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Artemis Spyrou, Professor of Nuclear Physics, Michigan State University

How a disgruntled scientist looking to prove his food wasn't fresh discovered radioactive tracers and won a Nobel Prize 80 years ago

George De Hevesy working in his lab at Stockholm University in 1944. Keystone Features/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Each October, the Nobel Prizes celebrate a handful of groundbreaking scientific achievements. And while many of the awarded discoveries revolutionize the field of science, some originate in unconventional places. For George de Hevesy, the 1943 Nobel Laureate in chemistry who discovered radioactive tracers, that place was a boarding house cafeteria in Manchester, U.K., in 1911.

A black and white headshot of a young man with a mustache wearing a suit.
Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy. Magnus Manske
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