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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to Blane a chalk reboarding and I'm scared out.

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Speaker 1: And even if you're not a science person at all,

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Speaker 1: you probably know something about d N A. That's stuff

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Speaker 1: in our cells that carries the cells genetic information and

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Speaker 1: basically determines all of our individual hereditary characteristics, hair color,

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Speaker 1: eye color, the whole deal. So if you watch TV,

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Speaker 1: you probably know at least that much. But most of

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Speaker 1: us probably have at least touched on the subject in

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Speaker 1: high school too, or will touch on it in high school,

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Speaker 1: not to rule out our younger listeners. And we can

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Speaker 1: recognize what DNA looks like, that unmistakable double helix that

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Speaker 1: looks like a twisting ladder or a spiral staircase. I

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Speaker 1: remember actually modeling it in middle school cleaners, So maybe

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Speaker 1: some of our younger listeners already knew well. The people

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Speaker 1: credited in most high school in middle school textbooks, at

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Speaker 1: least when I was in school, which admittedly was a

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Speaker 1: while ago. Um, the people credited with discovering the structure

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Speaker 1: of DNA are James Watson and Francis Crick. That's one

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Speaker 1: of those associations that kind of has stuck in my

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Speaker 1: mind over the years. You know, it's like Darwin and

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Speaker 1: natural selection and Watson and Crick in DNA. And after all,

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Speaker 1: they along with Maurice Wilkins, received the Nobel Prize in

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Speaker 1: Medicine for this discovery in nineteen sixty two, so it

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Speaker 1: makes sense that their names would be most associated with

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Speaker 1: this accomplishment. But especially in recent years, some more attention

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Speaker 1: has been paid to someone else who may deserve a

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Speaker 1: great deal of the credit for the discovery of DNA structure,

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Speaker 1: and that's a British physical chemist named Rosalind Franklin. So

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Speaker 1: Franklin's involvement in this DNA discovery has caused quite a

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Speaker 1: bit of controversy in the science world for a number

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Speaker 1: of reasons. So number one, it's without question that her

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Speaker 1: research played a really big role in helping suff out

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Speaker 1: DNA structure. But because she died four years before Watson,

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Speaker 1: Crick and wilk And even received the Nobel Prize, the

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Speaker 1: prize only honors living scientists. So she said for this year,

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Speaker 1: except for the year, except for this year, there was

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Speaker 1: Ralph Steinman. Did you hear about that he won the

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Speaker 1: prize for medicine, and I think the announcement was made

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Speaker 1: three days after his death. So they went ahead, and

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Speaker 1: they went ahead and let it stand because they had

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Speaker 1: made the decision before they even knew he was dead.

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Speaker 1: So so well then up until then. So yeah, they

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Speaker 1: are more associated with it because they won the award

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Speaker 1: for it, and Watson and Crick's famous nineteen fifty three

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Speaker 1: paper detailing their discoveries in the journal Nature, they only

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Speaker 1: gave Franklin the tiniest credit, and so consequently she's virtually

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Speaker 1: or has been virtually unknown for this accomplishment. That's the

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Speaker 1: second reason, and then the third is in his nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight but chronicling the discovery called the double helix

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Speaker 1: appropriately enough, Watson noted the role Franklin's research played and

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Speaker 1: also revealed that it played a role without Franklin's knowledge.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty big one there, sketchy, So you can

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Speaker 1: see where the controversy comes in. This revelation raised a

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Speaker 1: number of questions. For instance, did Watson and Crick steal

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Speaker 1: Franklin's research And if they didn't, would she have figured

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Speaker 1: it out? Would she have figured out DNA structure on

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Speaker 1: her own. So we're going to address these questions and

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Speaker 1: more as we take a look at what really went

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Speaker 1: down in England in nineteen fifty three when this particular

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Speaker 1: discovery was made. But first we're going to take a

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Speaker 1: look at another relevant question here. Who was Rosalind Franklin

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Speaker 1: really So in Watson's book The Double Helix, he kind

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Speaker 1: of dissed Franklin a little bit, basically depicted her as

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Speaker 1: stubborn and hard to work with, an unfeminine, but other

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Speaker 1: people who knew her really characterized her in a different way.

