In 1982, a physics joke gone wrong sparked the invention of the emoticon

That evening, computer scientist Howard Gayle responded with a facetious message titled “WARNING!” He claimed that an ...
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Science history: 'Patient zero' catches SARS, the older cousin of COVID — Nov. 16, 2002

A person came down with an atypical form of pneumonia in November 2002, but it would be two months before anyone realized it was the start of a pandemic.