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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

El Caimán

Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  EDITORIALS

The awe-inspiring impact of accidental science

In history, there have been scientific discoveries responsible for the general well-being of the human race. Moreover, many of those discoveries were found by accident. In 1928, Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming was doing work trying to rid the world of the super inconvenient staph infection. When he left his dirty dishes out over the weekend in his laboratory, an unfamiliar fungus covered them. That fungus, Fleming learned, killed all surrounding bacteria. Thus, penicillin was discovered, or invented, forever changing the world of medicine. If that doesn’t convince you that some of the most amazing scientific projects succeeded by accident, the fact that Viagra was originally created to combat minor chest pains should.


Florida Alligator
OPINION  |  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

In defense of Krishna: a chaplain’s response

Those who serve Krishna Lunch are volunteers. So are most who write for the Alligator. You don’t expect gowns and tuxedos on your Krishna Lunch servers, and you don’t expect Pulitzer-quality columns in the Alligator. Still, one can only marvel at the stunningly superficial and ignorant remarks about Hare Krishnas published in this space a few days ago.


Fall
THE AVENUE

Your guide for fall in Gainesville

Fall is finally here, and you know what that means: going to pumpkin patches, having your friend take 53 pictures of you holding the same pumpkin at various angles and drinking pumpkin spice lattes to stay toasty in our crisp 82-degree weather! But in all seriousness, even though we don’t have the cold weather and falling leaves right now, there are plenty of ways to get in the fall spirit right here in Gainesville.



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