Story: Little Gray Dots

Dr. Adams was declining as a researcher. Although he had previously had many good ideas in the past, he hadn't been published in nearly a decade and would have been fired had he not already received tenure. Ten years ago, he was known around the world for his research in cell growth that was used to study cancer tumor growth, but his spring of ideas had quickly run out. One night as he was looking at old science books that he used to love. The flawed experiments from the 1800s where flies were thought to spring from slices of old raw meat caught his eye. 

"Something out of nothing," he whispered to himself. His spark suddenly came back. He started formulating a similar experiment that could be capable of creating completely different cells from tissue. It would be reminiscent of the old experiments he had read about, except in his version, it looked like actual living things might be capable of growing in his petri containers. Months of research later, he created a special serum that would hopefully grow into a strain of bacteria. He was careful to make sure that the serum contained no living cells. The petri dishes were cleaned and sterilized to ensure the same condition. He put the serum into the containers one night and waited for something to grow. Throughout the months, the containers were kept closed off from the outside world. To create a control group, he made some of the petri containers transparent, and some coated with black paint to keep light out. 

The transparent containers started to grow impressive colonies of living cells. Most were brightly colored and the colonies created beautiful, symmetric shapes in the dishes. Dr. Adams gazed with wonder at his new life. Photographers came to document his success, and other scientists began to try and develop a similar experiment. Finally, it came time to check the black-painted dishes. These cells were completely different than the others. The cells were a light gray color and only a few sporadic colonies were found inside the dishes. 

Now, the testing began. The colorful bacteria were distributed throughout the world to leading biologists, but Dr. Adams kept the light gray bacteria to himself. He had a peculiar feeling about them. It might have even been fear. Over several years, the colorful strains ended up being used in medicines since they were found to have unique qualities that attacked other bacteria. 

After several years of keeping the gray strain out of the public, scientists were beginning to get impatient. One night, a young grad student of Dr. Adams broke into lab after hours and stole a small sample. He sold pieces of the sample to biologists around the world. Unfortunately, the grad student was not careful in handling the sample. Before any research could be done on the gray strain, the student became violently ill one day. In turn, his roommates showed similar symptoms. Soon, the mysterious illness spread to the whole campus before the government could do anything to stop the spread. 

Dr. Adams was furious at the breach in security. He and a team struggled to develop a vaccine. A week after the first death, they were successful. The day after that, the government came to lock up the remaining samples of the strain. Dr. Adams watched as the innocent-looking, gray dots that he was responsible for creating were placed in an air-tight box by hazmat-wearing officials. 

A/N

The story that interested me this week was the story from the Mahabharata of the king and queen who wanted children, so they created them out of lumps of flesh from the gods that they put into 100 vats of oil. They noticed that the firstborn son that was born in this manner, Duryodhana, seemed more evil than a normal child. It turns out that he actually was, and was responsible later for the war against Arjuna. I tried to create a parallel with the world of scientific research. 

Bibliography: Mahabharata Epified Part B

Image: Wikimedia Commons