SERENDIPITY

SERENDIPITY & SCIENCE

1. Serendipity is associated with scientific method & its refers to discoveries made unexpectedly or by chance
2. Serendipity means a "fortunate happenstance" or "pleasant surprise".
3. The term Serendipity, was coined by “Horace walpole” in 1754 from the title of fairy tale, three principle of serendip, who’s heroes were always making discoveries by accident  sagacity
4. Louis Pasteur said that “chance favour the train mind” because an enquisitive , inquisitive, enthusiastic & intuitive mind may perceive the desire direction for a discovery
5. In 1922, while Alexander Fleming, the british bacteriologist had a cold , allowed few drops of his nasal mucus to fall on bacterial culture
6. Fleming was excited to find sometime later, that the mucus could dissolve away the bacteria & the enzyme lysozyme which dissolves the bacterial cells could be discovered
7. One of the best known antibiotics, Penicillin, discovered by fleming in 1928 . as a result of a happy accident
8. Fleming had been working on Staphylococccus  & it happen that some spores of the mould floated into his laboratory through an open window & landed on one of his Staphylococccus  colonies
9. To Flemings , surprised the bacteria were quickly destroyed .
10. The mould was subsequently identified as Penicillium. Not a Notatum ; for these region the active killing the bacteria was called Penicillin
11. Edward Jenner, an English physician , could develop small pox by observing that the dairy maids infected with milder cowpox are safer from infection of small pox
12. In 1976, Jenner inoculated , an 8 year old boy with fluid from cow pox blisters on the hand of a dairy made , Sarah Nelms
13. To Jenner surprise, the boy became immune to small pox & its technique of inducing immunity became known as Vaccination