Smuggling mice and working hard

Rita Levi-Montalcini once smuggled a pair of mice on a plane to Brazil by tucking them in her purse or maybe it was her pocket. She needed the mice for research.

In 1986, she was award a Nobel Prize for her research on nerve cells.

When Levi-Montalcini died in 2012, she was still doing research, usually wearing a string of pearls, high heels and her lab coat. “The moment you stop working, you’re dead,” she once said.

Rachel Swaby tells Levi-Montalcini’s story in her book Headstrong—52 Women Who Changed Science—and the World.