and so the really the way that I learned to was looking online to research a great paper is and my passion for analyzing science really carried me through all that literature and being able to understand what was happening and I kept reading online about the best algorithms to use I read up on courseware from Stanford and mit where they describe how your own networks work and learn through that and right now I'm taking a few computer science to develop a more fundamental knowledge of computer science as a whole but really my project and my understanding of neural networks just stemmed from an interest to analyze my project and from there I really learnt a lot worth saving your your being minus what you did basically did was teach yourself everything. Kind that's yeah I mean I think that for anyone if they're really interested in something if you find a topic and explore through basically working backwards you have to talk back and you want to figure out how something works in the work backwards I think that's the best way to learn and you say you were inspired to pursue this as a project was there in inventing your own life that was key and in the in your inspiration. I think there are 2 events specifically that really started off my project I've experienced bias throughout my life one of the experiences I had was in 8th grade I decided I wanted to be a doctor because I just really wanted to help people and immediately people started telling me Oh you want to go to medical school don't want to have children don't want to have family like the 2 were exclusive and I mean at least once I immediately stopped wanting to be a doctor because people. Expected me to have my whole future life planned out when I was in 8th grade and so that's the highest totally carries through through my life and there was a special aha moment when I really began my project my brother my dad and I were driving to get food one day and my brother started to cry asking for a book or bubble tea on the East Coast it's a type of drink and my brother's obsessed with the strength and he start to cry and my dad said Stop crying girl and for some reason that day I just took severe offense to the statement is something that you hear all the time you run like a girl stop crying like a girl but I was so sick of women always being associated with these weaker turns and I really want to examine to see if this is something that will shift in my community this is a societal problem and what can I do to change that and that's really what started my project now that's really interesting so you really have a passion. For studying and doing something I think I mean especially today we've seen so many women speak out I think when you whenever you see a problem in society or at least for me there's always an inclination to somehow fix that and I'm really glad that from that project I've been able to take a step towards fixing gender bias and so I think yeah I've always had a passion for helping other people and through this project I've really realized that computer science is the way that you can truly help people do so do you do think that teenagers should become very involved in speaking out when they see something they don't agree with. I do think so I think a lot of people think that teenagers don't really know what they're talking about but we have a totally different perspective we have fresh We have a fresh set of eyes And sure sometimes it seems me naive and idealistic about the world but I also think that's great that fact that we can hope for something that might not be practical practical but the longer and the more which strive to achieve that type of idealism I think we're going to reach. As close as we can to the not perfection to perfection boring but some sort of equality in the world or just I mean a general sense of just improvement I think that teenagers really are inspired to change the world and every issue that they think the world needs to salt and they are take especially now they're taking it into their own hands and I think that's something that's really admirable and should be encouraged and you see computers as a way of taking that power. Yes I think that technology is complicated but so interesting and it's really the future of the world and computer science especially in computers in general are really the new ways in being able to I mean there's so much you can do with that you can relate to biology to fashion if you wanted so there's so much discovery I think computers and computer science is the perfect way to do so and I know that some technologists like you one must whom I understand you would Meyer are are worried about the implications of artificial intelligence what's your take on the future of a I should should we be worried about it. So I just thought of valid things my view and that's why I respect I respect it on must so much because there are definitely negative and who am I and I think a lot of people think that Ai should be a robot and should be a tool that we use rather than something that's starting to take over and I totally understand that aspect but I think there's so much merit to it looking at Ai as modeling think human brain and trying to see what we can achieve communities a neural network or any form of artificial intelligence that can process things or information like the human brain and I think there's so much that we can discover through that and I agree that there are steps I mean there are some really dangerous possibilities and we've already kind of seen that peek through and I can definitely lead to something just possible he spoke I think that would be doing a disservice by not examining and trying to push hard science so I think when we look back. Just science in general when people were really worried that science will change their perspective of the ways like they thought the world would them to the way they thought the world acted and then we see now how science has led to so many new discoveries and I think that if we try to like inhibit what we can do with Ai just because we're afraid of the possibilities which I know that there are dangers and no there should be limits but we try to inhibit that too much I think we're doing ourselves a disservice when I bring on another finalist she investigated invasive species and how to get rid of them using biological controls I'm going to let her explain on a Sharif is the same high school senior at Lincoln Park Academy in Port St Lucie Florida she joins us from n.p.r. Welcome to Science Friday thank you for having me I appreciate it and we're very happy to have you you've come up with a new palace tell us about this new type of weed killer from 1st if you had to go out into the natural world in one. For the weeds natural enemies tell us about this yes so there's a weed particularly called purple nuts and it's becoming a huge problem not only in Florida but around the world and basically my is discovering it was by chance I went into a farm with my mentor went onto a farm and she saw that this particular not such was being attacked by a rust fungus I however this fungus I had doing this this not said had never been seen being attacked by his fun guy before so we brought the fun guy into the lab and we identified it and we found a completely new association as in this fungus I just never attacked this plant before and I also what I did is I took the fun guy and I increased its a ficus e. So basically what I did is I added different different solutions to the fungus that basically make it produce more disease on the plant therefore killing the plant and therefore being really if being really influential in the agricultural industry and deterring this we need not only in our gardens but also just in corporate scale