She named radioactivity, isolated radium, and won in two sciences what no one else has won in one — paying with her own body.
She kept tubes of glowing radium in her desk drawer and carried them in her coat pocket, marveling at their blue light in the dark. Marie Curie treated the most dangerous substance on earth like a nightlight — because nobody, least of all her, knew what it could do. She remains the only person in history to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. The light she chased eventually killed her.
