Thanks - it was QI! But this reminds me of the "luck and the prepared mind" issue. We can all relate to the story because we can all imagine sitting on the lo

Thanks - it was QI! But this reminds me of the "luck and the prepared mind" issue. We can all relate to the story because we can all imagine sitting on the loo. But we aren't Nobel Prize winning physicists, so we could not of the extra mile. It's similar for penicillin- I could easily leave a window open and have spores infect my petri dishes - it's just the Fleming also happened to be Britain's leading bacteriological researcher at the time. Happy accidents don't push science forward - happy accidents that occur to trained scientists who have been funded and supported for many years, pushes science forward.