Google Doodle celebrates 118th birthday of vitamin C discoverer

Google Doodles usually add that extra bit of excitement to our everyday web searching, providing us with things like Freddie Mercury or Les Paul based fun. Every so often, however, the Big G has to come along and make something serious, usually creating a special Nobel Prize-based search page to enlighten us.

This time round its Albert Szent-Gyorgi. Who's that you may ask? None other than the discoverer of vitamin C. Without Szent-Gyorgi the citric acid cycle, which is key to all cellular respiration (it keeps us alive), would not have been found. 

Szent-Gyorgi was born in 1893 in Budapest and received a Nobel Prize for his work in 1937. He was also a prominent member of the Hungarian resistance during WWII and a key figure in the politics of the country after the war. 

He then spent the rest of his days in the US working at the Institute for Muscle Research, Massachusetts and the National Institute of Health. Szent-Gyorgi turned to quantum physics, free radicals and looking at cancer cures towards the end of his life. He died in 1986 aged 93.

The Google Doodle itself shows things like oranges, strawberries, grapefruits and is clickable, taking you through to a Szent-Gyorgi search. Shame there isn't a picture of a Kiwi in there, Pocket-lint relies on those hairy bad boys to keep our vitamin C levels up, skin looking healthy and generally being beautiful. 

Google Doodle fan? Like Vitamin C?