No disrespect indended towards the researchers that Malcolm named, but Mabel's post was my second thought when I read Malcolm's interesting explanation of FORS1

My first thought was "Somebody has too much free time on their hands."

Donna

My thought exactly when I read that someone had found P1 substance in pigeon droppings.

And Sda in guinea pig urine as I recall. Science was clearly fun and exciting in those days. "Hey, let's try this."

But how many varieties of plant seeds got ground up before they found that D. biflorus, U. europaeus etc. could agglutinate certain red cells? Or how much poop did they shovel to no serological avail? Lot of work there.

Well, I know from talking to him, that George Bird ground up a huge variety of seeds before he discovered the use ofr Dolichos biflorus.

Perhaps this is a silly question but why can't the units in question just be AweakB (for example AxB) rather than B(A)? Some of these really weak A antigens can be very difficult to pick up

B(A) was considered because different clones (aside from the MH04) were negative by multiple techs.

Well, I know from talking to him, that George Bird ground up a huge variety of seeds before he discovered the use ofr Dolichos biflorus.

Hence the Edison quote "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."