[Wigsat-l] Rita Levi Montalcini, still brilliant at 100

[Sophia Huyer]

Italian scientist, turning 100, still works
Sat Apr 18, 6:32 pm ET
ROME - Rita Levi Montalcini, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, said  
Saturday that even though she is about to turn 100, her mind is  
sharper than it was she when she was 20.

Levi Montalcini, who also serves as a senator for life in Italy,  
celebrates her 100th birthday on Wednesday, and she spoke at a  
ceremony held in her honor by the European Brain Research Institute.  
She shared the 1986 Nobel Prize for Medicine with American Stanley  
Cohen for discovering mechanisms that regulate the growth of cells and  
organs. "At 100, I have a mind that is superior - thanks to experience  
- than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake  
for her.

The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of  
the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit  
university and do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom  
at home. "Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The  
best comes from them." ( . . . )  the scientist said ( . . . )

Read the whole story at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090418/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_people_levi_montalcini