Q1.
Did you know that vitamin B12 is required for the proper functioning of the human body?
Answer
Yes. Vitamin B12 is needed for the formation of healthy red blood cells, for the normal working of the nerves and the brain, and for the body's use of the food we eat.
Like most vitamins, it cannot be made in the human body and has to be obtained from the food we eat. If the diet lacks it for a long time, the person becomes anaemic and may also get tingling or numbness in the hands and feet, and poor memory.
Why Dorothy Hodgkin's work mattered: she worked out the structure of vitamin B12 — an unusually complicated molecule — using X-rays. Once chemists knew its structure, the vitamin could be made and used as medicine. In 1964 she became the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in the field of chemistry.