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Speaker 1: What we do know personality aside, is that she had

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Speaker 1: a passion for science from the very start. She was

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Speaker 1: born Rosalind Elsie Franklin in London, England, on July twenty

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Speaker 1: and of course, most girls around that time were expected

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Speaker 1: to have very few goals outside of becoming successful wives

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Speaker 1: and mothers, but Franklin's parents, Ellis Franklin and Muriel Walie Franklin,

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Speaker 1: were more progressive and really encouraged their daughter academically. They

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Speaker 1: even enrolled young Franklin in the St. Paul's School for Girls,

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Speaker 1: which was one of the few schools at the time

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Speaker 1: that offered physics and chemistry. Lessons to female students, and

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Speaker 1: Franklin really excelled in these courses, and she decided by

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Speaker 1: the age of fifteen that she really wanted a career

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Speaker 1: in science, even though her parents wanted her to pursue

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Speaker 1: social work instead. So she enrolled Newnham College at the

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Speaker 1: University of Cambridge in nineteen thirty eight and was one

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Speaker 1: of only five hundred women in a class of more

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Speaker 1: than five thousand. She earned a bachelor's degree in natural

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Speaker 1: sciences with a specialty in physical chemistry in nineteen forty one.

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Speaker 1: And we should stop here for just one second, when

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Speaker 1: we have noted her scientific achievements or her initial ones,

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Speaker 1: to give a little disclaimer and say that we are

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Speaker 1: not scientists here and do not have degrees in science.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to be kind of vague about some

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Speaker 1: of the concepts that we explain here, and hopefully listeners

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Speaker 1: will forgive us for that well. And part of it, too,

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Speaker 1: is to focus on the people involved and the story involved,

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Speaker 1: because story sometimes if you get too bogged down in

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Speaker 1: the other details, you miss out on some of them.

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Speaker 1: Y'all can easily find out scientific details on this, So

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Speaker 1: continuing on with Franklin's life, After earning her bachelor's degree,

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Speaker 1: she got a research scholarship in the study of gas

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Speaker 1: phase chromatography with the chemist Ronald G. W. Norrish, who

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Speaker 1: was a future Nobel Prize winner himself. But the progression

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Speaker 1: of World War Two and the fact that Franklin found

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Speaker 1: Nourish kind of difficult to work with changed her course

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Speaker 1: of study a little bit. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, she

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Speaker 1: served as an air raid warden in London and also

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Speaker 1: left her job with Nourish in nineteen forty two to

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Speaker 1: do war related work as a researcher with the British

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Speaker 1: Utilization Research Association. That's kind of a mouthful in southern England,

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Speaker 1: and while she was there she worked on studying the

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Speaker 1: physical chemistry of carbon and coal, and the work she

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Speaker 1: did ultimately led to some really enlightening ideas about coal structure,

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Speaker 1: so a little bit of foreshadowing almost of of work

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Speaker 1: she'd do later. She also learned the basics of molecular

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Speaker 1: biology and crystallography while she was there, and her work

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Speaker 1: earned her a PhD from Cambridge in nineteen She also

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Speaker 1: authored five coal related papers they're still sited today before

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, according to an article by Lynn Osmond

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Speaker 1: Elkin in Physics Today, Franklin's papers quote changed the way

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Speaker 1: physical chemists of view the micro structure of coals and

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Speaker 1: related substances. So Franklin's work, in addition to getting some

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Speaker 1: praise by current scientists, got her another job offer. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seven, she moved to Paris to work at the

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Speaker 1: Central Laboratory of Chemical Services, where under Jacques Marrying, she

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Speaker 1: learned to use a technique called X ray diffraction when

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Speaker 1: working with crystalline matter like coal. And just to give

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Speaker 1: you a basic rundown of that, X ray diffraction allows

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Speaker 1: scientists to see the three dimensional structures of molecules by

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Speaker 1: blasting a crystal with X ray, so the rays bounce

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Speaker 1: off the atoms and diffract in different directions, and the

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Speaker 1: escaping X rays exposed photographic film to create this kind

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Speaker 1: of shadow of the molecule, and then scientists interpret the

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Speaker 1: photo to reveal the molecule shape and its measurements, and

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Speaker 1: you know, allows them to look at it on a

