On Tuesday, Science reports, the UK Parliament's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee caught some flack when it tweeted out its membership list: eight men.
Because of the recent elections, all parliamentary committees had been dissolved and were being reformed, Science says. The science committee was the only one that had been reformed without any women at all. In the previous parliament, Science notes, women made up 60 percent of it, including the chair.
"Many observers were dismayed. 'My heart sank,' blogged Sarah Main, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering in London. Physicist Athene Donald of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom opined in The Guardian: 'It is not encouraging for young female scientists to see that parliament apparently cares so little about their futures that they couldn't even come up with even that long-derided sole token woman,'" Science reports.
One seat on the panel remains to be filled. No word yet from the Labor Party whether they will nominate a man or a woman.