DNA Pioneer Francis Crick Passes Away 247
Neil Halelamien writes "Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA with James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins, passed away Wednesday in San Diego. His co-discovery of 'the secret of life' made him one of the most influential scientists of all time. In more recent years, he shifted his research efforts from molecular biology to neuroscience, with a particular interest in the question of the neural basis of consciousness."
Re:patentable ? (Score:3, Informative)
I would like to take this moment... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:5, Informative)
The Dark Lady of DNA (Score:5, Informative)
Later on, more people learned of her contributions, but, sadly, she passed away in 1958 and was therefore ineligible for the 1962 Nobel prize that Watson, Crick, and Wilkonson shared. Without her name on the landmark publication or a Nobel prize, she has been largely forgotten.
To read more about her story, you should check out the book The Dark Lady of DNA [amazon.com].
no microscope (Score:3, Informative)
Watson and Crick didn't use a microscope. Watson and Crick were (iirc) chemists who built models of molecules and tried to create a model that represented a chemical which had the properties of observed dna. When they did their work microscopes capable of looking at molecules up close and personal did not exist. X-ray crystalography was as close as it got. There was some lady in Britain who was working on the DNA problem at the same time, who (in some people's opinion, including mine, no disrespect to the honored dead) did most of the important work. Watson and Crick were close, but they put it all together after meeting with the a researcher in the same university department who shared the contents of her work. All of which makes me wish I could remember her name.
It was on PBS a couple months ago. Good documentary. Crick was reclusive but was interviewed for the occasion; he seemed very genuine and very very smart. Let's all think good thoughts about him or, failing that, drink a beer to his name.
Watson's been busy too.. (Score:1, Informative)
Meanwhile Watson's concluded fat bald dark people have great sex. Oh how the mighty have fallen...
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file
(registrat
Re:What I want to know is... (Score:5, Informative)
Rosalind Franklin used X-rays [sdsc.edu] to clarify DNA's structure. Her research was then shown to Crick and Watson without her knowledge, and the two men were then able to decypher the structure of DNA.
They got the Nobel Prize for their discovery. She wasn't included in the prize, even though she was critical in the discovery of the molecule's structure.
Yeah! The Nobel Commitee is Corpsist! (Score:5, Informative)
Only living people can get the Nobel, and by the time of the prize, Rosie had died of cancer. There's no conspiracy.
Re:The Dark Lady of DNA (Score:4, Informative)
Here, here!
Also, to clarify some other posts, Barbara McClintock, while a brilliant scientist who did some facintating genetic work (transposons being the most famous, but her work on crossing over also worth a look), was not the unsung female hero of the double helix. Unlike Franklin, who did get shafted, McClintock won the Noble Prize in 1983, just like she deserved. I am astounded how many people get righteous about the Rosalind Franklin, but use McClintock's name. Sad really, that she had so little hold that even her champions have forgotten her name.
Re:patentable ? (Score:3, Informative)
I can't seem to find it on PBS' page, (perhaps a better title than 'DNA' would have helped) but here is an MSNBC article [msn.com] about the series. It's 5 hour long episodes that covers the race to discover what DNA looked like all, the mapping of the human genome, and some really intersting discussions about the ethics of patenting DNA.
P.S. It's available on eDonkey if you can't find it on PBS' page to buy a copy either. Errr did I just say that?
Re:no microscope (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/06/3/l_0 63_01.html [pbs.org]
Re:Nueron theory is consciousness is nice, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yeah! The Nobel Commitee is Corpsist! (Score:5, Informative)
UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold received the award posthumously in 1961 [cnn.com].
Re:For all the bruthas who ain't here... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Dark Lady of DNA (Score:5, Informative)
Read this section:
One of the problems caused by the book was Dr. Watson's implication that the pair of them had obtained Dr. Franklin's data on DNA surreptitiously and hence had deprived her of due credit for the DNA discovery. Dr. Crick believed he obtained the data fairly since she had presented it at a public lecture, to which he had been invited. Though Dr. Watson had misreported a vital figure from the lecture, a correct version reached Dr. Crick through the Medical Research Council report. If Dr. Franklin felt Dr. Crick had treated her unfairly, she never gave any sign of it. She became friends with both Dr. Crick and Dr. Watson, and spent her last remission from cancer in Dr. Crick's house.
Hardly the miscredited dark lady some people claim her to be.
Re:Yeah! The Nobel Commitee is Corpsist! (Score:4, Informative)
Watson and Crick didn't get their Nobel (in Physiology & Medicine, btw, not Chemistry, which has always puzzled me) until 1962, nine years after the publication of the Nature article, at which point Franklin had been dead four years.
p
Re:Good riddens (Score:2, Informative)
Enough with the agendas (Score:4, Informative)
Let's be clear here, there were strong biases against women scientists at the time (and many still exist today). But she did not make the conceptual leap that Watson and Crick made. She never seemed to bear any ill will towards them, and was just happy that the truth was known. People in science get scooped all the time.
Sure, Watson made sexist and derogatory comments about Franklin in "The Double Helix", although one could argue that he made rude comments about nearly everyone involved. If you're angry at anyone, you should be angry at the Nobel committee who chose to wait until after Franklin's death to award the prize (which can't be awarded posthumously).
Don't forget Ed Lewis, 1918-2004 (Score:3, Informative)
This has been a particularly rough month for biologists as we also lost the great Ed Lewis [guardian.co.uk], Nobel prize winner and father of the homeobox.
Re:The Paper Itself: Enjoy! (Score:2, Informative)
and a PDF [nature.com]
Both contain the original drawing of the structure, as done by Crick's wife Odile Speed.
Simon
Re:at least (Score:4, Informative)
Without a god.
Re:Studying Conciousness (Score:3, Informative)
So? What if Christians are wrong? What if something like the "soul" doesn't exist without a material brain to support it?
Crick's later research was based on that: try to find in what ways a consciousness can arise from a purely material neural network.
Amen. (Score:3, Informative)
Read "The Astonishing Hypothesis" to see how Crick could truly make sense of what data is available...
Re:The Dark Lady of DNA (Score:3, Informative)
Of all the folks involved, Crick was the least interested in credit-mongering. He really showed little interest in talking to reporters or going around speaking about past accomplishments (but was always willing to talk about research he was currently working on). In fact, he preferred to spend time doing new research rather than harping on old accomplishments, even in his old age and illness.
Really, he was such a decent guy in a dorky, nerdy way, I can't help coming to Dr. Crick's defense. As we say on Slashdot, he will be sorely missed and is truly an American (and worldwide) icon.