TEDTalk Tuesday: discovering DNA

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For this week's TEDTALKTUESDAY, a story of profound discovery from the man who (with his partner) discovered DNA. Enjoy!

JAMESWATSON

Talk title: The double helix and today's DNA mysteries (video runtime: 20:20)



James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA

Wiki bio

About this Talk

Nobel laureate James Watson opens TED2005 with the frank and funny story of how he and his partner, Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. The tale is full of colorful details: How Watson had planned to be an ornithologist until Schroedinger's book What Is Life? transformed him into a geneticist. The painful rejections he suffered along the way, first from Caltech and then from a certain girl. And finally, how the basic DNA model ultimately came together in just a few hours. Watson finishes with one of the topics currently making him tick: the search for genetic bases for major illnesses.

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1. They figured out the double helical structure of DNA.

DNA was discovered in the 1860s.

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2. But who remembers Rosalind Franklin?

In 1952, Rosalind Franklin had produced perhaps the most famous X-ray image on earth, an image of DNA. This led James Watson and Francis Crick to proclaim that they had found "the secret of life" in Nature 1953: DNA is made up of two polynucleotide chains that encode the genetic information for all living things. The consequences were immeasurable.


More.

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3. Pretty much everybody.