Add another item to the long list of incredible scientific discoveries made entirely by chance.
An engineer stumbled on the design for the microwave when he accidentally melted the chocolate bar in his pocket while fiddling with some radar equipment. Penicillin was famously discovered when Sir Alexander Fleming forgot to cover a petri dish. Viagra, X-rays, and the world’s first plastic were also all invented as flukes.
Now, this list of discoveries that owe a whole lot to chance may have just gotten one item longer. A UC, Irvine PhD student named Mya Le Thai has just stumbled on a potential way to make the rechargeable batteries found in phones and laptops last an incredible 400 years, GOOD reports (hat tip to Business Insider for the pointer):
