This notebook, annotated by Pierré Curie on the eve of his death, to this day gives off pronounced radioactivity. Visitors to the French Bibliothèque Nationale must sign a full discharge of liability before consulting the notebook. The Curies won Nobel prizes in Physics (1903; both Curies) and Chemistry (1911; Marie). Their isolation of radium was the greatest event in chemistry since the discovery of oxygen, and the transmutation of one element into another revolutionized the field. Willing to make their findings available to everyone, they declined to patent their lucrative discoveries, which paved the way for nuclear physics. Ironic paradox….Marie died of leukemia in 1936 after having proven with Pierre that radium could be successfully used in the treatment of cancer.