Richard Mankin is a research entomologist with the US Department of Agriculture. He uses crutches to get around since his legs are missing several muscles and require braces. Says Mankin, shown here with his sons Alex (left) and Andrew: "I was born to be a scientist, so I couldn't do anything else."
Anne Swanson can't think of a time when she wasn't fascinated by science. "I remember my father waking me up in the middle of the night in the winter and wrapping me in a blanket and hustling me out the door so I could see a dazzling display of the aurora borealis," she recalls. Later, a nurse piqued her interest in medicine by showing her a centrifuge and a microscope in the lab of the hospital where Swanson was receiving treatment for osteogenesis imperfecta. The condition, known popularly as "brittle bone disease," results in short stature and bone ...
