What do you do when you're officially declared inferior and thus prohibited from working?  If you're Rita Levi Montalcini, a biomedical researcher, you ignore the official(s) who, by this decree prove they are inferior and then you continue working, even if it means your exile - or worse. An Italian Jew, Montalcini was in her 20s when Mussolini and his Fascists imposed anti-Jewish laws on Italy.  Undaunted, she continued her research in her bedroom until she was able to escape to the U.S. where she continued her research under obviously more favorable conditions.  Fifty years later that research led to the Nobel Prize for Medicine for her discoveries on mechanisms that regulate growth in organs and cells.Mussolini?  He led Italy, a proud tolerant country, into a destructive war that they lost, and was eventually publicly hung.  Montalcini?  In addition to winning the Nobel, she continued her research and is celebrating...(Read Full Post)