Madame Curie?

Yes! Marie Curie.

11. I died of aplastic anaemia from exposure to radiation in the course of my scientific research.

12. I became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

13. My husband’s name was Pierre Curie.

Your turn, Karnak …

Her death was miserable. No one knew about radiation poisoning yet. Her husband would have had the same rotten and painful experience, but luckily (if this can be lucky) he died having been run over in the street by a delivery wagon. Pierre certainly took the high road when the Nobel committee came to him to offer him the prize. he said that they did not want him, but wanted his wife. 20 years later, a different Nobel committee must have forgotten about Pierre and his honesty. They passed over Lize Meitner for being a woman, and gave the prize to her lab assistant Otto. Her Mobile hospital to help soldiers can be argued to have been one of the greatest and most humane achievements in science of all time.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1934.
I was married three times, and had five children.
I am best known as a science popularizer and communicator.

Isaac Asimov

Good guess, but not Asimov. Just a bit younger than him.

I was a well-known astronomer and professor at Cornell.
I was a prolific writer of many popular books making science accessible (and inspiring) to lay readers.
I was also an advocate of critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, in the face of popular pseudosciences.

Carl Sagan?

You beat me to it Arthur....

Sagan it is!

The man who laughed out loud, on camera, at President Ronald Reagan.

Would that have been “Ronnie Ray-Gun”?

Asimov said that Sagan was only one of two people he ever met who was smarter than him. (High praise indeed.)

1. I was born in London, the seventh of eight children, including six older sisters and younger brother.

2. My father was a slaughterhouse worker of Welsh descent who liked to hang out in pubs and was considered a ladies man. My mother, of Irish descent, had a sharp tongue and could be crude and forceful.

3. When I was an art student at college, I became increasingly interested in music.

4. I played guitar for a number of musical groups before forming my own band.

5. We spent one summer supporting a pop singer on a tour of US airbases.

Deloris O'Riordan?

6. After we obtained a recording contract, I emerged as the chief songwriter and de facto leader of the band.

7. Our third single, which featured a lean, raw sound, became an international hit.

Jimmy Page?

8. Following a tour of the USA, the American Federation of Musicians banned us from performing there for four years.

Elvis Costello (Declan McManus)