Science Corner!Day 2

Scientist of the Day

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist famous for becoming the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. She was brought up in Poland before eventually moving to France

Marie wanted to discover a miracle cure for people. However, women were not allowed to attend science classes in those days. She had to attend a ‘flying university’ instead. It was called a ‘flying university’ because instead of having classes in a set campus or building it had to ‘fly’ to different people’s houses to be conducted in secret.

When Marie married her husband Pierre, they began to research atoms and molecules, the building blocks of existence.

They soon discovered that atoms from a special metal called uranium gave off a special sort of energy called radiation.

Marie was excited about this discovery as she hoped that it would heal people of all their diseases.

The Curie's research was crucial in the development of x-rays in surgery. During World War One, Marie helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, which she herself drove to the front lines.

The International Red Cross made her head of its radiological service and she held training courses for medical orderlies and doctors in the new techniques.

However, while Marie’s work helped to develop an important medical tool, she never realised how dangerous radiation could be.

When she died aged 57, she had spent that last decade suffering from the ill-effects of radiation exposure.

However, she did leave a lasting legacy through her research and by showing the scientific world that girls were just as good as boys at scientific research.

• Born in Poland 1867 and moved to Paris Married a French scientist called Pierre Curie

• First used the name ‘radioactivity’ to describe rays given out by uranium.

• Discovered polonium, Po, and radium, Ra

• Worked with Pierre all her life on radioactivity

• Awarded Nobel prize for physics with Pierre and Henri Becquerel in 1908

• Awarded Nobel prize for chemistry in 1911

• Died of leukaemia in 1934

Timeline

Earth Facts• Magma is the hot liquid rock under

the surface of the Earth, it is known as lava after it comes out of a volcano.• The Earth isn't perfectly round, it is slightly flattened at the north and south poles.

• Hawaii is moving towards Japan at the speed of 10cm a year. This is because they are on different tectonic plates.

• The volcanic rock known as pumice is the only rock that can float in water.

• The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest living structure in the world.

• Scientists have dated the Earth as being between 4 and 5billion years old!!

Science Picture of the Day

This is a picture of ‘Curiosity’ on Earth before it was sent into space to land on the surface of Mars.

On August 5 2012, after a journey lasting more than 8 months, Curiosity landed on Mars. The vehicle is basically a science lab. Its mission: to search for evidence that the Red Planet might once have hosted life — even if the organisms were only one-celled microbes.

This six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle weighs 900 kilograms (about 1 U.S. ton). Roughly 2.8 meters (9 feet) long, it carries 10 research instruments. Seventeen separate cameras (including one on the rover’s belly, to scan below it) will survey the landscape and record experiments.