Madam Marie Curie honoured

Poland will hold observances next year to mark 100 years since the Polish-born scientist Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of radioactive elements polonium and radium.

Poland’s lawmakers adopted a resolution Friday naming 2011 the year of the researcher, who was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw in 1867.

The lawmakers said she was one of the “most outstanding scientists of our times.”

In 1891 she left Warsaw which was under Russian rule at the time to study in Paris, where later she and her husband Pierre Curie researched radioactive elements. In 1903 they jointly received a Nobel Prize in physics and in 1911 she won a Nobel in chemistry for her discovery of polonium and radium, work that laid the grounds for X-ray tests.

The "Sandwich Gamble".

The Sandwich takes its name from the notorious British gambler John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. In 1762, at the Beef Steak Club in Covent Garden, London, Montagu spent twentyfour hours gambling without a break. He asked for meat and slices of bread to be brought to him so that he could eat without interuptting his game. The conveniant result appealed to to Londons fashionable society and teh word Sandwich stuck.

Hiccups.

Hiccups

If you've frequently got a case of the hiccups, try slowing down when you eat and drink, suggests Dr. Plasker. Doing either too quickly causes your stomach to swell; this irritates your diaphragm, which contracts and causes hiccups. You may also get hiccups in emotional situations or if your body experiences a sudden temperature change. In both of these cases, the hiccups are a result of a glitch in your nerve pathways, which is why a sudden scare - which might shake up and reset your nerves - can sometimes end an episode.

Nobel Prize. 1988

Sir James W. Black

Gertrude B. Elion

George H. Hitchings

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1988 was awarded jointly to Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment".

Why do we yawn

If your body is low on oxygen, your mouth opens wide and tries to suck more in. Yawning is a way to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen in your blood. Unfortunately, yawns are nearly impossible to stifle.

Fascinating facts