An artificial sweetener, 180 times as sweet as sugar, aspartame was discovered by a G.D. Searle chemist in 1965. Marketed under such names as NutraSweet and Equal, it's used in some 6,000 foods and beverages around the world. The product has been the subject of controversy regarding its safety, and the way it was approved. For more, see this Wikipedia entry(1).

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame