Hodgkin gets stamp of approval

It's great to see that Oxford's Dorothy Hodgkin is honoured in a new set of Royal Mail stamps celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The stamp celebrates advances in X-ray crystallography she made at Oxford University: she determined the molecular structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin. In 1964 she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, becoming the only British woman scientist to win a Nobel so far. Royal Mail say the idea was to choose ten significant scientific RS figures from the last 350 years, with one figure representing each 35-year period. Each stamp includes a portrait and imagery relevant to the scientist's greatest achievement. Hodgkin is the only woman in an illustrious line-up that includes Isaac Newton, Ernest Rutherford, and Edward Jenner. You can find out more about how the stamps were put together in this audio slideshow.