Helix Anniversary

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/02/08/helix.anniversary.ap/index.html

50 years ago this month, Crick and Watson came up with their successful model of the DNA double helix.


Happy Anniversary!

[whitefork]

A big year. 50 years of Waiting for Godot, the Corvette, and the discovery of DNA to boot.

[Shane Costello]

"Nature" did a good spread on the double helix golden jubilee. Vol 421:6921 or the issue dated 27th of January, IIRC. Full of background information, a copy of the original journal article from Watson and Crick, as well as some very good general reviews of DNA replication, structure etc.

[Soapy Sam]

OK. I'll raise you a Maurice Wilkins.

Now who's going to be first to bid a R...

[Mr. Turquoise]

Originally posted by whitefork
A big year. 50 years of Waiting for Godot, the Corvette, and the discovery of DNA to boot.

Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves: Watson and Crick did not "discover" DNA. Nucleic acids have been known to biochemists for over 100 years, and peices of the puzzle had been accumulating for some time before Watson and Crick put them together. What they did was "structural elucidation" not "discovery."

And as Soapy Sam already suggested, the contributions of both Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin were vital in the arrival at the accepted structure.

A quick search yielded this overview:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53dn.html

Of course, I don't want to take away from their work (it was a superb bit of dectective work), but as with any major breakthrough, it was a combination of good sense, good science, and good luck.

Mr. Turquoise

[rwald]

I once read "The Double Helix," and was amazed by how much intrigue and human interaction went into science. And then I heard a bit about Dr. Craig Venter and the Human Genome Project, and I got the impression that such is more common than most people realize...

On that note, I'm looking forward to someone writing a "Double Helix"-like novel about the decoding of the human genome. Of course, now that I said that, someone's going to cite such a book that already exists. OK then, which book is it, and is it good?

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Mr. Turquoise:
Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves: Watson and Crick did not "discover" DNA. Nucleic acids have been known to biochemists for over 100 years, and peices of the puzzle had been accumulating for some time before Watson and Crick put them together. What they did was "structural elucidation" not "discovery."

Agreed. Therefore let us honour Friedrich Miescher (www.fmi.ch/members/marilyn.vaccaro/ewww/index2.html), the man who actually did discover DNA.

[whitefork]

Originally posted by Mr. Turquoise


Sorry, this is one of my pet peeves: Watson and Crick did not "discover" DNA.

You are of course correct. Mind should be engaged before typing on keyboard. Thanks for calling me on that.

[xouper]

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