Happy Birthday, Bakelite

It's graced everything from Kodak cameras to Russian World War II fighters and as of this month, Bakelite turns 100. In July 1907, Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland applied for a U.S. patent on a substance he dubbed Bakelite, the first "true" synthetic plastic. For more information on our little plastic friend, listen to this NPR segment on Bakelite, starring my old prof from the University of Texas Jeff Meikle, a plastics expert.