Google honored the 160th birthday of German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri on Friday with an animated doodle of his eponymous invention — the Petri dish. Born May 31, 1852, Petri invented the standard dish still used in microbiology to study and grow microorganism cultures.
Click the play button on the Google search homepage, and you'll see a swabs slip across a series of Petri dishes, which are quickly filled with bacteria spelling out "Google." If you hover over the individual letters, you can see what each of the bacteria growths represent. (The second "O" is a swab from a keyboard, for example.)
Google has made plenty of Doodles — plain, animated, and interactive versions of the search giant's logo — which often mark special occasions . Some of the most impressive examples involve a playable Les Paul guitar, an animated interpretation of John Lennon's "Imagine," and a dancing Martha Graham-inspired piece.
You can catch up on all of the Doodles you've missed by hitting the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on the Google homepage without entering a query. It's shortcut to the Google Doodle archive.
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