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"Lego celebrates women who love to learn with a minifigure series of female scientists and their lab tools.\nThe Research Institute series won the Lego Ideas contest for winter 2014, and features an astronomer with a telescope, a chemist with a lab and a paleontologist with a dinosaur skeleton.\n\nDr. Ellen Kooiljman submitted the idea to Lego's Ideas website in mid-2013 where it quickly gained 10,000 supporters. The Ideas platform, also known as Lego CUUSO, gives fans the chance to submit ideas for sets that could potentially be produced commercially. If a set passes Lego review and goes into production, the original set designer receives 1% of the toy's royalties.\nKooiljman addressed the inspiration behind her female minifigures project on its proposal page.\n\"Although recently [Lego] has started to design and add more female figures to their sets, they are still a minority,\" she writes. \"I have designed some professional female minifigures that also show that girls can become anything they want, including a paleontologist or an astronomer.\"\nLego has faced criticism for its lack of professional female minifgures. In 2012, the toy company released Lego Friends, a line geared toward young girls featuring slimmed down minifigures and sets for pet salons, juice bars and bakeries. The line was criticized for its gendered themes, and pink and purple color scheme.\nIn a statement announcing Research Institute, Lego wrote, \"this awesome model is an inspiring set that offers a lot for kids as well as adults.\" The set is on track for an August release.\nBONUS: 18 Inspirational Quotes to Celebrate International Women's Day\n\n\n\nInternational Women's Day \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1. Malala Yousafzai\n\n\nImage: Evan Agostini/Invision/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. Hillary Rodham Clinton\n\n\nImage: Susan Walsh/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3. Michelle Obama\n\n\nImage: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n4. Margaret Thatcher\n\n\nImage: Gerald Penny/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n5. Aung San Suu Kyi\n\n\nImage: Khin Maung Win/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n6. Indira Gandhi\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n7. Golda Meir\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n8. Angela Merkel\n\n\nImage: Peter Morrison/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n9. Gloria Steinem\n\n\nImage: Mary Altaffer/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n10. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\n\n\nImage: JB Reed/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n11. Nora Ephron\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n12. J.K. Rowling\n\n\nImage: Dan Hallman/Invision/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n13. Simone de Beauvoir\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n14. Charlotte Bront\u00EB\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n15. Lucille Ball\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n16. Julia Child\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n17. Cher\n\n\nImage: Charles Sykes/Invision/Associated Press\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n18. Janis Joplin\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/lego-female-scientist-series/>