Geeks We Love

On this day 30 years ago — June 18, 1983 — Sally Ride became the first American women in space, as part of the space shuttle Challenger mission. She was one of six women selected to NASA's 1978 astronaut class of 35 total people, a hugely different female to male ratio than we saw this week with NASA's 2013 group of astronaut candidates, which was half women. After traveling to space during the Challenger mission in 1983 and again in 1984, Sally became the inspiration for a generation of girls to follow their science dreams, an area that had been long deemed "boys only."

Though she retired from NASA in 1987, Sally — who held a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford — continued to work in the sciences. She founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, whose purpose was to motivate young students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math. She was an honoree in the National Women's Hall of Fame, the Astronaut Hall of Fame, and was given the National Space Grant Distinguished Service Award by President Obama before her death in 2012 at the age of 61.

The notoriously press-shy former astronaut chose to let her work speak for itself, rather than in publicity, but after reading a rare interview from 1999 with the Los Angeles Times, we can't help but be charmed by the following six excerpts from the interview, adding to the reasons she's one of our heroes.

• Sally was a New York Times crossword puzzle master.
• She's a Trekkie.
• Sally once ranked among the Top 20 junior tennis stars in the nation.
• She flew her own plane to her 1982 Kansas wedding to fellow astronaut Steven Hawley.
• After NASA, Sally continued work and research as a theoretical physicist.
• Her take on science: "Science is fun . . . Science is curiosity. We all have natural curiosity. Science is a process of investigating. It's posing questions and coming up with a method. It's delving in. It's a lot more important than memorizing things like fila. Memorizing fila is not science. Science is solving puzzles."

Over a year after posting a call for astronaut applications, NASA introduced the 2013 astronaut candidate class on Monday, half of which are female, the highest percentage ever selected in one group by NASA. Over 6,300 people applied for the eight available positions, which begin training Aug.1 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, home of the astronaut corps and Mission Control.

This marks the 21st class of NASA astronaut candidates, all of whom had to undergo a rigorous interview process that included medical, language aptitude, and mobility tests. The eight individuals will join the current 49 active NASA astronauts in the organization's future pursuit of the first manned mission to an asteroid in the 2020 decade, with the goal of one day putting humans on Mars. Currently, the US astronauts' main mission is supporting the global efforts of the International Space Station.

As a NASA representative said during a Google+ Hangout to introduce the eight candidates, the four women chosen were not deliberately selected to represent an equal gender pool, rather they were the most qualified group of people, and a "tribute to women today." Here, an introduction to the impressive women of the 2013 astronaut class.

Christina M. Hammock

Nicole Aunapu Mann

Keep reading to meet the national women's rugby player and the Harvard medical professor that may one day man space missions.

Happy Birthday, Craigy Ferg! Our favorite geeky Scotsman turns 50 today. Craig is a nerd-lover's dream; his love of science fiction and geekery come through on every episode and his Twitter account. Plus, he's got a TARDIS on his desk.

As host of the Late Late Show, Craig Ferguson has been keeping us in stitches since taking over late-night hosting duties in 2005. Here are seven reasons why we love the Ferg:

1. Devoted Whovian — He dedicated an entire episode of his talk show to his love of Doctor Who. Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith even made his first American talk-show appearance for the episode.
2. Robot cohost — Craig is such a huge Mythbusters fan that show host Grant Imahara built him a robot sidekick name Geoff Peterson.
3. Geek Peacemaker — When discussing the time old debate of Star Trek vs. Star Wars with guest Adam Savage, Craig explains you don't have to pick a side, each have their own special star themes.
4. Shark Fan — As host of the Discovery Channel's 2010 Shark Week, Craig guided viewers through his "favorite holiday."
5. Loves puppets — Regular viewers of the show are familiar with the frequent use of puppets in the opening monologue and skits. For the 1,000th episode Wavy the crocodile hilariously hosted the whole show and interviewed Jason Schwartzman.
6. Good sport — Craig went along with the original captain William Shatner's request to show off his horsemanship skills by galloping around the stage with Shatner at the reigns.
7. Keeps it real — When Britney Spears was going through tough times a few years ago, Craig refused to joke about her on the show. Proudly sober for nearly 20 years, he understands that such trying issues don't need to be prodded further.

If you need any more proof as to why you should be loving Craig Ferguson, watch the song and dance performed on the Doctor Who episode of the Late Late Show. It wasn't aired on the show due to rights problems with the theme song, but it was later, thankfully, leaked on the web.

In an extremely candid interview with Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes this week, Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates got teary-eyed as he spoke about his one-time rival, Apple founder Steve Jobs. The two tech icons, whose birthdays are only six months apart, "grew up together," said Gates, having accomplished "every fantasy we had about creating products" during their respective tenures.

