MR BLOBBY HE AIN’T! IT’S JUNGLE NOEL AT 69

THEY were the trailblazing scientists and inventors who put Scotland on the map as one of the world’s most innovative nations.

Now dozens of Scots are in the running to become the face of a new plastic £50 note designed to celebrate scientific achievement.

Those shortlisted range from Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, Elsie Inglis, founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, and Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone.

However, they face tough competition from former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was nominated for the accolade by members of the public after an appeal by the Bank of England.

Baroness Thatcher was a chemist before she went into politics and elected a fellow of scientific body the Royal Society in 1983.

Other Scots in the running include Dundee-born physicist Sir James Alfred Ewing, geologist Maria Gordon, from Aberdeenshire and pioneering Edinburghborn lighthouse designer Thomas Stevenson. Brechin-born radar pioneer Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt and Nobel peace prize winning nutritionist Lord John Boyd Orr, born in Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, are also on the shortlist.

Orcadian John Rae, who explored northern Canada and discovered the final portion of the Northwest Passage – the sea route to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean – in 1854.

Major General William Roy, whose pioneering work in mapping led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791, the year after his death, is also included in the list.

Several Scots women are among the candidates.

Williamina Fleming, a Dundeeborn astronomer who discovered the Horsehead Nebula in 1888, is included, along with Marion Gilchrist, the first female graduate of the University of Glasgow in 1894.

Other British scientists in the running include Stephen Hawking, who died in March and computer scientist Alan Turing.

A Bank spokesman said 174,112 people had nominated a candidate to appear on the note. A total of 816 names are being considered. The vast majority are men.

There are more than two weeks remaining until a deadline for entries on December 14.

The plastic £50 will replace the paper note which features industrial revolution pioneers Matthew Boulton and James Watt.