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More than 2,500 barbiturates have been synthesized. At the height of their popularity, about 50 were marketed for human use.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.
The largest baby ever born weighed more than 23 pounds but died just 11 hours after his birth in 1879. The largest surviving baby was born in October 2009 in Sumatra, Indonesia, and weighed an astounding 19.2 pounds at birth.
The average office desk has 400 times more bacteria on it than a toilet.
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.