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50th Anniversary of DNA's Discovery
nxg125 writes "The New York Times has a section on the 50th anniversary of Watson & Crick's discovery of DNA. Lots of good articles about the discovery, Watson & Crick themselves, and where this information will take us from here."
I remember hearing a wonderful interview with Watson a few years ago - he was saying that if Cambridge had been more co-ed at the time (there were only three Womens' olleges, everywhere else was male) he'd have been too busy trying to get a girlfriend to spend all that time elucidating the structure of DNA.
She was the X-Ray crystallographer, not the co-discoverer. She dismissed the critical DNA type B X-Ray that she took as being unimportant. Unfortunately, nobody ever told her of the critical role her image played. Nevertheless, she was NOT a co-discoverer.
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Actually, his book "The Double Helix" has some fairly amusing accounts of his thoughts of Rosalind Franklin--whose X-ray crystallographic pictures determined that DNA was double helical in nature.
from http://www.strangemusic.com/genome_press.htm
In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA and the double helix, sTRANGEmUSIC presents the world premiere of GENOME: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Movements for Music & Video. Composed and directed by Patrick Grant, it is based on the book by award winning science author Matt Ridley. The work will be given two performances on February 27 and 28 (the latter date being the actual anniversary of the discovery) at 8:00 PM on each night at the ANNINA NOSEI GALLERY located at 530 West 22nd Street, New York City (10th & 11th Aves.) on the 2nd floor.
-- Boycott Shell
Didn't Pauling postulate a triple helix? IIRC, Watson and Crick found out about his soon-to-be-published paper and set about to prove or disprove his model. The built it and something didn't seem right but they couldn't put their finger on it. Finally, they realized that it was neutral. Chemical genius Linus Pauling forgot to make his DNA model an acid!
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Watson and Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA; this reveals the method of genetic replication.
The genetic code, which is used to convert genetic information into actual proteins which do the physical work of life, was not discovered until quite a few years later. Crick made a number of important contributions to the discovery of the genetic code, but he isn't credited with it.
Here's a writeup on the history of efforts to decipher the genetic code.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
... that /. now has on the same page a report of the 50 year anniversary of the discovery of DNA and another report of
the construction of a super-computer from DNA.
50 years from discovery to super-computer technology. Can you say "accelerating returns"? Can ya? Sure you can!
So a drug company come along and patent a sequence of DNA. "We own this, " they say. "It's ours."
Does this not imply that they accept responsibility for any disease causing properties of the sequence?
It would be sweet if those same companies that patented interesting sequences of cancer causing genes, so that they could exclude the competition, were then liable to anyone sick because they possesed that particular mutation.
Just dreaming...
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When I was living close to Independence Hall in Philly, I had the pleasure of seeing Watson and Crick receive the Liberty Medal on July 4th. Watson actually showed and Crick had a speech on tape.
The only thing worse than the oppressive heat, was the abortion protestors who surrounded the perimeter of award ceremony with their stupid yelling. I had never seen protests like this at another liberty award. The abortion protestors and their wall-sized dead fetus posters were nowhere to be found when Colin Powell got his medal. As if the discovery of the structure of DNA was somehow responsible for abortion.
Watson made a great speech that touched on their discovery, politics in a time of war, God and science, happiness and endorphins. Reads even better in 2003 than it did in 2000.
It's certainly true that Franklin hadn't determined the structure correctly, but remember that she was virtually isolated in Oxford (thanks mostly to her personality conflicts with Maurice Wilkins.)
Also, remember that Wilkins gave (without her knowledge or permission) Franklin's pictures to Watson. Without those pictures, it might have taken Watson longer to put the pieces together, and he wouldn't have had Franklin's high-quality (far better than Watson could do himself) pictures to verify the correctness of the structure. In that time period Franklin may have been able to deduce the structure herself, or perhaps Pauling would have gotten it right.
The real tragedy is the way Watson treated Franklin, both in his scientific work and in his writings. Watson has become the poster boy for "the end justifies the means." I can't recall ever being more disappointed in a book than I was in The Double Helix.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Don't blame Crick for how Franklin was treated. IIRC, he didn't know where the X-Ray pictures came from. And when Watson was publishing The Double Helix, he made Watson add a little postscript at the end, supposedly apologizing for the caracature "Rosie", which is how Watson described her in the main part of the book. But if you read his "re-appraisal", it sounds insincere at best.
And what is even more galling about the book is that Franklin had died (ovarian cancer) a few years earlier, and so could not defend herself. It wasn't until the 1970's, when some feminist researchers started digging, did the details start to emerge.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
Years ago I did a research paper on this subject, with the intent to discover who really did discover the helical structure of DNA. Watson and Crick did NOT discover the helical structure of DNA. The person who did discover the structure was Rosalind Franklin. All scientists knew of her discovery (using X-ray chromotography I believe), although he mentor disallowed her to publish the work under her own name (great reason for equal rights). Rosalind Franklin decided to give a lecture on her discovery to a group of scientists of the time before trying to publish her discoveries under her own name. Watson and Crick attended the lecture and quite simply, stole Rosalind's data. Rosalind Franklin fought to have her work published, but Watson and Crick, being male scientists, got their work published first, under their name, and under the pretenses that it was their own work.
The title should read "50 years since the blatant stealing by Watson and Crick of the work from Rosalind Franklin, who discovered the helical structure of DNA." Knowing this kind of information makes me f*cking sick to my stomach. The rest of the world goes on believes the lies of the past, when noone works to change the lies to truths for the future. Watson and Crick should have their Nobel Prize stripped from them.
There were three back to back papers published in Nature (1953, No. 4356 pages 737-741): "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acids" by J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, "Molecular Structure of Deoxypentose Nucleic Acids" by M.H.F Wilkins, A.R. Stokes and H.R. Wilson, and lastly "Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate" by Rosalind Franklin. Also available on Nature's website for free, as someone else has already linked in. At least Watson and Crick did put Rosalind Franklin (and Maurice Wilkins) in their acknowledgements, but then that was probably the most they could get away with and even then in their article they poo-poo the fibre diffraction patterns obtained by Franklin (and others) despite the wealth of information that was obtained. In her article she independently states "The structure is probably helical. The phosphate groups lie on the outside of the structural unit, on a helix of diameter about 20 angstroms. The structural unit probably consists of two co-axial molecules which are not equally spaced along the fibere axis..." Her view on DNA structure is based on data she collected. Watson and Crick's structure is largely based on the same data (which they obtained without her permission, ie they stole it) and they come to similar conclusions.