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The
first time someone synthesized saccharin, the artificial sweetener in Sweet’N
Low, it was an accident. A scientist studying coal tar in 1879 didn’t wash his
hands before eating dinner and was surprised to taste a sweet residue from the
lab on his fingertips. Same goes for the invention of the sweetener sodium
cyclamate in 1937: the unwitting pioneer, who was working on a fever medication,
put his cigarette down on the lab bench, and when he picked it bac