Kitty Corner

I love science.  Serendipity is a wonderful thing.  So is the willingness to see something that looks odd, and investigate it rather than simply tossing it as a bad result.  My favourite from Streptomyces research is a paper that came from someone finding a contaminant on their plate in the fridge and noticing that it created a zone of inhibition around itself.  Can't find my copy of the paper or I'd find it and link to it...  At any rate, they got an entire paper out of analyzing the antibacterial compound the contaminant produced and doing serious science on what started as an oops that most people would have pitched without a second thought!

This isn't so whimsical, but it's still fits with the famous quote: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...' " Isaac Asimov (found most recently on this website)

A quote from the article: "As so often happens in science, we did not set out to address this question," said [Ursula] Jakob, an associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "But when we stumbled on the answer midway through a different project, we were all very excited."

They found out how bleach works.  Apparently, the hypochlorite denatures proteins in the same way that heat shock does, and the heat-shock protein Hsp33 acts in bleach resistance.  The researchers were studying Hsp33 first, and happened to use hypochlorite.

Another interesting point: "human immune cells produce significant amounts of hypochlorite as a first line of defence to kill invading bacteria."

So cool!  Again, I love science. :)

And finally, black hole cat! :)