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Speaker 1: closer level. So Franklin used these techniques to discover a

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Speaker 1: lot of details about the structure of carbon, even as

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Speaker 1: it's heated and changes into other forms. So not just

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Speaker 1: carbon in a static state, but transforming. So Franklin was

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Speaker 1: doing good work in Paris, and by most accounts, the

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Speaker 1: three years or so that she was there were the

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Speaker 1: happiest ones of her life. According to that Physics Today

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Speaker 1: article by elk And, Franklin had friends in her Paris

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Speaker 1: lab and would hang out with them sometimes do things

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Speaker 1: like going hiking, and she became fluent in French and

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Speaker 1: skilled in French cooking, and just became really comfortable with

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Speaker 1: her life there. It provides a really stark contrast for

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Speaker 1: the next period of her life that we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about, the one in which DNA takes center stage.

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Speaker 1: So now that I've set that up, I should go

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Speaker 1: right and telling you all about it, I guess. So.

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Speaker 1: Even though Franklin was happy in Paris, she got lured

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Speaker 1: away by the offer of a research fellowship from Sir

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Speaker 1: John T. Randall's Medical Research Council at King's College in London,

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Speaker 1: and also the chance to work on one of the

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Speaker 1: major scientific challenges of the moment, figuring out the structure

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Speaker 1: and function of DNA. And Randall especially wanted Franklin to

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Speaker 1: use the X ray diffraction techniques that she had mastered

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Speaker 1: to produce diffraction pictures of d n A. But when

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Speaker 1: Randall brought her in, Maurice Wilkins, a British biophysicist who

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Speaker 1: had been working in the same lab on the same project,

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Speaker 1: was not happy to have her around. They didn't work

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Speaker 1: well together there and ended up disliking each other the

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Speaker 1: entire time. They worked together pretty much right off the bat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and biographers have had a hard time figuring out why

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Speaker 1: exactly Wilkins and Franklin didn't get along. Somethink it's because

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Speaker 1: he happened to be a way traveling when Franklin got

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Speaker 1: hired and started her job, so when he returned, Wilkins

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Speaker 1: originally thought that she was working for him. Another point

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Speaker 1: of contention is that Franklin, of course had other ideas.

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Speaker 1: She knew she wasn't gonna be working for Wilkins. She

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Speaker 1: assumed that she'd be working independently. She thought she was

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Speaker 1: the boss exactly, so they both had conflicting ideas of

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Speaker 1: who is boss. And she also had more experience with

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Speaker 1: X ray diffraction techniques of course, I mean that was

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Speaker 1: why she was brought in in the first place, and

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Speaker 1: kind of forged ahead and took the lead with that,

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Speaker 1: so Wilkins might have felt that his project was being

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Speaker 1: taken away from him to some degree. Franklin was also

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Speaker 1: said to have a very serious, direct, and even argumentative

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Speaker 1: style when it came to her work, and Wilkins did

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Speaker 1: not take well to this. It said that when she

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Speaker 1: argued with him, he would really just shut down and

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Speaker 1: kind of give her the silent treatment. He just wouldn't respond,

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Speaker 1: So they didn't have a functioning relationship, not at all.

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Speaker 1: So this rivalry is probably one of the main reasons

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Speaker 1: that Franklin was so unhappy at King's College, and some

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Speaker 1: have theorized that her unhappiness was also related to sexism

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Speaker 1: towards female employees at king saying that women weren't even

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Speaker 1: allowed to eat lunch in the same dining rooms as men.

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Speaker 1: But there's been some new ideas on that theory. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you see that luntioned a lot the whole

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Speaker 1: lunch thing, that they were excluded somehow from eating lunch

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Speaker 1: with their fellow scientists. But researchers such as Random Attics,

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Speaker 1: a Franklin biographer, have found in recent years that the

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Speaker 1: working environment at King's College was actually more welcoming to

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Speaker 1: female scientists than some have portrayed it to be. They

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Speaker 1: actually did get to eat lunch in the same room,

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Speaker 1: So Maddox thinks that Franklin's class and religion she was

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Speaker 1: Jewish and came from a wealthy family, may have actually

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Speaker 1: made her feel more out of place than anything else.

