Chemistry

No. 964: Maria the Jewess
An ancient female chemical engineer invents the double-boiler (called the bain-marie-Maria's bath-in French), creates the process for making silver sulfide and founds a school of chemistry in the late 3rd century B.C. Yet her personal information, even her birthplace, remains a mystery.

No. 649: Gertrude Elion
For many, winning the Nobel Prize would be the highlight of their lives, but for Gertrude Elion, her life itself is the highlight.

No. 1181: Edith Humphrey
Nobel Prize winner Alfred Werner could have forgone 14 years of unnecessary research and earned the Prize much earlier had he only paid more attention to his student's discovery.

No. 378: Women in the Academy
An anatomist's remark refutes attempts, past and modern, to prove the presence of gender differences within the human mind.

No. 933: Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, a British woman still manages to build a chemistry laboratory in her attic, win the Nobel Prize, and sit down for tea with Margaret Thatcher.

Genetics

No. 477: Mary-Claire King
A radical with a PhD from Berkley uses her gene-tracking process to help brave Argentinean grandmothers reclaim their grandchildren.

Physics

No. 305: Lisa Meitner
The woman who first envisioned nuclear fusion energy did not have a bomb in mind, but a "promised land" of energy. Years later, she received a share of the Fermi award for her contribution to the making of the bomb-an award she never wanted to receive.

No. 920: "Enlightenment" Sexism
Revolutionary authors Voltaire and Diderot extol their mistresses' intellectual qualities.

No. 219: Emilie de Breteuil
An 18th-century woman flaunts her extramarital love affairs in order to conceal something even more inexcusable-her brilliant mind.