Although Mother’s Day is only celebrated once a year, we think moms deserve recognition every single day. This is especially true for those juggling raising kids and having a career—like mass spectrometry pioneer Dame Carol Robinson, who took an eight-year break when she had children. You can learn all about the University of Oxford professor’s incredible achievements and contributions to science when she receives the Othmer Gold Medal at our virtual Heritage Day Awards ceremony this Wednesday, May 5. We’re also spotlighting mother-daughter Nobel laureates Marie Curie and Irène Joliot-Curie, and invite you to listen to a podcast about the role grandmothers play in human longevity.
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Wednesday, May 5, 2021
2:00 p.m.–3:30 p.m. EDT
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Last chance to register for our first-ever virtual Heritage Day Awards ceremony celebrating exceptional achievements in chemistry, chemical engineering, the life sciences, and allied fields and industries. This year’s awardees include Dame Carol Robinson, the Dr. Lee’s Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford; former Brenntag AG CEO Steven Holland; and Peter J. Stang, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah.
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Monday, May 10, 2021
6:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. EDT
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Our next Science on Tap virtual speaker talk features aquatic biologist Roger Thomas, who will discuss what makes freshwater mussels so interesting and how local researchers are trying to help expand their numbers throughout the Delaware Valley.
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Monday, May 10, 2021–Thursday, May 13, 2021
10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. EDT
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Wednesday, May 12, 2021
1:00 p.m.–1:45 p.m. EDT
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This virtual Lunchtime Lecture features University of Southern California postdoctoral fellow Ashanti Shih, who will explore the relationship between the natural sciences and settler colonialism using the case of American botany in the Territory of Hawaii from the 1920s to the 1940s.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2021
5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. EDT
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Thursday, May 20, 2021–
Friday, May 21, 2021
11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. EDT
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This virtual symposium will explore alchemy’s practical and applied uses and their lasting impact on chemistry, technology, medicine, experimentation, and the marketplace. The conference kicks off on Wednesday, May 19 with a keynote by our spring Fellow in Focus lecturer Bruce Moran.
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Detail of a plate from Obstetric Tables by George Spratt, 1833. 📷 Royal College of Surgeons
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Once upon a time all births were natural. A lot has happened since then.
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Some surprisingly controversial theories of human longevity.
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Many of us think pumping is a new part of motherhood, but some fascinating 19th- and 20th-century objects from our collections show the practice has been around (in some form) for a long time.
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Whether you call her mom, mommy, mama, ma, mum, or oma, you can join our Mother’s Day celebration by exploring a few of the maternal items found in our digital collections:
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Up in Mother’s Room, illustrated pamphlet created to correspond with radio shows produced by the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association, 1940s
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Conversations on Botany, illustrated publication composed of a series of conversations between a mother and son about botany, 1817
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Irène Joliot-Curie (left) and her mother Marie Curie (right) working in a lab at the Radium Institute, 1927. 📷 New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images
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A two-time Nobel laureate, Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867–1934) is best known for her pioneering studies of radioactivity. Her elder daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie (1897–1956), also received the prestigious award for the discovery of artificially created radioactive atoms, making them the only mother-daughter pair of Nobel Prize winners. The two worked together at the Radium Institute in Paris, where “Madame Curie” directed a physics and chemistry lab. Both mother and daughter eventually died of leukemia induced by their long exposure to radioactive materials.
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Now more than ever it’s important to tell the stories of science. Help us continue this work by supporting the Science History Institute.
You can also support the Institute while shopping on Amazon at smile.amazon.com.
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