I was thinking of Hypatia. What kind of shells were those again? (DuckDuckGo says oyster or abalone.) Thanks for the mollusc education; I'm a long way from a seashore.

There are people who want pogroms. I hope they don't get their way. Perhaps a better comparison for me to make would be to corruption in religion. Oh, boy, is there a lot of it. But there are also plenty of honest, caring, poorly-paid ministers who don't deserve to be attacked or have their churches shut down. FWIW, I agree that cutting back on federal funding of science is a good call--but it does have negative consequences too.