Word: x-rays
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...might be in a better position to understand how genes work. Here was someone who appreciated what Watson already believed but which many scientists didn't yet accept: that the genetic code was somehow tied up in the physical structure of DNA. He realized he needed to understand X-ray diffraction and wanted to join Wilkins in London but never got an opportunity to ask him. So Watson wangled the next best position--a fellowship at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where the director, Sir William Lawrence Bragg, had (with his father Sir William) developed X-ray crystallography...
During a conference in Naples, Italy, in the spring of 1951, Watson happened to sit in on a lecture by Maurice Wilkins of King's College, London, who was using X-ray diffraction to try to understand the physical structure of the DNA molecule. When you shine X rays on any sort of crystal--and some biological molecules, including DNA, form crystals--the invisible rays bounce off atoms in the sample to create complex patterns on a piece of photographic film. In principle, you can look at the patterns and get important clues about the structure of the molecules that...
...switched into biology; like Wilkins and Watson, Crick had been impressed with Schrodinger's What Is Life? He wasn't actually studying DNA, though; at age 35, thanks in part to a hiatus for military work in World War II, he was still pursuing his Ph.D. on the X-ray diffraction of hemoglobin, the iron-carrying protein in blood. Watson, meanwhile, had gone to Cambridge to use X-ray diffraction to understand the structure of another protein, myoglobin...
...months before Watson arrived, in fact, Pauling embarrassed the Cavendish by winning the race to figure out the structure of keratin, the protein that makes up hair and fingernails. (It was a long, complex corkscrew of atoms known as the alpha-helix.) While he did rely on X-ray crystallographs for hints to what was going on at the molecular level, Pauling depended more heavily on scaled-up models he built by hand, using his deep knowledge of the ways atoms can bond together. Cavendish scientists, relying mostly on X rays, hadn't bothered to consult their colleagues...
...research team suggested that more X-ray checks should be performed right after those operations where such errors are most likely to occur in order to ensure that no tool is left lodged inside the patient’s body...