Word: eurekas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...says??there's??no??such??thing??as??a??eureka??moment? Physicist David Grier sure had one. Grier and graduate student Eric Dufresne were trying to build a new kind of "optical trap"--a device that splits a laser beam and uses it to capture particles of a single substance. They knew that multiple traps, used in tandem, could let scientists play traffic cops on a molecular level, separating a substance into component parts--removing bacteria from blood, for example. For a year, Grier and Dufresne had been trying out fancy glass splitters, but nothing had done the trick...
Jhoti and four of his scientists hit the pub when they had their eureka moment. In October 2002 their advanced X-ray and crystal technique revealed that a chemical was binding to a protein that is a possible cause of Alzheimer's disease. The chemical was a fragment of what could eventually become an Alzheimer's-conquering drug. "I first thought the team had played a trick on me," says Jhoti. Drug giant AstraZeneca, which had been searching for such a chemical for years, enlisted Astex's help. In 2003 the company signed a contract to pay Astex $40 million...
...grand old flags. Some Australian nationalists this month are lobbying to ditch their current symbol, far left--which includes Britain's Union Jack--because it conjures up the country's roots as a penal colony. Instead, the Aussies are pushing for a new flag celebrating the 19th century Eureka Stockade, a tax revolt some liken to the Boston Tea Party. Australia is just one of several countries reconsidering their colors. --By Jeremy Caplan...
...year away from marketing protein-based drugs to treat arthritis and multiple sclerosis. For the luckier Pioneers like Grier and Dufresne, the distance between the initial "Eureka!" moment and a marketable business can be breathtakingly brief. It's true that they were not the first to develop an optical trap. This has been a hot area of scientific inquiry at least since 1986, when Bell Labs invented one. (Grier had done a postdoctoral fellowship at Bell Labs.) Back then, Bell Labs scientists invented a single-beam "optical tweezers" that trapped just one substance. That was a monumental breakthrough, but scientists...
...Woodroffe needs now is a central London spot to build it. His inspiration: a night in first class on a flight home from Kuwait. "As I lay on the bed with the comforter and the pajamas, and the [flight attendant] tucked me in," he says, "I had a eureka moment." --By Nellie Huang...