Pulsar discoverer wins $3-million prize

Thought by many to have been snubbed for a Nobel prize for the discovery, Bell Burnell, 75, has been recognized by the Breakthrough committee with a special award in fundamental physics both for her scientific achievements and for her "inspiring leadership" over the past five decades. In 1967, Bell Burnell, then a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, UK, under astronomer Antony Hewish, was analysing hundreds of metres of chart paper containing data collected by a radio telescope in Cambridge when she noticed some mysterious recurring smudges. In 1974, Hewish shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with fellow radio astronomer Martin Ryle, for pioneering research in astrophysics.