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Article: FINDING MYSTERY IN GOD'S TINKERTOY
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- April 25, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Forty-one years ago today, James Watson and Francis Crick
published a paper in the journal Nature announcing their discovery of
the structure of DNA.
What they proposed had a compelling simplicity: A molecule in the
form of a spiral staircase. The side rails of the staircase are
linked sugars and phosphates. The treads are molecules called organic
bases, arranged as pairs. The bases, four in kind, are adenine,
thymine, guanine and cytosine, usually labeled simply A, T, G and C.
Base A always pairs with T; G always pairs with C. The sequence of
pairs along the staircase is the genetic code.
Watson and Crick added an almost parenthetical remark to their
announcement: "It has not escaped our ...