production you know the history is filled with unintended consequences for sure now you know where I'm going with this right could there be unintended consequences to spraying this fungus or Yes So the biggest thing that separates my project from a typical biological control or a typical experiment where you release an organism into a new environment is that this fungus has already been discovered in the actual environment so it already naturally attacks this plant so all I'm really doing is I found the fact I found this fungus which hasn't been found before attacking this plant but it naturally attacks and I brought it in and it only increased its effect you see so it's already it's already present in the environment and it's already doing it's really doing substantial harm to the not such population and I only basically increase the amount of harm that it does through using plant based volatile so the ball tiles are also not they're not chemically based so they're not bad for the environment and in those kind of aspects this is Science Friday from here I Public Radio International. Talking with some of the finalists in. The region around Science Talent Search with me as is his highness Sharif talking about her new fungus that she's hoping to keep invasive species from taking over for other young people listening today who are interested in science but maybe you need a little advice on how to get where the where you are today give us some idea of what your path or your trajectory I think they got you into something yeah so for me I live in a very small town I live in a I'm my go to a very small public school that doesn't have as many opportunities as the typical public school does or a typical private school does so for me I think the biggest thing the biggest advice that I would give to different scientists is to take every opportunity you can possibly have if there's something as small as working in a lab and washing dishes you never know how far that you can take how far that can take you for me in particular that's how I started I started working in a local lab a very small lab and I washed dishes and I water plants and over time I just saw the implications of what these scientists were doing and I became more interested in in science in general so just take every opportunity you possibly can even if it's the smallest thing because you never know where it can potentially take you in the future now is the most surprising thing that you learned during your travels in this experiment so I think the most surprising thing I've learned is patience typically when we see or hear about a scientific development on the radio or on like a television we don't realize how much time it takes for scientists are really come up with something effective something as simple as d.n.a. Extraction or something as simple as a united identification takes weeks if not hours and hours and that's that's such a small segment of the whole project and I think for me as a scientist it was really surprising to understand the implications that time has on science in general nature part of sorry you know this already what is your advice to people or other people who might take your pants. I think that just find something that you're really passionate about and explore and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise that's something that I myself have been compared to when someone discourages you are discouraged me I easily swayed and move on to something else but if you're really passionate about something I think you should go for it especially if that something has real merit and could change society but we push forward no matter what anyone else says because true change happens this fight the resistance to d.n.a. And I have to both of you find comfort in meeting others scientists your age and your do with your passions. Just so for me I think that. For me I think that's. The most amazing thing coming to regenerate on is that you see students from all around the nation that are just as passionate about something as you are and there's just this I'm sure they're just more times more knowledgeable than you in certain aspects and you just learn so much from them and I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned from you know over general assessed in general the turn you turn. I would say I think that science especially today is so interdisciplinary and right now we all are very specialized into our own fields and being able to talk to people from different areas and say where our research kind of converge is where there are different is really interesting and being able to talk to this sample and also the response when you talk about your project for so long so many people get bored but when you're talking to these top 40 families they're so and roles and what you didn't matter what type of project for the I believe math computer science or biology and that's really been wonderful when I want to wish both of you good luck among the 40 finalists nature Parcher Sardi's senior northward high school in Irvine and one year Sharif high school senior Lincoln Park Academy in Port St Lucie Florida good luck to all the finalists in the region around science. Alan searcher thank you for taking time to be with us today thank you so much congrats you're welcome congratulations for getting this far our digital producer Lauren Young has put together beautiful q. And A's with both Hanya and the chats up on our website where you can read more about their projects and you can find out more about how they got into science they're all up on Science Friday dot com slash High School Science Science Friday dot com slash high school science b.j. Lederman gumbos very few music and of course every day a Science Friday listen to our website with all kinds of videos and wonderful stuff up there social communities you can ask you know we're here in new devices to play Science Friday whenever you want to smart speakers will get it right out there for you every day now in Science Friday had a great weekend thank you all for your birthday wishes this week on social media I'm Ira Flatow in New York. Science Friday is supported by the Center for Inquiry co-founded by Carl Sagan Isaac Asimov and Paul Kurtz c.f.i. Advocates for reason science and secular values in the u.s. And around the world Science Friday listeners can join c.f.i. At Center for Inquiry dot net slash Science Friday. Support for his program also comes from the Winston Foundation and from the high sing Simons foundation unlocking knowledge opportunity and possibilities more at h.s. Foundation dot org Science Friday is produced by the Science Friday Initiative a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the public's access to scientific information on line at Science Friday dot com. Our Public Radio International starting at 1 o'clock it is fresh air and do stay with us for the latest on an ongoing situation in the North Bay Hill veterans home in Napa is currently on lockdown after shots were fired late this morning there are hostages involved will be a news conference in the 2 o'clock hour enter Siler will be in with the latest on the situation at one o 4 so stay with us for that right now it's traffic with Julie deposition and Cindy because of the situation in yawn to fill the Highway $29.00 a California drive did you have the off ramp close to that police activity still ongoing trying to clear a Berkeley accident went about 80 before University Avenue with several vehicles in the left lanes a heavy baggage a Central Avenue just cleared a motorcycle crash in San Francisco north went to one before Hospital curve traffic still recovering back to say the Chavez Julie deputies were k.q.e.d. 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