In this photo taken on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017, a capsule of original penicillin mold from which Alexander Fleming made the drug known as penicillin on view at Bonham's auction house in London. The international auction house Bonham’s says it has sold a small, patchy disc of mold for $14,597. The off-white, nearly 90-year-old swatch of microbes has a rather extraordinary history: it was first created by Alexander Fleming to make penicillin, a revolutionary discovery that brought the world its first antibiotic. Bonham’s sold the mold Wednesday, March 1 during an auction in London. The germs are preserved in a glass case and feature an inscription by Fleming on the back, identifying it as “the mould that first made penicillin.” (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

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