Google on Friday commemorated the 161stbirthday of bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri with an animated doodle aping his greatest invention - the petri dish.
The new doodle has six petri dishes place in line and replacing the search engine giant's logo with a 'play' button. When the button is clicked, a hand appears and swabs the dishes with solution, after which bacteria begins to appear. When the mouse's cursor is placed on the dishes, each dish reveals the source of the bacteria - from smelly socks, door knob, computer keyboard, salivating pet dog, a plant in the rain and a wet dishwashing sponge.
Born in May 31, 1852 in Germany, Petri went on to study medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Academy for Military Physicians and attained his medical degree in 1876. He continued working as a military physician till 1882.
Only when Petri started working as an assistant to physician and bacteriologist Robert Koch did he get to culture bacteria on agar plates. He went on to further the process of agar culture for purifying and cloning bacterial colonies which were obtained from single cells. This greatly improved the process of identifying disease bearing bacteria. These microbe-laden algae plates were eventually named petri dishes.
Petri also has to his credits petri sand filter and pure culture.
The scientist died aged 69 on December 20, 1921 in Zeitz, Germany.
