Skip to main content

Happy Accidents

IF YOU happen to believe that chance-happenings take place only to those who are more religious than scientific, then you need to read more into the lives of scientists and inventors.

Mark Twain, the father of American literature, believed that the greatest of all inventors is “accident.” Wordsmiths call it “serendipity.” Still, look at anything around you—the bouncy silly putty, the sticky superglue, the transparent cellophane, the antibiotic penicillin—you name it, they all came from happy accidents. Even Viagra came out from an accident... (Read more.) 


This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 1 September 2010.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Deadly X-Gene Mutants

A RECENT study on macrophages (i.e. defensive cells in our body that engulf threatening substances inside our body) introduced me to a lethal, genetic disease that targets the male population. This disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who described it in 1861. While it has an incidence of one in 3,500 newborn males, health experts consider this as the most common lethal disease of childhood around the world. Mutation in the male (X) chromosome [dystrophin gene, locus Xp21] causes a rapid degeneration of the muscles, leading into an eventual loss of walking ability and then death. While females do not exhibit symptoms, they can be carriers of these defective genes, especially if the father had this condition or the mother is also a carrier. Symptoms usually appear before age five; at times visible in early infancy. These symptoms involve... ( Read more .)  This article appears in Sun-Star Ce...
Post a Comment
Read more

Joy, Temperance and Repose

“I RECKON being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh (1903). The term “antioxidant” was originally used in the 18th century to refer to a chemical that prevents the consumption of oxygen in laboratory experiments. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, extensive study exploded... ( Read more ) This article appeared in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 02 June 2010.
Post a Comment
Read more