Word: helix
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...told the story better than Watson himself. His bestselling 1968 memoir, The Double Helix, was so witty and candid that Crick regarded it as an invasion of privacy. Why another traverse of the same terrain? Because, as Author Horace Freeland Judson makes clear in his extraordinary lay history of molecular biology, there is far more to DNA than Watson and Crick. Indeed, molecular biology's beginnings involved so many characters and subplots, so many false starts and flashes of insight, that it has all the elements of an epic detective story...
Thus while human cloning makes good cocktail-party chatter, it is not only very far off in the future, but also seems to be impractical and to present unsolvable ethical and social problems. Says Nobel Laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA's double-helix structure: "What's to be gained? A carbon copy of yourself? Oh, if the Shah of Iran wanted to spend his oil millions on cloning himself, that's fine with me. But if either of my young sons wanted to become a scientist, I would suggest he stay away from research...
...their research into the molecular structure of DNA, but his name remains permanently associated with the mysteries of genetic replication. His research earned him a Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1962, while he was still in his 30s, and the book we wrote with Crick--The Double Helix, the story of their joint research in molecular biology--became a best-seller. His notoriety has followed him from his post at Harvard as Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences--a chair from which he retired last year--to his current work as director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory...
...knowledge or the contribution to humankind made by the California scientists, the unnamed Harvard scientists choose to bemoan the fact that they did not get there first. The pursuit of knowledge still plays second fiddle to the competitive nature of science. No doubt we will someday see. The Double Helix--Part II. Biological research in our society is a big business; it is fiercely competitive. All competitive ventures require rules and the Cambridge City Council voted to insure fair play...
...scientific community is bitterly divided about the unknown risks of genetic engineering. The wrangling has been public, and traditional scientific courtesy has all but vanished. Infuriated by unreasoning opposition to the new discoveries, James Watson-who, with Francis Crick, won a Nobel Prize for determining the double-helix structure of the DNA (for deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule-has labeled the critics "kooks," "shits" and "incompetents." One of his targets is fellow Nobel Laureate George Wald, who has supported efforts to ban recombinant DNA research at Harvard and M.I.T. Wald contends that instead of trying to find the roots of cancer...