Meet Three Trailblazing Women of Science
VELSHI: You watch Christine every week, you know she feels very strongly about this. Science as a subject turns away not just American students, generally, but especially female American students. According to the study by the American Association of University Women, more high school boys than girls took advanced placement tests in mathematics and science. The things so important to our future in this country and a far greater number of men earned bachelor's degrees in science and engineering than female bachelor's agrees in science and engineering than their female counterparts, despite the fact that more women in America go to men-got to college than men do. But the tide might be shifting. At Google's first-ever science fair, where more than 10,000 students, from 91 countries entered, it wasn't just an American sweep, but an American girl sweep in all three age categories. With me now are grand prize winners, Shree Bose, she won in the 17 to 18 age category; Naomi Shaw, the winner in the 15 to 16 age group category, and here with me in studio is Lauren Hodge, she won in the 13 to 14 age group. Congratulations to all of you. Brilliant, brilliant girls. We are counting on you to help us out in the future. Shree, let's start with you. In the second grade, when you were in the second grade, while I was seeing how ants reacted to having water put on them, you were turning spinach blue, because you thought it might be more appealing to kids. That is not what won you the grand prize this year, but something substantially more sophisticated. Tell us what you did.</s>SHREE BOSE, GOOGLE SCIENCE FAIR GRAND PRIZE WINNER: My project this year was actually about drug resistance in ovarian cancer. Basically we found a link between this one protein in the cell, called ANP kinase (ph), and the development of drug resistance in ovarian cancer to this drug called Tsislat (ph).</s>VELSHI: What a brilliant-</s>BOSE: Slightly more complicated.</s>VELSHI: It is complicated. I'm certainly not going to ask you to try to simplify that for me. But ovarian cancer is a difficult cancer. It's often detected very late in women and we really are trying to figure out where it comes from, and how best to treat it. Why did you decide to go down this road?</s>BOSE: Actually, two years ago, my grandfather passed away of cancer and I decided I really wanted to do cancer research and go into the medical field. So I started e-mailing professors and the one who actually accepted me, Doctor Luken Mubasu (ph), at the UNT Health Science Center here in Fort Worth, actually specialized in breast and ovarian cancers. So that's kind of how I got started down this road.</s>VELSHI: Brilliant. And Naomi, with let's talk about you. You did some studies on indoor air quality and how it -- how that can relate to asthmatics who have to take medication?</s>NAOMI SHAH, GOOGLE SCIENCE FAIR GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Yes. So my research focuses on how the pollutants in our home and workplace, like the particulate matter and the chemical pollutants affect the lung health of asthmatic patients.</s>VELSHI: Wow. Again, what got you in there?</s>SHAH: So a lot of my friends and family suffer from severe allergies. My dad, my brother and I, we all have severe allergies. And that could develop into severe asthma in the future. And just seeing a lot of my family suffer from asthma, it got me really interested in this. So I have been doing a lot of research and I found that over 1.2 million people die from asthma every year. So I really wanted to target this disorder from the root, and that's why I was focusing on the environmental aspect, which is the pollutants in our homes, workplaces and schools, where we spend over 90 percent of our lives.</s>VELSHI: That is brilliant. Amazing. All right, Lauren from Pennsylvania, Lauren Hodge in the 13 to 14 age group. Lauren, you were inspired by something we do. It's the middle of summer. We all think of throwing something on the grill. You put chicken on the grill, it tastes fantastic, but people say it could have carcinogens in it. That beautiful, crispy blackened marks on the chicken. You decided to tackle that.</s>LAUREN HODGE, GOOGLE SCIENCE FAIR GRAND PRIZE WINNER: Yes, basically what I found out about first, even before I considered marinating the chicken, which was what I used for my project, was actually an article in our doctor's office. But also the grilling of the chicken at summertime was basically the start of my project.</s>VELSHI: What did you find?</s>HODGE: I found that with lemon juice, saltwater and brown sugar, those marinades can actually stop a reaction that occurs in grilled chicken, that forms hetersetamines (ph), or carcinogens, and these three marinades can help stop the reaction.</s>VELSHI: You should be going into the 9th grade, and you're going into the 1th grade.</s>HODGE: Yes.</s>VELSHI: How do you react when you just heard what I just said, that girls don't like science. Girls turn away from science. They don't graduate. You're nodding your head. You love science?</s>HODGE: I love science and I always have. I think there's actually a lot of kids in my school, too. I think there has a been a trend that more and more girls are getting into science.</s>VELSHI: Why? Anything different? Is it because people are just not saying that girls shouldn't do science?</s>HODGE: I think, that also, that even from a young age, there used to be more of a stereotype against girls and boys, but I think that is disappearing.</s>VELSHI: I think you're part of the reason it's disappearing. When people watch the three of you and realize how successful and smart you are. I'm looking forward to follow the three of you in your careers as you find cures for things. And solve a lot of our world's problems. Shree Bose is in Fort Worth, Texas, Naomi Shah, joining us from Oregon, and with me here, Lauren Hodge of Pennsylvania. And speaking of Pennsylvania, a Pennsylvania school district is going to extraordinary lengths to trim costs. And they're being a little sheepish about it. I'll explain when we come back.