Dr.K.Sivasubramani

We know the role of microbes in agriculture both beneficial and harmful. It is quite interesting to know fungi are reared as farms. Ants belonging to different genera use plant chewate as a substrate to grow fungi as farms and graze them. Same thing is practiced by marsh snail  Littoraria irrorata.  Leaf cutting ants growing fungus. Image source:  http://www.harunyahya.com/image/miracle_in_the_ant/atta1.jpg  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Littoraria_irrorata.jpg Source and for further reading: http://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2015/11/a-snippet-who-invented-agriculture-the-ants-or-the-bees.html http://www.pnas.org/content/100/26/15643.full.pdf

We know the role of Noble laureate Sir Alexander Fleming in the discovery of Penicillin. But who is the first patient to receive Penicillin for treatment? It was Albert Alexander who was a constable in the county of Oxford, London. He was accidentally injured with a rose thorn. The wound was infected with Staphylococci and Streptococci and his condition became very serious. His head was covered with abscess and his eye was removed. Still he faced the risk of death. Howard Walter Florey He was treated by  Dr  Howard Walter Florey. The clinical application of Penicillin was tested only in mice and they haven't tried a human volunteer. Due to the terminal illness of Albert Alexander, they decided to try Penicillin on him.  Albert was given with 160mg of IV dose of Penicillin. He recovered well. But due to war time restrictions, they could not synthesis enough quantities of Penicillin. But the team successfully isolated Penicillin from the urine of Albert and gi...