Public Domain Mark/Wellcome Collection Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist who became the first woman to win a Nobel prize. Along with her husband Pierre, she discovered two elements: polonium and radium. She also carried out pioneering research into radioactivity. At the time no one knew about the effects of radioactivity on the body, so they handled the elements they used in their research without any of the precautions or protective clothing we would use today. Curie even kept vials of what she was working on in her pockets or her desk drawers. More than 100 years after their discoveries, the couple’s notebooks are still so radioactive they have to be kept in lead-lined boxes and handled only while wearing protective clothing.