lungs of nine hundred thirty nine the second world war had broken out in europe. after occupying france nazi germany set its sights on britain in september nine hundred forty eight the german lost but for began large scale night attacks on britain to force it to capitulate. london also suffered greatly under the bombing offensive known as the blitz during the air raids tens of thousands sought refuge in underground station. is on the fleming paid little heed to the air raids since his discovery of penicillin twelve years earlier he d made little progress in his research and set
important drug despite the rise in resistant bacteria. when it s. going to sell and is the oldest antibiotic produced on an industrial scale today we have an arsenal of weapons against germs some of the new and very effective better buy out x.p. and produce today are kept behind locking key as drugs of last resort. and that s done to make sure the bacteria and nature don t come into too much contact with them to feel that. so are there new antibiotics being held in reserve or might old fashioned penicillin have a role to play in the fight against dangerous superbugs. nearly a century after alexander fleming s discovery of penicillin that s at mary s hospital in london and we appear again to be on the cusp of a new era in public health. in one thousand nine hundred twenty eight fleming
but you do sort of go off route and find something else? some other wonderful discovery? well, yes. there are a number of such examples and discovery of penicillin is one such example. but, in fact, you will notice that i called the book brilliant blunders because of the reason that, in fact, all of the blunders i describe here eventually actually led to breakthroughs. i mean, the idea is that to make a really big discovery, you need to think outside the box. and to think outside the box really means that sometimes you re going to make blunders. right. and this is the way science really progresses. all right. mario livio, interesting things and certainly makes us all who have made a blue blunders feel better that geniuses have also made blunders. so thank you so much for the book and for joining us. thank you for having me. all right.