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Speaker 1: And though her demeanor in the lab was serious and

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Speaker 1: sometimes abrasive, many of her colleagues remember her as being witty, bright, interesting,

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Speaker 1: even fun in the lab, though of course Franklin was

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Speaker 1: all business and her rivalry with Wilkins didn't stop her

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Speaker 1: from investigating DNA fibers at all. Pretty soon after she

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Speaker 1: got to King's College, Franklin, working along with a student

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Speaker 1: named Raymond Gosling, managed to get some preliminary diffraction images

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Speaker 1: of a DNA molecule as it transformed from its dry

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Speaker 1: crystalline form, which she called the A form, to the

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Speaker 1: wet B form through an increase in relative humidity, and

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Speaker 1: from this From this observation, Franklin determined that the phosphate

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Speaker 1: groups that make up the backbone of DNA run along

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Speaker 1: the outside of the molecule, one of her first milestones

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Speaker 1: in determining the structure of DNA, because Previously people had

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Speaker 1: thought that they were on the inside, yes, and at

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Speaker 1: the bases were on the outside, So this was kind

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Speaker 1: of a major discovery for her. So in November of

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, Franklin gave a talk in London about

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Speaker 1: her latest findings and American scientist James Watson was in attendance.

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Speaker 1: Watson and then graduate student Francis Crick had also been

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Speaker 1: working on figuring out DNA structure at another Medical Research

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Speaker 1: Council unit at Cavendish Laboratory and Cambridge, but they weren't

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Speaker 1: doing it by experimenting and collecting data. They were doing

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Speaker 1: it through deduction and model building. So when Watson heard

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Speaker 1: Franklin's talk, he didn't really take notes and he misinterpreted

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Speaker 1: her results, but still relayed what he'd heard incorrectly of course,

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Speaker 1: to Crick, and they used that info to slap together

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Speaker 1: a quick model with the sugar phosphate backbone on the inside.

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Speaker 1: So about a week after the talk, Franklin and Wilkins

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Speaker 1: visited Cambridge to check out Watson and Crick's model. As

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Speaker 1: soon as Franklin saw it, she immediately realized their mistake

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Speaker 1: and pointed out that the phosphate group should be on

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Speaker 1: the outside. And this experience probably just confirmed for Franklin

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Speaker 1: that careful and diligent experimentation was much more valuable than

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Speaker 1: making intuitively rash model building. So after this method, Watson

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Speaker 1: and Crick were actually told to refrain from DNA modeling

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Speaker 1: for a while, like just take take a focus on

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Speaker 1: proteins exactly. So Franklin continued to approach her DNA experiments

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Speaker 1: with that methodical, research based manner, and they helped her

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Speaker 1: determine DNA's density, its unit cell size, water content in

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Speaker 1: her phosphate distances, and other really precise kind of calculations.

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Speaker 1: And the one point she got a little bit tied

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Speaker 1: up on THEO was DNA's helical shape. So some scientists,

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Speaker 1: including her rival Wilkins, were convinced that DNA's shape was

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Speaker 1: helical before they had any proof of it. But as

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Speaker 1: we kind of mentioned, that wasn't Franklin's style at all.

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Speaker 1: She needed to prove it through experimentation, She needed to

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Speaker 1: observe it. Yeah, this was tough, though partly because she

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Speaker 1: was so methodical in her research. She started out by

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Speaker 1: focusing on the diffraction image of DNA's crystalline a form

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Speaker 1: in which it was much harder to discern that helical shape.

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Speaker 1: So at one point, after obtaining some data from the

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Speaker 1: A form which suggested that DNA was non helical, she

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Speaker 1: actually created this death of the Helix funeral invitation in

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Speaker 1: July ninetift two, and some kind of see this as

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Speaker 1: evidence that Franklin was on the wrong track and figuring

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Speaker 1: out DNA structure. Others, including Elkin in her Physics Today article,

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Speaker 1: note that it was a joke mainly directed at Wilkins.

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Speaker 1: And we actually, I think, yeah, we we have a

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Speaker 1: copy of this funeral invitation. It's it's quite interesting. It says,

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Speaker 1: written by hand, written by hand. It says, it is

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Speaker 1: with great regret that we have to announce the death

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Speaker 1: on Friday, eighteenth July nineteen fifty two of DNA helix parentheses.

