Saccharin is noted as being the first artificial sweetener, outside of the toxic Lead(II) acetate, and the first product to offer a cheap alternative to cane sugar. Interestingly enough, like the Chocolate Chip Cookie, it was also discovered entirely by accident.
Shark skin is sleek and dragless, the envy of swimsuit designers. Perhaps less famous is what shark skin's oddly rough surface looks like up close: an eerie matrix of microscopic tooth-like scales. Now, scientists are 3D printing artificial shark skin in hopes of unlocking its swimming secrets.
Despite the best efforts of NASA, it's impossible to put craft into space that are entirely clean. Now, a study shows that Curiosity was sent up to Mars with 377 strains of microbes aboard—and up to 11 per cent may have made it to the surface of the red planet.
Inside every cell in every human body there's a very special gene, called BRCA1, that regulates how fast cells can divide—and a simple mutation within it can be all that's required for us to develop cancer.
