An unlikely journey can lead to scientific discovery

This summer, your road trip could be different. Ditch the GPS; forget the map. Promise yourself: At each fork in the road, you’ll take the more alluring route, the road untravelled. Curiosity will be your signpost. You will be the mapmaker.

Few of us are so adventuresome. We imagine setbacks — dead ends, impassable waterways, the mud.

Right now, thousands of Canadians are making this kind of trek into the natural world.

These mapmakers are not just charting new lands. With their discoveries, they are reshaping the landscape. They are improving lives and livelihoods; they are fuelling advances in medicine, industry, agriculture, and communications. They are the mapmakers of science.

But destinations are only end points. In the words of John Steinbeck, each journey has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. Each is a story. I have a particular favourite — the unlikely discovery that saved my life.

It began in a London lab, a September morning nearly 90 years ago. The lead character was a humble petri plate — the kind you’d find in any high school lab. The plate was unremarkable. Just a few speckled colonies of bacteria and a splotch of mould. But its story is unforgettable.

Back then, no one imagined this petri plate would become a treasure in the British Museum. No one anticipated a whole new industry or a Nobel Prize. No one expected this plate would spark a revolution in health care.

This was Alexander Fleming’s monumental discovery. To his eye, the plate was notable — not for the mould, nor for the bacterial colonies. It was the space between. In a flash, Fleming wondered whether the mould might inhibit the growth of bacteria. He investigated. After several months, he reported on “a powerful antibacterial substance”, effective on several kinds of harmful microbes. He called the new substance, penicillin.

This was a wonder drug born by happenstance. The mould was sheer accident, an unwelcome contaminant from the lab downstairs.

The plate had been tossed into the discard pile, destined for dishwashing. Fleming just returned from holiday. He plucked the plate from the pile and glanced at its contents. “That’s funny”, he said.

But discovery demands more than luck. Great scientists have trained eyes; they can pick out the exceptional in the swirl of insignificance. Fleming was versed in bacteriology; he had witnessed infections as medic in the First World War. His training and mindset were superb. In science, you might say, you have to be good to be lucky. Very good.

The list of unexpected scientific discoveries reads like a parade of triumphs: DNA, X-rays, modern computer, glue on Post-it notes, nuclear fission, rayon, Viagara, vulcanization of rubber, pasteurization, vaccination, even champagne. Each was an unlikely journey — the collision of coincidence with an astute mind.

But surprises shouldn’t surprise us. The very word, discovery, implies a future unknown. To see why, take a journey in time — to see how previous generations imagined the future.

In 1937, President Roosevelt asked esteemed scientists and engineers a crucial question: What would be the most important technical innovations in the next 25 years? Their list is revealing — especially for what it lacked. Although the experts cited agricultural developments (correctly) and synthetic gasoline (incorrectly), they missed jet aircraft, rockets, and space exploration. They failed to see transistors, lasers, genetic engineering, and computing. They missed nuclear energy, obvious one year later. And they missed antibiotics — the clinical revolution — even though Fleming’s work had been published nearly a decade earlier.

While breakthroughs cannot be foreseen, history points to where they thrive. Discoveries are less likely where science is channelled, where research is prescribed in anticipation of a quick payoff. Discoveries are more likely where talented, inquisitive mapmakers pursue unfettered lines of inquiry. The journey of science thrives on serendipity.

This is creative capacity that can be built. To BlackBerry co-founder, Mike Lazaridis, science flourishes when imaginative people are free to do “creative things just for the hell of it.” Now, there’s a road map to prosperity.