https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=micr0bi0l0gistHacker News RSShttps://hnrss.org/hnrss v2.1.1Wed, 29 Jul 2026 06:09:24 +0000Thank you for pointing this out! I added the following correction and footnote to my piece. I tried to be as rigorous as possible but am definitely better-versed in biology than French history. "This finding was great news for Napoleon III<2>. The French were losing money, and perhaps more alarmingly, their reputation, exporting wine to the British – the wine would “spontaneously” go bad during shipping." Footnote: "<2> Author correction 7/28/26: Changed from “Napoleon” to “Napoleon III.” A commenter on another site correctly pointed out that Napoleon I was exiled before Pasteur was born. According to the Pasteur Institute, “in 1863, Napoleon III asked [Pasteur] to study diseases in wine.”"

]]>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:46:43 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092474micr0bi0l0gisthttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092474https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092474Author of the article here, thank you for pointing this out out! I added the following correction to my article: "Killing bacteria thus became a major preoccupation of modern life. Its most visible manifestation today might be taking antibiotics (first available in the 1940s): there were ~700 antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 people<4> in 2024 according to CDC data. A close second might be the dizzying array of disinfectant products found in U.S. grocery stores." I added this footnote as well: "<4> Author correction 7/28/26: I reported this initially as “7 in 10 people were prescribed antibiotics,” but a commenter on another site pointed out that the original report data likely reflects a smaller number of people getting repeat prescriptions, so I have reported the raw data from the CDC report instead."

]]>Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:43:10 +0000https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092441micr0bi0l0gisthttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092441https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49092441