Louis Pasteur, the scientific giant who gave us pasteurization
and the vaccine for rabies, said this about making scientific
observations: "Chance favors only the prepared mind."  Alexander
Fleming had such a prepared mind. Upon returning from a two-week
vacation in 1928, he noticed that he had left out a culture
plate smeared with staphylococcus bacteria in his laboratory.
As a result, it had grown fungus.  Before tossing it away,
however, he observed that the fungus had stopped the bacteria
from growing. This observation turned his forgetfulness into
felicity, for Fleming's prepared mind saw the fungus as more
than fungus.  He saw it as a way to stop bacteria from thriving
in the body.  From Fleming's error evolved penicillin, now one
of the most prescribed drugs in the world because of its
effectiveness in thwarting ear infections; heart infections;
inflammation in the lungs, kidneys, liver, muscles, and bones;
and pneumonia.  Something similar with sleep, I feel, has
happened recently. Researchers who be