Students Peer Into the Past Through Vintage Microscope Used by Trailblazing Scientist
Based on , Stevens is credited as being one of the first biologists to describe the chromosomal basis of sex. E. B. Wilson is also credited with making the same find that year.
The students used the more than 100-year-old microscope to get a closer look at the embryos of aphids (tiny insects), echoing Stevens鈥 research and Davis鈥 own.
At the time it was purchased, the German-manufactured microscope was top-of-the-line, but pales in comparison to today鈥檚 microscopes.
鈥淲e found the optics to be...sort of鈥hallenging鈥 says Davis. 鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing what Stevens and other investigators of the period were able to observe with the tools they had.鈥
By coincidence, a recent Genetics Society of America profile of Stevens includes a 1909 photo from Bryn Mawr鈥檚 archives of Stevens working at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Italy, using a similar microscope. The article is titled and is worth a read.
From the article:
At the time of her death in 1912, Nettie Maria Stevens was a biologist of enough repute to be eulogized in the journal Science by future Nobelist Thomas Hunt Morgan and for her passing to be noted in . In 1910 she had been listed among 1,000 leading American 鈥渕en of science.鈥
Yet in 1916, when Calvin Bridges published his proof that genes lie on chromosomes (), Bridges cited the pioneering observations of a 鈥淢iss Stevens.鈥 He also offered sincere thanks to 鈥淒r. T.H. Morgan鈥 and to his lab mates 鈥淒r. A.H. Sturtevant and Dr. H.J. Muller.鈥
But 鈥淢iss Stevens鈥 had in fact earned her PhD under Morgan鈥檚 supervision, just like Alfred Sturtevant, Hermann Muller, and Bridges himself. Why then did Bridges address the men as 鈥淒r鈥, but granted Stevens only a 鈥淢iss鈥? The reason was likely convention. It seems to have been common in academic journals, including GENETICS, to refer to a woman with a PhD as 鈥淢iss鈥 or 鈥淢rs.鈥 Indeed, Morgan鈥檚 obituary in Science is titled 鈥淭he Scientific Work of Miss N.M. Stevens.鈥
Read the online.