On the Google home page today, in virtually every localized version of Google, is a special and awkward looking logo for the 160th birthday of Julius Richard Petri. If you look closer, you will ask yourself, is that a petri dish on Google's home page? Really?
The answer is yes. Google is celebrating the life of Julius Richard Petri, a German bacteriologist who came up with the idea for the petri dish back around 1877 or so. Julius Petri was born on May 31, 1852 in Barmen, Germany and died at the age of 69 on December 20, 1921 in Zeitz, Germany.
The doodle, aka Google Logo, today is animated. If you missed it, you can see it over here.
There are several complaints about issues with this Doodle working on Windows machines running Internet Explorer. Here is one such complaint in the Google Web Search Help forums.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help & Google+.