Google on Friday, 8 February, raised a toast in honour of German analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, who made some eye-opening discoveries which are an integral part of our lives, even 200 years later.
Hoping to create a buzz around Runge, the search engine dedicated an animated doodle on his 225th birthday.
Born to a Lutheran pastor family on this day, in 1795, in Hamburg, Germany, Runge expressed interest in chemistry from an early age and began conducting experiments as a teenager.
He identified the pupil-dilating effects of belladonna when he accidentally splashed a drop of the toxic perennial, also known as ‘deadly nightshade’, into his eye.