Some January Birthdays

Penny writes:

January 23rd is the birthday of Gertrude Elion (1918-1999) — she won the Nobel in Medicine and held 45 patents.
January 24th is the birthday of a less famous medical researcher who was about the same generation as Elion: Virginia Minnich (1910-1996) was a hematologist. She was only able to attend college during the Depression because her older sister lent her the money–yeah for older sisters!

I would just like to add that January 20th is the birthday of Zuska and I celebrated with Mr. Zuska (but not till the 21st, since I was at the Science Blogging Conference on the 20th – now that’s a fun way for a geek to spend a birthday!) My point in telling you this is that you really ought to celebrate yourself as a fabulous scientist when your birthday rolls around. We went out to dinner – Vietnamese food, yum! – and because Mr. Zuska is very sentimental, he got me flowers. I’m enjoying looking at them here on my desk as I type.

Perhaps not a very out of the ordinary celebration, but a celebration nonetheless. What do you like to do to celebrate the anniversary of your entry into the world? After all, the world is lucky to have you! And science is lucky to have you. Don’t ever forget that.