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DNA, Fifty Years To the Day

Posted by Hemos on from the changing-the-world dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Today being the fiftieth anniversary (April 2, 1953) of the Watson-Crick double-helical, DNA discovery [to quote, 'We wish to put forward a radically different structure...'], there is an interesting tally of completed gene sequences here, and ones still being worked, including the Ames strain of the anthrax bacteria. It also appears that the only lifeforms not using DNA for code storage are a few viruses like the common cold."

2 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Rosalind Franklin by SUB7IME · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let's not forget Rosalind Franklin - the woman who actually took the X-ray photographs of the DNA molecule. Without her, Watson and Crick would not have been able to discern the DNA structure!

  2. Remember, they didn't discover DNA! by ASquare · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...they only described it's structure. The discovery of DNA goes back to at least 1929, possibly earlier (depending on which discovery you're looking for.)

    1865 - Gregor Mendel shows that heredity is passed in discreet units

    1900 - Three scientists independently verify Mendel's work, and formulate the laws of heredity

    1909 - Willhelm Johannsen coins the term gene

    1911 - Thomas Hunt Morgan shows that chromosomes contain genes

    1929 - Phoebus Levin discovers that genes are made up of nucleotides (i.e., genes are made up of DNA)

    1943 - William Astbury obtains first X-ray diffraction pictures of DNA

    1951 - Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction images show DNA has two different forms, and that it takes the form of a helix

    1953 - Watson and Crick formulate their model