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AFP
AFP
Washington (AFP) – In 1921, the celebrated French scientist Marie Curie made a six-week trip to the United States, where she visited the White House and received from the hands of the president himself a very unusual gift: a gram of radium. At the time, the radioactive element was extremely hard to extract from minerals and could cost more than ten times as much as a diamond of the same weight. Yet its study was key in the development of treatments for cancer. Thanks to fundraising organized by US journalist Marie Meloney, who had interviewed Curie, the radium was offered for free and the rese…