Did you know that Apple Computers has so far been unable to patent the software interface of the iPod digital music player because of a prior filing by inventor John Platt, who submitted a patent application for a similar software design in May of 2002? Photo of iPod Family provided by Apple Computers.

As part of the the London Science Museum's centenary celebration a poll was taken to determine what people felt was "the best invention ever for having made the greatest impact on the past, present and future." And the winners in order were:

1. X-ray machines
2. Penicillin
3. Discovery of the DNA double helix
4. Apollo 10 capsule
5. V2 Rocket Engine
6. Michael Jackson
7. Pilot ACE Computer
8. Steam Engine
9. Model T Ford
10. Electric Telegraph

Photo credit: LOC The first X-ray picture of the human body ever taken. PS Folks, Does anyone know how Michael Jackson got on this list?

LSD was first synthesized on November 16, 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann in Sandoz Laboratories in Basle, Switzerland. Sandoz Laboratories, the only company to manufacture and sell LSD. first marketed the drug in 1947 under the trade name Delysid. (BTW Heroin® was once a trademark belonging to Bayer) It is interesting to note that Albert Hofmann who had been working on making a circulatory and respiratory stimulant did not realize that he had invented a hallucinogenic drug until 1943, when he accidently ingested some. Psychedelic Painting: Mary Bellis

Google was named after a googol - the name for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros - found in the book Mathematics and the Imagination by Edward Kasner and James Newman. To Google's founders the name represents the immense amount of information that a search engine has to sift through. Photo Credit: Google Co-Founders Sergey Brin & Larry Page provided by Google Inc.