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Speaker 1: Crystalline death followed a protracted illness which an intensive course

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Speaker 1: of injections has failed to relieve. A memorial service will

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Speaker 1: be held next Monday or Tuesday. It is hoped that

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Speaker 1: Dr M H. F. Wilkins will speak in memory of

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Speaker 1: the late helix. And then it signed with her name.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think this certainly proves that she had

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Speaker 1: a sense of humor, yes, for sure. So Franklin's personal notebooks,

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Speaker 1: as well as information provided by Raymond Gosling, indicated that

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Speaker 1: she believed the B form to be heliical. But before

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Speaker 1: she could get all of her conclusions together, something truly

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Speaker 1: unexpected happened. Wilkins and Watson had kept in touch and

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Speaker 1: actually became pretty close after that meeting where they viewed

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Speaker 1: Watson and Cricks incorrect model, and in January of nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three, Watson came to King's College to visit with Wilkins,

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Speaker 1: and Wilkins showed him the now famous diffraction photo of

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Speaker 1: the B form of DNA that Franklin had taken in

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Speaker 1: May of nineteen fifty two, and that photo, which was

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Speaker 1: known as photo fifty one, was revolutionary because it was

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Speaker 1: the best photo of its kind at the time. And

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Speaker 1: Franklin took a photo looking down on the DNA molecule,

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Speaker 1: and what appeared was this very distinct ex pattern, which

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Speaker 1: was of course clear evidence that the molecule was helical.

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Speaker 1: So Franklin had apparently put the photo in a drawer

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Speaker 1: while she focused on the A form, and while it

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Speaker 1: was in that drawer, Wilkins was able to access it

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Speaker 1: some sources even suggest that he had been making copies

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Speaker 1: of all of her research to keep her from getting

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Speaker 1: ahead of him in a way, and when he showed

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Speaker 1: Watson Photo fifty one, though Watson and Krick were the

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Speaker 1: ones who instantly pulled ahead and the double helix. Watson

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Speaker 1: describes his reaction to the photo. He says, quote the

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Speaker 1: instant I saw the picture of my mouth fell open

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Speaker 1: and my pulse began to race. The pattern was unbelievably

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Speaker 1: simpler than those obtained previously, and Maurice told me he

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Speaker 1: was now quite convinced that she meaning Franklin, was correct,

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Speaker 1: and Watson immediately rushed back to Cambridge to tell Krick

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Speaker 1: what he'd seen. And meanwhile, Chrick had obtained a copy

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Speaker 1: of a nineteen fifty two Medical Research Council report which

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Speaker 1: contained a section including some of Franklin's data. So with

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Speaker 1: these two sources of information they were able to start

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Speaker 1: creating a correct model within about a week's time. And

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Speaker 1: then in April of nineteen fifty three, they published one

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Speaker 1: of the best known scientific papers of the century, called

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Speaker 1: a Structure for deoxy ribos nucleic Acid, in the journal Nature,

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Speaker 1: and in it they described their double helix DNA molecular

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Speaker 1: model with its complementary double strands forming the sides of

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Speaker 1: a twisting ladder and bassis forming the runs of that ladder,

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Speaker 1: and Franklin and Gosling revised a draft of their own

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Speaker 1: to appear along with Watson and Cricks, but partly because

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Speaker 1: of the placement it received in the journal. It seemed

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Speaker 1: to just support Watson and Crick's findings, even though her

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Speaker 1: research was a huge, if not the main reason why

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Speaker 1: their paper existed in the first place. Franklin only received

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Speaker 1: one line of acknowledgment in that nineteen fifty three Watson

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Speaker 1: and Crick paper. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, Wilkins only mentioned her after thanking thirteen

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Speaker 1: other colleagues by name. Watson and Krick didn't mention her

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Speaker 1: at all. So this is where the controversy begins, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of people wonder whether Franklin would have reached

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Speaker 1: the same conclusions as Watson encrypt did on her own eventually,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people think that yes, she would have.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, unpublished drafts of her paper and information

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Speaker 1: in her note suggests that she was close to getting

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Speaker 1: the same results, and Krick even said in nineteen seventy

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Speaker 1: four that she was only two steps away from the solution.

