Hildegard
of Bingen
Born: 1098
Died: 1179
Hildegard of
Bingen produced works of theology and visionary writings.
For healing purposes she used the curative powers of natural
objects and wrote works on natural history and the medicinal
uses of plants, animals, trees and stones. At birth she
was dedicated to the church, where she first realized
her visions. In 1141, she had a vision from God that changed
her life. He gave her an instant understanding of the
meaning of religious texts, and told her to write down
everything she would observe from her visions. Some of
her works include Physica and Causae et Curae (1150) which
were on natural history and the natural curative powers
of objects (together they are known as Liber subtilatum),
as well as a medical encyclopedia and notes for a medical
handbook (Liber simplicis medicinae and Liber compositae
medicinae, respectively). These works, however, were uncharacteristic
of her usual style, not being presented in a visionary
form. It was later determined that Hildegard had suffered
from migraines, which led to the visions she experienced.
http://www.tl.infi.net/~ddisse/hildegar.html
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.html
Dr.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Born: May 12, 1910
Died: 1994
Dr. Dorothy
Crowfoot Hodgkin first became interested in crystals and
chemistry when she was 10 years old, an interest encouraged
by a family friend in Sudan. She went to Oxford and Somerville
College, where she attended a course in crystallography
and decided to do her research in x-ray crystallography.
She spent much of her working life teaching chemistry,
tutoring and lecturing and the university level. In 1934
she collected money for x-ray apparatus and continued
research on sterols and other biologically interesting
molecules, including insulin and penicillin. She also
took part in the foundation of the International Union
of Crystallography in 1946.
http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/1964/hodgkin-bio.html
Irene
Joliot-Curie
Born: September 12, 1897 in Paris, France
Died: March 17, 1956
Irene Joliot-Curie,
daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie, was a French physicist
and Nobel laureate along with her husband Frederic. They
contributed to the discovery of the neutron and are known
for their study of artificial radioactivity and in making
an important step in the discovery of uranium fission.
Irene and her husband specialized in nuclear physics and
in 1933 they discovered that radioactive elements could
be prepared artificially from stable elements. They were
awarded the 1935 Noble Prize in chemistry. Her death in
1956 was due to leukemia caused by her research.
http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/joliot.html
http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/1935/joliot-curie-bio.html
Hedy
Lamarr
Born: 1913
Died: 2000
Hedy Lamarr
was an actress as well as an inventor. Her invention was
never used for its intended purpose, which was guiding
torpedoes by a radio signal, but it became the basis for
satellite communications are today. Hedy's husband, Fritz
Mandle, sold weapons for a living. His career exposed
Hedy to plans and talks about these weapons. It was then
that she suggested her idea for a radio-controlled torpedo.
She recieved a patent for her "Secret Communication
System" idea along with Composer George Antheil in
1942, though it was not used during the war. After the
patent expired, Sylvania used a modified method in satellite
technology.
http://www.inventorsmuseum.com/HedyLamarr.htm
http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/didyouknow.1.html
Mary
Leakey
Born: February
6, 1913 in London, England
Died: December 9, 1996
Mary Leakey
had an interest in prehistory at the early age of 11.
She attended lectures about archaeology and geology at
the University of London. In 1934, her excavation at Hembury
Fort in Devon taught her many things which helped her
later in Africa. From 1939-1959 she and her husband, Louis
Leakey spent time in the Serengeti Plaines reconstructing
Stone Age cultures from up to two million years ago. In
1947 she excavated the first skull of a fossil ape, dated
to be twenty million years old. She and Louis were awarded
the Stopes Medal from the Geological Association for their
discoveries. Her later work included a discovery of Homo
fossils that were over 3 million years old, as well as
helping the world understand human evolution as a principle.
http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/information/biography/klmno/leakey_mary.html
Barbara
McClintock
Born: 1902
in Brooklyn, NY
Died: 1992
Barbara McClintock
was one of the world's most respected cytogeneticists,
and won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
for her discovery of genetic transposition, which is the
ability of genes to change position on the chromosome.
She did her undergraduate studies in the college of agriculture
at Cornell and as a graduate there studied cytology and
genetics. She played a part in many of the contributions
made to cytology and genetics by the Cornell maize genetics
group and began to study chromosomes that had been broken
by radiation, and later created a method for using these
chromosomes to create new mutations.
http://www.cshl.org/public/mcclintock.html
http://curie.che.virginia.edu/scientist/mcclintock.html
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/LL/
Lise
Meitner
Born: November 7, 1878 in Vienna, Austria
Died: October 27, 1968
Lise Meitner
grew up in an environment where great value was put on
education. She was educated privately and had an interest
in mathematics and physics. In 1901, she entered university
studying these two subjects, but dropped mathematics after
an incident with a difficult calculus problem and an unsympathetic
professor. She graduated in 1906 with her doctorate, having
written a thesis on the conduction of heat in homogenous
solids.
Meitner embarked
on her professional career 1907 in Berlin. At the University
of Berlin she began her studies in radioactivity. As a
part of the war effort, Meitner volunteered to work as
a radiologist. Marie was doing the same in France. Coincidentally,
Einstein called her 'The German Madame Curie'. In her
search for the parent element of Actinium, she and her
collaborator, Otto Hahn, discovered Protactinium. Her
other achievements include work on the relationship between
beta and gamma radiation, and she was a pioneer in the
use of the Geiger counter in nuclear research. Perhaps
one of her greatest achievement is her discovery of nuclear
fission.
In addition
to her scientific achievements, Meitner was known for
her struggle in the face of adverse social, cultural,
and historical conditions. She was regarded as a feminist
icon for her efforts.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/Sinclair/fission/LiseMeitner.html
http://www.orcbs.msu.edu/radiation/radhistory/lisemeitner.html
