chance discovery

Magma is very hard to locate underground, but in 2009 Icelandic engineers made a chance discovery.

Conversation — getting to know people — and chance discovery were as much the point as any of the art itself, and people there were happy to show visitors around and to talk about the works on view.

A chance discovery made by researchers in the lab -- kidney cysts had dramatically shrunk in mouse models that had undergone caloric restriction -- led them to pursue the idea that the fasting response known as ketosis might have some impact on the growth of the apparently glucose-dependent cysts.

"This chance discovery allowed us to recognize that we can design carbon nanotube architectures with desired characteristics by adjusting rotation angles and shaking conditions."

Researchers didn’t give white hydrogen much credence until a chance discovery in Bourakébougou, a small village in Mali, in 1987 when a worker accidentally set fire to a water well by lighting a cigarette over it.