The immunologist Mary Brunkow is having a quiet night in Portland when she receives an ill-timed call from Sweden at one o'clock in the morning. Without bothering to respond, one considers that any sales attempt at that hour is completely out of place, a reflection of how advertising has lost its limits. Brunkow, devoted to her work in molecular biology, believes that respect for rest hours is essential in a decent home. In his mind, the call is just another example of a contemporary problem: our data are the fuel for a voracious technology.
The tranquility of the night is interrupted again when the dog barks, alerting her husband, who, after investigating the cause of the uproar, encounters an Associated Press journalist. Between fatigue and confusion, they reveal to him a piece of news that eclipses all inconvenience: his wife has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. This unexpected twist brightens the night and ends the heaviness of a day marked by work intruding into personal life, showing that, even in routine moments, the academic realm can bring memorable surprises.
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