The Nature of The Discovery
Watson and Crick's 1953 article describes the answer to a fundamental mystery about living organisms. The nature of their discovery was distinctive and in some ways unsurprising. What is hidden in the technical jargon of the title is that Rosalind Franklin's discovery of the chemical structure of DNA finally revealed to Watson and Crick how genetic instructions are stored inside organisms and passed from generation to generation.
It is occasionally said that Watson and Crick identified ("cracked") the genetic code in this paper, but this work was done later, mostly by other researchers (see Genetic code#Discovery).
Read more about this topic: Molecular Structure Of Nucleic Acids: A Structure For Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid
Famous quotes containing the words nature and/or discovery:
“[M]y conception of liberty does not permit an individual citizen or a group of citizens to commit acts of depredation against nature in such a way as to harm their neighbors and especially to harm the future generations of Americans. If many years ago we had had the necessary knowledge, and especially the necessary willingness on the part of the Federal Government, we would have saved a sum, a sum of money which has cost the taxpayers of America two billion dollars.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“That the discovery of this great truth, which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)