Side effects aside, serendipity often changes the world

Who was the first person hungry enough to eat limburger cheese? And how hungry did they have to be before it started tasting good?

It was M&Ms, paralyzed mice and the Blue Man Group who brought up the question. According to CNN, scientists have discovered that by injecting blue dye into the spinal cords of paralyzed mice, they can get the mice to walk again. They still limp -- but they walk. The dye is the same used to make blue M&Ms, and one temporary side effect is that it turns the mice bright blue.

A small price to pay to walk again, I think, and an instant "in" with the performance artists Blue Man Group.

But we were sitting around and talking about this amazing discovery and what it could mean for humans suffering from spinal cord injuries, when we wondered -- who thought to themselves, "I wonder what would happen if I injected blue M&M dye into the backs of these poor mice?"

Maybe it was a lab practical joke among the interns and they were just trying to dye the poor critters blue and the rejuvenation was a bonus.

How many other incredible discoveries and inventions have come about because of similar circumstances?

"Serendipity" is one of my favorite words in the English language. Not just because I like the way it comes trippingly off the tongue, but I love the meaning. According to Merriam-Webster, serendipity is "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."

In other words -- finding answers without looking for them in the traditional ways, or making discoveries purely by accident.

Some famous instances of this include the discovery of penicillin‚ X-rays and America. If Fleming hadn't been such a slob and washed his lab equipment before he left for vacation, we might still be without penicillin. Roentgen was curious about cathode rays and Columbus was looking for India. Fleming and Roentgen got Nobel prizes and Columbus got the queen's favor, a permanent place in history and, some say, a raging case of syphilis. Too bad he couldn't have found the new world after Fleming found the bread mold ...

I know Thomas Edison said genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, but isn't that 1 percent amazing? How many people saw apples fall to the earth before recognizing the force of gravity? How many would have tossed the moldy bread out without noticing it was an island, untouched by surrounding bacteria? How many would have taken Roentgen's cathode experiment and relegated to the role of "nifty party trick," and let it gather dust in the closet along with the fondue pot and the Trivial Pursuit game?

The problem with serendipity, though, is that it is the Powerball lottery of the scientific world. One lucky draw, and you've got the big prize, the flashbulbs, front page headlines, and instant riches. All the glory, and the world forgets about the Mom & Pop millionaires who earn their money, their honors or their inventions one hard-won dollar or idea at a time. For every instant, effortless miracle, there are thousands upon thousands of cures, innovations and discoveries made through endless repetition, time-consuming tests and, yes, 99 percent perspiration.

So what's more impressive? Fleming's bread mold trick, or the generations of scientists looking for a cure for cancer, one tedious experiment after another?

Maybe Edouard Benedictus had the answer. In 1903, he accidentally dropped a glass bottle and heard it break -- but when he looked down, the glass had not splintered and sent dangerous fragments flying. Instead, the fragments clung to a thin, invisible skin of plastic -- the remnants of a solution that had dried inside the flask.

That was the serendipity. The inspiration came a week later, when Benedictus read a newspaper article about the rising number of deaths from automobile accidents -- and how many were related to the shattered glass of windshields. The perspiration came about when he and his team experimented with solution after solution, until the first "safety glass" was formed.

Aesop writes "Necessity is the mother of invention," and his fable illustrates how we discover things as we need them. I guess the "how" and "why" aren't as important as the "what" and "when." Who cares how the blue mice got the spotlight? The important thing is that because they did get there, someone may walk again someday.

Mary Reeves is a Times-Gazette staff writer. She can be reached at mreeves@t-g.com.