descriptionTổng quan
A Petri dishes, invented by German microbiologist Julius Richard Petri in 1887, rarely receive the appreciation or attention that their more complex lab companions like the microscope enjoy. They are simple, utilitarian little things, and it's understandable that some people see them as just shallow dishes with lids. But Petri dishes deserve celebrating: they are still at the forefront of scientific discovery.
B The invention of the Petri dish, and the advances it has helped to create, are part of a bigger whole, of course — the development of glass scientific instruments, from microscope lenses to laboratory beakers. In The Glass Bathyscaphe: How Glass Changed the World, Alan Macfarlane argues that without glass, the Renaissance and the scientific revolution would never have happened.
Around 70 percent of what we know about the world comes in through our eyes, Macfarlane points out, and glass instruments enabled us to see better. Until about 1400, knowledge was based on what people had been told in the past. "Glass allowed the growth of the experimental method. Don't trust what you are being told: see it for yourself. It was transformational," he says.
C At the Wellcome-MRC Orange Stem Cell Institute, Professor Ludovic Vallier says that his first encounter with a Petri dish was a classic example of understanding the world in this way: students used the dishes to see which bacteria could grow in the presence of antibiotics. "It's good to see things grow," he says. "It was a fascinating experience. Now, we grow cells in the Petri dish, and we don't use glass any more, but plastic."
