[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/mt\/article\/modal\/6488\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n      3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n      \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n        \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n  \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EWhat did Marie Sk\u0142odowska Curie ever do for us?\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt is more than 80 years since Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u2019s death, but the name of the world\u2019s most famous woman physicist is ubiquitous, adorning research institutes, hospitals, schools, prizes, charities and even an element.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHer image persists, too: most commonly, of a severely dressed lady stirring a cauldron of pitchblende in a draughty Parisian shed, haunted by the faint green glow of the radioactivity that was ultimately to kill her.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhy does Sk\u0142odowska-Curie capture the imagination so? She was a double Nobel Prize winner and one of only 48 women ever to win a Nobel Prize. She opened new fields in medicine, engineering and science. But her legacy was amplified by her activities as a humanitarian, an ambassador for science, and, not least, a pioneer for women in science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESk\u0142odowska-Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, were fascinated by uranium salts which had been shown by their contemporary, Henri Becquerel, to naturally emit X-rays.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPierre had invented instruments that could measure radiation and with these the Curies demonstrated that, no matter what form the uranium was in, it continued to radiate with an intensity proportional to the amount of uranium in the sample.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis convinced them that the radiation was coming not from any peripheral chemistry arising from molecular interactions but from deep within the atom \u2013 a startling idea because the atom was supposed to be the basic, indestructible building block of any element.\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022text-center text-blue font-bold text-2xl w-full lg:w-1\/2 border-2 border-blue p-12 my-8 lg:m-12 lg:-ml-16 float-left\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Cspan class=\u0022text-5xl rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n  \u003Cp class=\u0022font-serif italic\u0022\u003E\u2018All medicine that relies on radioactivity \u2013 on irradiating people \u2013 goes back to Marie Curie.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\n  \u003Cfooter\u003E\n    \u003Ccite class=\u0022not-italic font-normal text-sm text-black\u0022\u003EDr Spencer Weart, physics historian, US\u003C\/cite\u003E\n  \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe idea of an unseen subatomic world from which radioactivity - as Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u0026nbsp;named it -\u0026nbsp;came, was seized on by others. Her work kicked off a series of tumultuous discoveries and launched the field of atomic science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith supplies of radioactive material from the Curies, for example, the physicist Ernest Rutherford developed a modern alchemy \u2013 proposing that some unstable elements naturally transmute into others, emitting radiation as they go.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERutherford showed that such radioactive elements had half-lives \u2013 an indication of the time it took for them to decay \u2013 leading to the radiometric dating used today in fields from geology to archaeology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERutherford eventually devised a new model for the atom: mostly empty space, peppered with electrons, and a dense nucleus in the centre containing protons. And this set the scene for the web of discoveries about the power lurking within the atom that we know\u0026nbsp;\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003Etoday\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003Eas\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003Enuclear science.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERadium and polonium\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Curies shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Becquerel. And Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u0026nbsp;won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for the discovery of radium and polonium and the isolation of radium, which provided science with a method for isolating and purifying radioactive isotopes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPolonium has been used as a heater in space probes and an initiator for nuclear weapons, but it was radium that, with its alluring greenish glow, became the film-star element.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt was swiftly put to use in an array of notorious applications such as the illumination of clock faces and was seized on by doctors as a kind of multi-purpose therapeutic weapon against acne, varicose veins, epilepsy and more.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile much of this was misguided, doctors hit gold attacking cancer. Radiation could shrink tumours, while slivers of radium, applied directly in an approach known as brachytherapy, could do the same.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese techniques, in refined form, are widespread today, along with nuclear medicine, which images tumours by dosing patients with substances labelled with radioisotopes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018All medicine that relies on radioactivity \u2013 on irradiating people \u2013 goes back to Marie Curie,\u2019 said Dr Spencer Weart, former director of the Center for History of Physics in Maryland, US. \u2018She made the discovery that millions of people have since used.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut this is not the only reason why some medical institutions bear Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u2019s name. Some refer to her actions during World War I, which added a tinge of Florence Nightingale to her reputation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDisturbed at the quality of medical care for soldiers, she invented and resourced a fleet of radiology cars to carry X-ray technology to the front line.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018It was almost an industrial project,\u2019 said Dr Weart. \u2018We must not overlook her administrative abilities.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cfigure role=\u0022group\u0022 class=\u0022@aligncenter@\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\u0022Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u2019s work during World War I earned her comparisons with Florence Nightingale. Image credit: \u2018Marie Curie - Mobile X-Ray-Unit\u2019 is in the public domain\u0022 height=\u0022500\u0022 src=\u0022\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/Marie_Curie_-_Mobile_X-Ray-Unit.jpg\u0022 title=\u0022Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u2019s work during World War I earned her comparisons with Florence Nightingale. Image credit: \u2018Marie Curie - Mobile X-Ray-Unit\u2019 is in the public domain\u0022 width=\u0022767\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cfigcaption class=\u0022italic mb-4\u0022\u003EMarie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie\u2019s work during World War I earned her comparisons with Florence Nightingale. Image credit: \u2018Marie Curie - Mobile X-Ray-Unit\u2019 is in the public domain\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\n\u003C\/figure\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIllegal university\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMarie Sk\u0142odowska was born into an occupied Poland on 7 November 1867. Her mother died early and her father was poor. For a while she studied at an illegal university for women in Warsaw and did secret chemistry experiments with her cousin at a museum.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEventually she reached Paris, France, where some universities admitted women, and after a few years met and married Pierre Curie.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe two lacked money for a long time. Their discoveries emerged from a shed-like afterthought of a laboratory, open to the weather. Their work required hard physical labour, since uranium and radium had to be extracted from tonnes of black pitchblende where they lurked in tiny quantities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003ETheir fame grew and, after Pierre\u2019s untimely death in a road accident, \u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003ESk\u0142odowska-Curie\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\u0022font-size: 13.008px;\u0022\u003E\u0026nbsp;went on with her research and began to invest in the future of radiation science.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018She parlayed her prestige into getting funding for the Radium Institute,\u2019 said Dr Weart. It was her inspiration that led to the development of both the Institut Curie in Paris and the Radium Institute in Warsaw (now the Maria Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHer teaching also left a lasting impact. She trained female teachers, overturning the rote-learning of their science curriculum in favour of hands-on experiments. Many of her students went on to become physicians, scientists and science teachers. And so her influence in opening women\u2019s minds to the possibilities of a life in science \u2013 and thus opening science to women\u2019s contributions \u2013 was profound.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The legacy in terms of attracting women to science is huge,\u2019 says Dr Patricia Fara, a historian of science at Cambridge University, UK, whose first degree was in physics. \u2018She was a fantastic role model for me when I was at school.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n            \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n      Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-q06k6zw6r3ngqgw9l6ym-rwmzvuyookq1h5doozx5uc\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-q06K6zW6R3nGQGw9L6YM_rWMzvUyOokq1h5DOoZX5Uc\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]