Problem: Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 - 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for eugenics and women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification, and was the first female academic on the faculty of the University of Manchester. With her second husband, Humphrey Verdon Roe, Stopes founded the first birth control clinic in Britain. Stopes edited the newsletter Birth Control News, which gave explicit practical advice.

During Stopes's time at Manchester, she studied coal and coal balls and researched the collection of Glossopteris (Permian seed ferns). This was an attempt to prove the theory of Eduard Suess concerning the existence of Gondwana or Pangaea. A chance meeting with Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott during one of his fund-raising lectures in 1904 brought a possibility of proving Suess's theory. Stopes's passion to prove Suess's theory led her to discuss the possibility of joining Scott's next expedition to Antarctica. She did not join the expedition, but Scott promised to bring back samples of fossils to provide evidence for the theory. Scott died during the 1912 Terra Nova Expedition, but fossils of plants from the Queen Maud Mountains found near Scott's and his companions' bodies provided this evidence.  In 1907, Stopes went to Japan on a scientific mission. She spent eighteen months at the Imperial University, Tokyo and explored coal mines on Hokkaido for fossilised plants. She published her Japanese experiences as a diary, called "Journal from Japan: a daily record of life as seen by a scientist", in 1910.  In 1910, the Geological Survey of Canada commissioned Stopes to determine the age of the Fern Ledges, a geological structure at Saint John, New Brunswick. It is part of the Early Pennsylvanian epoch Lancaster Formation. Canadian scholars were divided between dating it to the Devonian period or to the Pennsylvanian/Upper Carboniferous period. Stopes arrived in North America before Christmas to start her research. On 29 December, she met the Canadian researcher Reginald Ruggles Gates in St. Louis, Missouri; they became engaged two days later. Starting her work on the Fern Ledges in earnest in February 1911, she did geological field work and researched at geological collections in museums, and shipped specimens to England for further investigation. The couple married in March and returned to England on 1 April that year. Stopes continued her research. In mid-1912 she delivered her results, finding for the Pennsylvanian period of the Carboniferous. The Government of Canada published her results in 1914. Later the same year, her marriage to Gates was annulled.[1]  During the First World War, Stopes was engaged in studies of coal for the British government, which culminated in the writing of "Monograph on the constitution of coal" with R.V. Wheeler in 1918. The success of Stopes' work on marriage issues and birth control led her to reduce her scholarly work; her last scientific publications were in 1935. According to W. G. Chaloner (2005), "between 1903 and 1935 she published a series of palaeobotanical papers that placed her among the leading half-dozen British palaeobotanists of her time". Stopes made major contributions to knowledge of the earliest angiosperms, the formation of coal balls and the nature of coal macerals. The classification scheme and terminology she devised for coal are still being used. Stopes also wrote a popular book on palaeobotany, "Ancient Plants" (1910; Blackie, London), in what was called a successful pioneering effort to introduce the subject to non-scientists.

What did Marie Stopes research ?

Answer with quotes: During Stopes's time at Manchester, she studied coal and coal balls and researched the collection of Glossopteris


Problem: Mary Teresa Slaney (formerly Tabb, nee Decker; born August 4, 1958) is a retired American middle-distance runner. During her career, she won gold medals in the 1500 meters and 3000 meters at the 1983 World Championships, and was the world record holder in the mile, 5000 meters and 10,000 meters. In total, she set 17 official and unofficial world records, including being the first woman in history to break 4:20 for the mile. She also set 36 US national records at distances ranging from 800 meters to 10,000 meters, and has held the US record in the mile, 2000 meters and 3000 meters since the early 1980s, while her 1500 meters record stood for 32 years.

Decker was heavily favored to win a gold medal in the 3000 meters run at the 1984 Summer Olympics, held at Los Angeles. In the final, Zola Budd, representing Great Britain, had been running barefoot side by side with Decker for three laps and moved ahead. In an attempt to put pressure on Budd, Decker remained close by in a crowded space. Decker stood on Budd, then shortly after, collided with the barefoot runner and fell spectacularly to the curb. As a result, Mary Decker did not finish the race, which was won by Maricica Puica of Romania (Budd finished seventh). Decker was carried off the track in tears by her boyfriend (and later, husband), British discus thrower Richard Slaney. At a press conference she said that Budd was to blame for the collision. While it is generally the trailing athlete's responsibility to avoid contact with the runner ahead, it is also an accepted convention among most distance runners that the leader be a full stride ahead before cutting in. Track officials initially disqualified Budd for obstruction, but she was reinstated just one hour later once officials had viewed films of the race. Despite being behind Budd, Decker's claim that Budd had bumped into her leg was supported by a number of U.S. sports journalists, and Budd was hounded constantly in the press as a result, receiving a number of death threats. The claim was never accepted by the director of the games or the IAAF.  Decker and Budd next met in July 1985, in a 3000 meters race at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London, England. Decker won the race, and Budd finished in fourth place. After the race, the two women shook hands and made up. Decker later went on record as claiming that she was unfairly robbed of the LA 3000 meters gold medal by Budd, but said many years after the event "The reason I fell, some people think she tripped me deliberately. I happen to know that wasn't the case at all. The reason I fell is because I am and was very inexperienced in running in a pack."  Decker had a successful 1985 season, winning twelve mile and 3000 meters races in the European athletics calendar, which included a new official world record for the women's mile of 4:16.71 in Zurich (Natalya Artyomova's 4:15.8 in 1984, not being ratified by the IAAF). Since that race in 1985, her time has only been bettered on four occasions. That race in Zurich also matched her with both of the other principle athletes from the Olympic race, Slaney vanquishing both Puica and Budd who themselves ran times that until July 9, 2017 also ranked in the top 10 of all time.  She sat out the 1986 season to give birth to her only child, daughter Ashley Lynn (born May 30, 1986), but missed the 1987 season due to injury. She qualified for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, but failed to win a medal. She did not qualify for the 1992 Games.

Did she try to appeal the race result?

Answer with quotes:
was hounded constantly in the press as a result, receiving a number of death threats. The claim was never accepted by the director of the games or the IAAF.