The art of failing forward

It was 10pm, and the darkness outside the lab window was an impenetrable midwinter black. I squinted again at my notes, triple-checking everything – calculations, materials, even the pipette’s angle – confident that nothing could go wrong this time. Yet, as I watched my reaction fizz ominously before collapsing into an unrecognisable mess, I realised this wasn’t going to be the eureka moment I had hoped for.