Somewhere inside the Bibliotech National in Paris, France is a set of curious boxes.

They're not necessarily off limits, but you do have to sign a waiver if you want to

see what they contain.

Oh, and you'll need to put on some protective clothing too.

Why?

Because what's inside them is incredibly dangerous.

Each box contains a notebook used by the legendary Nobel Prize winning scientist Marie Curie.

Her research saw the discovery of two new radioactive elements, but also most likely

caused her untimely death.

So radioactive are her notebooks that they need to be stored in lead-line boxes, and will

for another 1,500 years.

They are a testament to the danger of scientific work, but also a priceless treasure that records

the work of a woman hailed by many as the mother of modern physics, and their own complex

history hides a more simple lesson.

Scientists love to write things down.

There are other notebooks like them, of course.

One of the oldest and most famous is probably the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, but museums

and archives have also preserved the documents of Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and Lewis

and Clark.

If it was significant or useful for reference later, they would write it down, an act that

preserved it for the ages, and opened a window into the past that we can still look through

today.

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