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Speaker 1: In an excerpt from his memoir Avoid Boring People that

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Speaker 1: was published in Technology Review a few years ago, Watson said, quote,

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Speaker 1: Rosalind Franklin would have seen the double helix first, had

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Speaker 1: she seen fit to enter the model building race and

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Speaker 1: been better able to interact with other scientists. He also

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Speaker 1: told Scientific American quote, We're very famous because DNA is

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Speaker 1: very famous. If Rosalind had talked to Francis starting in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, shared her data with him, she would

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Speaker 1: have solved that structure, and then she would have been

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Speaker 1: the famous one. They did give her credit here and there, though,

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Speaker 1: of course there was Watson's book that we mentioned the

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Speaker 1: double helix, which reveals everything. But according to a two

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Speaker 1: thousand three article in Wilson Quarterly, as soon as nineteen four,

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Speaker 1: Crick had stated quote without Franklin's data, the formulation of

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Speaker 1: our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible.

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Speaker 1: Some take this as evidence that Franklin must have known

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Speaker 1: about the fact that Watson saw photo fifty one, but

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Speaker 1: others think that knowing her personality and how feisty she

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Speaker 1: could be. If she had known that they had seen

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Speaker 1: it without her permission, she would have been very angry. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: Franklin's biographer Matic says there's no real evidence that she

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Speaker 1: knew what research of hers, Watson and Crick had obtained,

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Speaker 1: so that parts still kind of a mystery. What we

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Speaker 1: really know, though, is that Franklin didn't seem too troubled

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Speaker 1: about losing the race to discover the structure of DNA,

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Speaker 1: probably because she didn't consider herself in that race in

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Speaker 1: the first For her, it had all been about discovering

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Speaker 1: the truth. So Franklin was of course eager to get

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Speaker 1: out of King's College, considering how unhappy she was there,

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Speaker 1: and she did that. But the spring of eighteen fifty three,

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Speaker 1: around the same time that the Nature article was published,

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Speaker 1: she ended up taking a position working in the crystallography

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Speaker 1: laboratory at Birkbeck College in London, and it's there that

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Speaker 1: she began to work primarily on investigating the structure of

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Speaker 1: the tobacco mosaic virus. She published seventeen papers while she

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Speaker 1: was there, including four in Nature, and she was much

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Speaker 1: happier professionally. I mean, I think the fact that she

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Speaker 1: published seventeen papers. Shows this wasn't a woman to dwell

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Speaker 1: on not getting credit for something that happened in the past.

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Speaker 1: She was looking forward, definitely. And incidentally, we should mention

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Speaker 1: that when she left King's College, Randall basically told her,

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Speaker 1: you cannot work on DNA anymore. So it's not like

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Speaker 1: she just gave it up. I mean, she might have

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Speaker 1: just given it up anyway, but she wasn't allowed to

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Speaker 1: work on Addicially, in ninety six, she was diagnosed with

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Speaker 1: ovarian cancer. There was cancer in her family history, but

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Speaker 1: it also probably had a lot to do with her

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Speaker 1: work with X rays, during which she didn't ever wear

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Speaker 1: a lead apron or anything to protect herself, and she

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Speaker 1: often had to enter the radiation being for extended periods

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Speaker 1: to position specimens. So she just didn't realize at the

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Speaker 1: time how harmful it would be. Then we've talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about that before on the Radium Girls episode

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Speaker 1: exactly so ironically, during the last years of Franklin's life, though,

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Speaker 1: she became friends with Watson and Crick, even convalescing at

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Speaker 1: Crick's home once after one of her cancer treatments, and

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Speaker 1: according to that Wilson Quarterly article. Qrick once said that

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Speaker 1: they never discussed the subject of the race to find

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Speaker 1: DNA structure. I mean, I don't know if you're suspicious

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Speaker 1: of I'm I'm a little suspicious of that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I can imagine why it would be a taboo topic

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Speaker 1: between these people. You don't really want to bring it up,

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Speaker 1: perhaps especially if you're trying to be friends. But fact Lee,

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Speaker 1: But I mean, I do I do wonder what what

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Speaker 1: they really talked about, and if she wanted to know

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Speaker 1: how they got the information or anything like them. And

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Speaker 1: I guess we'll never know. Franklin died at the age

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Speaker 1: of thirty seven on April sixteenth, nineteen fifty eight, and

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Speaker 1: there have been at least a couple of biographies written

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Speaker 1: about her, and a documentary done on her that was

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Speaker 1: aired on PBS called The Secret of Photo fifty one.

