In the middle of the 20th century, accumulating data suggested that DNA carries life’s genetic information. Biochemists around the world raced to determine its structure. The competition led to some ...

DNA is the molecular basis of heredity, the inherited traits that pass between generations in a person's family tree. Embodied in the sequence of base pairs, DNA carries information between ...

“The laws of inheritance are quite unknown,” Charles Darwin acknowledged in 1859. The discovery of DNA’s shape altered how we conceived of life itself. The X-ray crystallography by Rosalind Franklin ...

For James Watson, DNA was everything — not just his life's work, but the secret of life itself. Over his long and storied career, Watson arguably did more than any other scientist to transform a ...