If seeing is believing, what happens when the R&D you’re working on simply disappears? That’s what happened to American chemist Roy Plunkett at the DuPont Company’s Jackson Laboratory in Deepwater, New Jersey.
Here’s an oddity: an accidental discovery that starts with one of today’s most likely contenders for R&D tax credit claims (chemical sciences) and ends with arguably one of the less likely qualifiers (textiles).
Everyone deserves a bit of luck. An Charles Goodyear, he deserved more than most. A self-taught chemist and manufacturing engineer, he got one of those ideas in his head you just can’t shake.
Talk about bringing your work home with you! Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg was experimenting with coal tar derivatives at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland when he landed his big, unexpected break.
It’s no secret that R&D can sometimes take a while to come to fruition, but if any proof were needed that persistence pays off, look no further than the humble office Post-it note.
Poo-powered cars? Algae electricity? Public transport running on kitchen-oil and congealed fat? These are only some of the biofuel alternatives currently being developed!
Imagine the kudos associated with discovering a source of clean, unlimited energy. Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, two highly regarded chemists from the University of Utah, certainly did. Imagine it, that is!
Judged on body count, Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko far surpasses Midgley and relegates other dangerous scientific discoveries like dynamite, poison gas and even atomic bombs to the ranks of ‘also-rans’.
What will be dominating science and technology headlines in 2019? Our technical experts peek into their crystal balls and share their predictions for innovation and technology in the coming year.
