It's DNA Day!

On February 28, 1953, Frances Crick announced to the patrons of the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, “We have discovered the secret of life." Crick and his collaborator James Watson believed they had finally worked out the structure of DNA.



The article outlining their proposed structure was published two months later in the scientific journal Nature. Of course we now know that they borrowed rather heavily, and without giving credit, to several other scientists. Most notably, Rosalind Franklin had developed an x-ray crytallography image of the DNA molecule, and this was a tremendous help to Watson and Crick in postulating the double helix structure.





Ummm, yeah sure, I can see that! Why, anybody could tell that's a double helix right?

Well, I freely admit I would not have come up with the structure myself, but I am oh so grateful for this discovery for eventually leading to the very cool job that I have! I'm much more into applications than basic research anyway lol. And I just couldn't let this auspicious date pass by without giving it proper due.

And here's a teaser: Watch this space tomorrow for an exciting announcement--it has absolutely nothing at all to do with DNA but I think you'll like it!