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About 3% of all pregnant women will give birth to twins, which is an increase in rate of nearly 60% since the early 1980s.
Prostaglandins were first isolated from human semen in Sweden in the 1930s. They were so named because the researcher thought that they came from the prostate gland. In fact, prostaglandins exist and are synthesized in almost every cell of the body.
In the United States, an estimated 50 million unnecessary antibiotics are prescribed for viral respiratory infections.
More than 2,500 barbiturates have been synthesized. At the height of their popularity, about 50 were marketed for human use.
Interferon was scarce and expensive until 1980, when the interferon gene was inserted into bacteria using recombinant DNA technology, allowing for mass cultivation and purification from bacterial cultures.