Molecules That Changed History: A Chemical Biography of Civilization, from Fire to Semiconductors

A Royal Air Force pilot lies dying of a wound infection in a North African field hospital in 1943. What saves him is not a bullet removed, but a vial of brownish liquid grown from mold that a careless Scottish bacteriologist almost threw away fifteen years earlier. He recovers in six days.This is the kind of story that history books skip and chemistry books bury under jargon. Molecules That Change...