Did you see the movie Gattaca? Remember the double spiral staircase? Remember the credits? The letters making up the film's title: a,t, g, and c were a different color than the other letters. Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine. The photo of 2 snails? They are escargot (Helix), 2 of them...a double Helix. Got it yet? Stairway to Heaven?On Februay 28, 1953 Watson and Crick figured out the structure of DNA, a double helix. They figured it out from Rosalind Franklin's X-ray pictures of DNA molecules. Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize in 1962, becoming household names.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/watson-bio.html
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/crick-bio.html
Franklin perished in obscurity, but you can read about her discovery and her life in 2 books: Rosalind Franklin and DNA and Rosalind Franklin, The Dark Lady of DNA. http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BC/Rosalind_Franklin.html
The discovery of DNA and how it works is one of the paramount discoveries in biology, along with evolution,natural selection and life based on chemosynthesis, not photosynthesis, at the deep sea vents. DNA studies have revitalized most aspects of botany, zoology and paleontology, revising taxonomic relationships (systematics), genetics, and medicine.
The Dorr Museum of Natural History
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