In this 60 Minutes Overtime clip, editor Ann Silvio talks with Charlie Rose about Bill Gates' emotional recollection of his last visit with Steve Jobs.

In the revealing interview, Bill spoke very openly about what he admired most about Steve. "I wish I had his sense of design . . . design can lead you in a good direction and phenomenal [Apple] products came out of it," Bill confessed.

But the most touching moment of the 60 Minutes feature actually came from Steve. At a 2007 All Things D panel with both tech executives, Steve explained his relationship with the Microsoft chairman this way: "I think of most things in life as a Bob Dylan or Beatles song and there's one line in a Beatle song that sticks out . . . 'You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead' — and that's clearly true here."

Although their companies competed against each other for technology, talent, and market share, there's no denying that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs highly respected each other and had an extremely unique camaraderie. Very few men knew the Apple founder so well, and it's evident that Steve's presence in the industry is missed, a sentiment current Apple CEO Tim Cook echoed earlier this year.

Find out other tidbits you may not know about Bill and watch the full 60 Minutes episode of Bill Gates 2.0 to learn more about the tech executive's new career: philanthropy.

Having now added tech entrepreneur to her accomplishments with the lifestyle website goop and its accompanying travel guide apps, Gwyneth Paltrow was right at home during an Apple Store Meet the Developer panel in New York City last night. We had a chance to talk with the Iron Man 3 star about the gadgets in her carry-on, her favorite iPad games to play with the kids, and the eternal question: text or call?

POPSUGAR: Why did you want to get into this travel app business?

Gwyneth Paltrow: It was a natural extension of what we do at goop anyway, which is curation basically. I love food; I love to travel; I’m a very curious person. I was always the person my friends call and say, "I’m going to New York, where should I do this? I’m going to Paris" . . . whatever. I was always that person. I had books everywhere of things that I loved in various cities and I just thought, "I would love to have it for myself." I started working on the content and I love having a place to go to where it’s places that I love and doctors that are amazing, just all that useful information. When I moved to England, for example, I didn’t know that if you have an emergency, you don’t dial 911. All that stuff. Anything you would need as a traveler.

PS: We’re in the Apple store — are you a texter or a good old-fashioned phone call?

GP: I’ve become a texter. I find it so quick. It’s also made phone calls a lot more special. I do text more than I call, for sure. Now a phone call is a real thing — it’s like, "Are you available to talk?" It’s not like it used to be.

PS: When you travel, what are your must-take travel gadgets?

GP: iPhone and iPad, for sure. I love my iPad mini: I’ve got all my books on there, TV shows — I think that thing is a genius. And my Bose noise-cancelling headphones.

Discover the iPad games Gwyneth plays with her kids and the "girl porn" social network after the jump.

Time magazine unveiled its annual list of the most influential people in the world, and while it's full of household names from political figures like President Barack Obama to entertainment mogul Jay-Z and celebrated writer-director-actress Lena Dunham, female leaders in science and technology also made the cut among the "artists and leaders . . . pioneers, titans and icons."

Familiar tech faces Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, are listed as pioneers and titans, respectively. Both are powerful leaders in Silicon Valley, with the Yahoo chief leading the company back to its former tech glory, and with her new book, Lean In, Sheryl is reexamining gender politics in the workplace as they relate to keeping women from balancing the career success and family home life.

The C-suite isn't the only representation of women in the sciences, though; read on to learn about women revolutionizing education, helping to eradicate AIDS and breast cancer, and connecting remote locations to the power of the web.

Julie Yu, a staff scientist at San Francisco's Exploratorium, the newest science museum on the block, really loves what she does. It's easy to see why: "On my first day of work, I was told to have fun every day and make sure I have time to play." Doesn't sound like your typical lab-coat-wearing, microscope-peeking depiction of a scientist, does it?

"It's a joy [working in this field]. There are always more questions to ask, and each day is never the same," said Julie, whose main responsibility at the Exploratorium is to help science teachers around the country bring hands-on experimentation into the classroom, using as little money and resources as possible.

You don't need fancy machinery to conduct your own experiment, though. Exploring what's already around you is what Julie says is one of the keys to science success. The Brown University-trained engineer had a brief teaching career at the Tech Museum in San Jose before receiving a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at UC Berkeley.

We spoke to Julie and asked her a question on the minds of every aspiring biologist, chemist, or physicist: what does it take to become a super-rad scientist?

In honor of Julie's passion for kitchen chemistry — which is what first piqued her interest in the subject — we present her three-ingredient recipe for science success.