Susan La Flesche was the first Native American to earn a medical degree. She proceeded to become the physician for the Omaha Nation, traveling by horse and buggy to care for a community spread across an area the size of Rhode Island. Babes of Science is a podcast that seeks to answer two questions: Who are the women who changed the trajectory of sc…

Every early chemist has heard of Boyle’s law -- the equation that relates a gas’s pressure to its volume. But even if you have some awareness of Robert Boyle himself, it’s unlikely that you’ve heard of his sister...even though she was probably talking him through his ideas, either in person or by letter. This episode of Babes of Science was produce…

Marguerite Perey identified a new element called Francium while she was working in the Curie laboratory. So why don't we know her name? MUSIC: Mile Post 1 by Alex Fitch Drifting Spade by Blue Dot Sessions Building The Sun by Broke For Free Biolumina L2 by Little Glass Men History Explains Itself by The Losers Summer Spliffs by Broke For Free…

Henrietta Lacks developed an aggressive form of cervical cancer, and died at the age of 31. The cells from the tumor on her cervix, however, are still alive today. More than twenty tons of her cells have grown in labs, participating in disease research for the polio vaccine and for AIDS treatment. And Henrietta's cells have literally traveled to sp…

Bertha Pappenheim was spending each night by her sick father's bed when she began hallucinating. Josef Breuer would diagnose her with hysteria and spend two years practicing "the talking cure." He and Sigmund Freud later published her account as a case study under the name Anna O. To support the show, head to patreon.com/babesofscience. Or visit ba…

Irène Joliot-Curie found that radioactivity wasn't just something to be found in the earth's elements -- scientists could make other metals radioactive. And then her research took her right up to nuclear fission...and World War II. To support the show, head to patreon.com/babesofscience. Or visit babesofscience.com for more information on Babes of …

Margaret Cavendish used her writing to debate philosophy with some of the great thinkers of the scientific revolution. And she was the only woman to visit the Royal Society meetings for at least its first hundred years. Visit babesofscience.com for more information on Babes of Science, or follow @babescience on twitter for fun facts about women in …

Rita Levi-Montalcini worked with homemade tools in her bedroom laboratory when she and her family were forced into hiding during World War II. The findings from her bedroom lab were the beginning of her Nobel-winning research and life obsession. Music in this episode: Illway by Blue Dot Sessions Pineapple by Podington Bear New England is Interestin…

Maria Sibylla Merian painted caterpillars with their corresponding cocoons and butterflies on a host plant. While most of Maria's peers in the 17th century admired her for her artistry, now her work is considered one of the earliest examples of ecology. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries. Music in this episode: The Everlasting Itch For Things …

Imagine you're a PhD student, just getting started. And you realize you can't hear anything out of one ear, and THEN you learn that's because there's a tumor wrapped around the nerve starting at your inner ear and heading into the brain. That's what happened to Brittany Bushnell. She was studying neuroscience...and then she became the class example…

Zora Neale Hurston collected folklore and stories from communities throughout the rural south. Her stories were some of the first that represented black people with pride, and not with a feeling of distance or exoticism. *for links to Zora Neale Hurston's recordings with the Federal Writers' Project, check babesofscience.com Music in this episode: …

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. one hundred years ago this week. The clinic only lasted ten days, but Margaret was just getting started. Music in this episode: Surly Bonds by Blue Dot Sessions Idea by Kai Engel Bliss by Podington Bear City Limits by Blue Dot Sessions I Am Running With Temporary Success From A Monst…