“Watson and Crick were working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, then directed by William Lawrence Bragg. Meanwhile, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin were working at King’s College London under John Randall. The two labs were both trying to uncover the structure of DNA, the molecule that contains the genetic code. Bragg and Randall had worked out a gentlemen’s agreement, said Crick biographer Matt Ridley: Watson and Crick would focus on how genetic information was contained in proteins, while Wilkins and Franklin would study the entire DNA molecule.”
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The Letters of Francis Crick
"The letters reveal that the discovery of the double helix could have turned out differently if the characters involved had a little more information."
Monthly Issue
April 2026
In this monthly issue, we examine how our understanding of energy — and how we source and use it — is evolving.
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11 articles