Google honors chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge with new Doodle

Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Google is celebrating analytical chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge on what would have been his 225th birthday with a new Doodle.

Runge was born outside Hamburg, Germany, in 1795 where he became interested in chemistry at an early age. Runge would conduct experiments as a teenager and once accidentally splashed a drop of belladonna extract into his eye, which dilated his pupil.

Runge, at 25, studied under renown chemist Johann Wolfgang Dobereiner at the University of Jena. He was asked to recreate the effects of belladonna for one of Dobereiner's friends, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Runge then made history when he was asked by Goethe to analyze the chemical makeup of a bag of rare coffee beans.This led to the chemist isolating the active ingredient known today as caffeine.

"Here's to Runge, without whom the pain of forgoing one's morning cup of coffee might never have had a scientific explanation!" Google said.

Google's homepage features an animated sequence of Runge starting his day with a cup of coffee which gives the chemist a buzz that makes his hair stand up.

Runge's other accomplishments include inventing the first coal tar dye and a related process for dyeing clothes; being one of the first to isolate quinine, a drug used to treat malaria; helping to originate paper chromatography, a technique used for separating substances; and for coming up with a method to extract sugar from beet juice.