From the brains behind Brains-on, this is the moment of um.

Moment of um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Joydolo.

Um.

I host Forever Ago, the History Podcast for Kids that dives into incredible and sometimes unexpected stories.

I love learning about the past. My hunger for history and my yearning for learning

cannot be tamed, which is why I've snuck into this episode of Moment of Um. It's time for Joy's

moment of Um undercover. No, wait. Joy's super stealthy stories. I'll work on it. Anyway, the year was

1988. A scientist named Alexander Fleming had just returned from a lovely vacation and was

getting back to his research. he was studying dishes full of bacteria

that caused seriously yucky sore throats and other infections.

But he'd accidentally left some of these dishes lying around when he left,

and mold was growing in one or two of them,

just like when you accidentally leave bread out on the kitchen counter for too long.

Fleming noticed that the bacteria samples in the dishes were growing everywhere except

for the spaces around the blobs of mold.

Something about the mold was killing the bacteria, and he realized that this might be a new

kind of medicine, which is wild, right?

How the heck does mold become medicine?

Edda asked us about this, too.

So let's find out from an expert.

Music Hi, my name is Christine Solomon.

I'm a faculty member in the Center for Drug Design in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota.

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