Fifty years ago, a stalwart in nuclear physics passed away. Maria Goeppert Mayer was a theoretical physicist who brought insights from quantum mechanics into nuclear physics and underlined the importance of spin-orbit coupling in accounting for the binding energy of atomic nuclei. Her contribution fit the missing piece of the puzzle, providing a complete understanding of the nuclear shell model, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. Goeppert Mayer is the second and one of the three women who have been awarded the prize to date. Starting out at a time where going to school was not commonplace for girls and navigating the world of academic science rife with sexism, a scientific career was anything but easy, but she persevered, leaving a complex legacy behind.
In this episode's fortnightly news update, we report the bombing of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology in Ukraine, success of gene therapy in curing the first woman of HIV, AI-powered largest ever genealogical map of humans spread across the globe, and the latest developments in the recently launched JWST from space.
