Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Today we blog to celebrate women in technology and science and remember Ada Lovelace, the woman considered to have written the world's first computer program back in the 1840's.
So to celebrate, here's a clip of an interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini, one of my favorite Sassy Bitches of Scienceâ¢. At age 100, she is the oldest living Nobel laureate, sharp as a tack, still working, and a sassy dresser to boot. Her story is incredible and inspiring (especially in light of what I wrote about yesterday on DIYbio, oppression, and opportunity). Turned away from her position as a researcher at the University of Turin in 1938 because of her Jewish heritage, she built a laboratory in her bedroom and there began doing research on the nervous system of chickens that eventually led to her later discovery of Nerve Growth Factor as a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis in the 1950's, for which she was awarded the Nobel prize in 1986. She is totally amazing, as is the whole interview, which is up at Nobelprize.org.
Here's to Rita and to all the other Sassy Bitches of Science out there!
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If I remember well, in her autobiography (italian) she tells her brother wondering why there were scrambled-eggs every saint day and eventually refusing to eat them when he realized they were remnants of previous experimental dissection. There was a war there, and she was doing research IN ITALY, in her bedroom. Today we (italians) complaint about funding scarcity, because we forgot how to manually prepare minipreps and the kit are so costly...
But Viktor Hamburger should also have gotten a share of that nobel. He was the guy who first realized there was massive neuron death in normal development and the supervisor of her an Cohen.
A very tragic omission.
@mo - Are you saying that our brain turns to Hamburger?!
I have such an admiration and respect for Dr. Montalcini. I consider her my mentor.
I wish to have contact with her and be able to meet her soon.
I am a psychologist and discovery of neuron growth hormone is also a breakthrough in the world of psychology.
I wish her to continue being healthy and active for many many years to come.