In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

Today we were talking about eponyms.  Eponyms, for those of you who aren't total dorks like me language arts teachers, are words that are formed from the name of the person who created the thing.  For example, the word leotard comes from its inventor, French acrobat Jules Leotard.

As you can see, I am a veritable treasure trove of useless information.

But I digress.  One of the eponyms on our list was curium.  As in the element.  I don't know what it does or what it looks like.  But I do know that it was named for Marie Curie.  So we were discussing who she was and how she won the Nobel Prize (twice), yada yada yada.  I mentioned that if you want to read her original notebooks, you have to wear protective gear because they are still radioactive.  A kid in the back looks at me strangely.

"What?" I said.  "She died of radiation poisoning.  It takes a long time for radioactivity to dissipate."

The kid exclaims, "Oh!  You're talking about Marie Curie!  I thought you were talking about Mariah Carey!"

The confusion is understandable.