Marie Curie to be honored in native Poland in 2011

Poland will hold observances in 2011 to mark 100 years since the Polish-born scientist Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of radioactive elements polonium and radium.

Poland will hold observances in 2011 to mark 100 years since the Polish-born scientist Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her discovery of radioactive elements polonium and radium.

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Poland's lawmakers adopted a resolution on Friday naming 2011 the year of the researcher, who was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw in 1867.

The lawmakers said that she was one of the "most outstanding scientists of our times."

In 1891 she left Warsaw, which was under Russian rule at the time, to study in Paris where later she and her husband Pierre Curie researched radioactive elements. In 1903 they jointly received a Nobel Prize in physics and in 1911 she won a Nobel in chemistry for her discovery of polonium and radium, work that laid the grounds for X-ray tests.