Huinesoron

One wall in my office is the official Wall of Science: nine pictures of scientists who made key discoveries or breakthroughs, or were otherwise among the most notable in their field. The first version featured the likes of Mary Anning (discovered the first icthyosaur fossil), Lise Meitner (the theorist behind nuclear fission), and Hypatia (last librarian of Alexandria, give or take).

The second iteration is slightly less prominent, but still very significant scientists:



Clockwise from top-left:

-Hildegard of Bingen, abbess, healer, and founder of natural science in Germany.
-Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, and inventor of the infographic (kinda).
-Temple Grandin, animal behaviourist, but mostly famous as an autism activist.
-Margaret Hamilton, programmer who wrote the flight software for Apollo.
-Henrietta Swan Leavitt, astronomer who worked out the theory behind Cepheid variable stars, leading directly to our ability to gauge the distance to other galaxies.
-Asima Chatterjee, organic chemist who worked on chemotherapy drugs, anti-malarials, and anti-epileptic drugs.
-Helen Sharman, food chemist, and first Briton in space.
-Frances Glessner Lee, founder of forensic science.
-Kathleen Lonsdale (in the middle of the left side), chemist and crystallographer, who among other things identified the structure of benzene using x-ray diffraction.

Accusations that I'm just putting up photos of female scientists are entirely unfounded; if I were, I would have included Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space) by now. But she was notable for being a woman, whereas all 18 who have been on my wall so far (who do all happen to be female, oddly enough) have been notable purely for their work.

The one person I want to include, but can't, is Tapputi-Belatekallim, the first named chemist in history. She was a perfume-maker in Babylon around 1200 BCE, and her one recorded recipe includes the use of a still. But there's no picture of her, whereas everyone on my wall has either a photo or a painting (Hildegard, Mary Anning, and Ada Lovelace being drawn from life - Hildegard's is from her own manuscript! - and Hypatia being the death portrait once said to be hers). Maybe if I can find an artwork of her...

Last night I dreamed I tried to trick one of my lab staff into carrying their ID card by getting them involved in a jade smuggling operation.

That is all.

At least it's nearly the end of the day.

Oh, wait. It's only noon. I've only been here three hours.

Because blarg.

I don't particularly like having a to-do list. I especially don't like having one where everything on it is time-consuming and horrible. And I really don't like the fact that it includes back-to-back audits by two of our more difficult customers.

Nor do I like the fact that I'm going to have to cover a lab shift for one of my staff. But I'm nice, so I'll let him take that holiday to Iceland anyway.