For scientists, the most regrettable thing is that they can win the Nobel Prize, but they will not survive that day.

Since 1974, the Nobel Foundation has stipulated that the Nobel Prize shall not be awarded to deceased persons in principle.

Therefore, when the "God Particle", which was jointly predicted by six people in the 1960s, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013, it was only awarded to two living people, and the two people equally shared the prize of approximately US$1.2 million.

The verification process, which often takes more than 20 years or even half a century, has caused many scientists to miss out on the Nobel Prize.

And a long wait isn't always bad.

The Nobel Foundation once made a fatal mistake by being too "impatient" in awarding awards.

The 1948 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded to the Swiss chemist Müller who synthesized DDT (Dietane). This became a stain on the Nobel Prize's life.

Muller's DDT, as an insecticide, was considered harmless to humans at the time, highly effective in killing insects, and low in price.

With the endorsement of the Nobel Prize, DDT was promoted to the altar in the 1950s.

In the fields where DDT was used, there was a bumper harvest. American farmers even sprayed each other with DDT to celebrate.

After it was used on a large scale around the world, scientists discovered something chilling: DDT is actually harmful to humans and animals!

The whole story of spraying DDT to celebrate begins in the 1930s.

Before the invention of DDT, most countries faced food crises.

In Switzerland, Muller's home country, crop fields are often wiped out by locusts and the people are starved of food.

What’s even more frightening about locusts is that harmful insects such as body lice, fleas and mosquitoes can serve as vectors of infectious diseases.

During World War II, epidemic typhus claimed countless lives. This infectious disease caused by Rickettsia microorganisms can invade the human body through lice, fleas, and other arthropods as vectors.

The main culprits are mosquitoes and farmland pests.

But in fact, there were many kinds of pesticides at that time, but they were either expensive, not effective for a long time, or easily develop resistance in pests, and their effects were average.

Effective pesticides are harmful to humans, such as arsenic.

Muller's childhood friend died from eating fruits and vegetables that had been sprayed with arsenic.

Wouldn't it be perfect if there was a pesticide that was harmless to humans and the environment, yet lethal to pests, and so cheap that African people could afford it?

Whenever he thought of people living in dire straits, Muller, a doctor of chemistry, decided to regain his childhood ideal and invent an efficient pesticide.

In 1935, Muller began a systematic study of pests and discovered that insects and mammals absorb chemicals differently.

Following this clue, after spending 4 years and 349 failures, in September 1939, Muller found his ideal insecticide-1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-

Bis(4-chlorophenyl)ethane, also known as DDT.

DDT, but the scientist who first synthesized DDT was not Müller. It is recorded that Osmer, a medical scientist in Vienna, was the first person to synthesize DDT in 1874. However, at that time, he did not investigate the chemical properties of this substance and did not understand its effects.

and value.

The toxic mechanism of DDT is: it enters the insect body through the chitin of the insect body wall, inhibits nerve signal transmission, causes the insect's muscles to spasm or become over-excited, and eventually becomes paralyzed and dies, similar to the neurotoxin of snakes.

The effects of DDT on mammals are so small that they are considered harmless.

In 1940, DDT was the first to be patented in Switzerland, and the Swiss government confirmed its effectiveness against potato beetles and other insects.

Subsequently, DDT applied for patents in other countries and mass-produced it.

The invention of DDT is tantamount to dropping a bombshell for pests.

According to data from the World Health Organization: In 1948, Sri Lanka, which did not use DDT, had about 1 million new malaria patients every year. Until it started using DDT in 1963, there were 18 new malaria patients every year. The effect can be described as shocking.

In 1954, after the use of DDT in the United States, the unit yield of farmland increased by 60% compared with 1943 when DDT was not used.

Because DDT is cheap, lethal to pests, and harmless to humans, the total amount of DDT used worldwide exceeds 1.8 million tons.

When the grain harvest is good, farmers in the United States use DDT instead of champagne to spray orgies.

Spray some DDT when swimming, the insect repellent effect is great.

Give the forest some DDT to kill the pests.

Even models in fashion magazines use DDT as a surrounding background, proving that it is safe and harmless to humans.

It seemed at that time that if a person's first life was given by his parents, then his second life was given by DDT, because it solved the disease and food problems.

This wave of enthusiastic pursuit successfully sent DDT to the 1948 Nobel Prize.

When people were immersed in the joy of DDT, the situation changed 180 degrees.

In 1962, some scholars discovered that after using DDT, birds near their homes died one after another. They believed that DDT was the cause and called on the general public to stop using it as soon as possible.