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Speaker 1: And there are also a couple of institutions that have

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Speaker 1: named buildings after her, including King's College and Birkbeck College,

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Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, King's is called the Franklin Wilkins Building.

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Speaker 1: So she's kind of paired up with her, yes, So

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think a good thing to point

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Speaker 1: out here is that by by talking about Franklin. We're

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Speaker 1: not trying to diminish any of the other's accomplishments. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: we think Watson and crit contributed a lot to this,

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Speaker 1: and without their modeling, no how they wouldn't have come

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Speaker 1: up with DNA structure, and who knows what would have happened.

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Speaker 1: I mean, everyone here deserves a little bit of credit.

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Speaker 1: But I think that kind of the point is that

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Speaker 1: there's enough recognition to go around. Well, in DNA is

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Speaker 1: such a huge discovery, such a huge accomplishment, there is

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Speaker 1: plenty of room for for four people. Yes, and um

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Speaker 1: Watson did kind of relent on his earlier feelings about Franklin.

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Speaker 1: Later in his epilogue to his book, he did say, quote,

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Speaker 1: since my initial impressions of her, both scientific and personal,

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Speaker 1: as recorded in the early pages of this book, and

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Speaker 1: of course we're referring to the double helix, we're often wrong.

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Speaker 1: I want to say something here about her achievements. And

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Speaker 1: then he says that he and Kirk both came to

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Speaker 1: appreciate her personal honesty and generosity, realizing years too late

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Speaker 1: the struggles that the intelligent woman faces to be accepted

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Speaker 1: by a scientific world which often regards women as near

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Speaker 1: diversions from serious thinking, so I don't think we could

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Speaker 1: put it any better than that. Not enough do we

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Speaker 1: have some listener mail. We do, so this message is

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Speaker 1: from Maggie and she wrote, Dear Sara Deblina. First of all,

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Speaker 1: let me tell you how much I love your podcast.

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Speaker 1: Since my husband left for Iraq earlier this year, you

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Speaker 1: have helped fill a quiet house with lots of fun,

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Speaker 1: interesting stories. So thanks for doing your part. From military family,

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Speaker 1: or at least this military family member, so that was

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Speaker 1: a really nice thing to say. Thank you, Maddie. Um,

433
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 1: she says, thankfully, come home next month, and since this

434
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 1: email came in November, should be home by now. Um.

435
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: She also wrote that she wanted to suggest some military

436
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 1: spouses as potential topics, and she said we are pretty

437
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: interesting bunch, if I do say so myself. Lady Custer

438
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: in particular prided herself on being quote the only officer's

439
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,400
Speaker 1: wife who always followed the regiment and wrote a lot

440
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,679
Speaker 1: about her experiences, including a book called Boots and Saddles.

441
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 1: I would love to hear what other military spouses from

442
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 1: different eras and parts of the world you come up with,

443
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: so thank you for that suggestion. Maggie, have we talked

444
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: about any military wives in the Civil War series yet?

445
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: I don't think we have. Um, I'm trying to remember

446
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: if any of the nurses were military wives, and many

447
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: of them were unmarried, so I don't think that's the case.

448
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: So it's definitely a topic that we could look into

449
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: some more. Yeah, so thank you for suggesting that one, Maggie,

450
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,120
Speaker 1: And I hope you guys like this sort of scientific

451
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: kick we've been on lately. Yeah, we tend to get

452
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: obsessed with subjects for a little while. By medicine, I mean,

453
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: maybe it is the Civil War medicine ones that have

454
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: gotten us kind of off on a science tantary areas

455
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: of science, and I think the Halloween type episodes on

456
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: alchemy and so forth also kind of inspired me in

457
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: that direction very much. And just for those of you

458
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: who don't know, we do have a whole science themed

459
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: podcast here at How Stuff Works called Stuff to Blow

460
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: Your Mind, which they go into some more like nitty

461
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: gritty science stuff, So that might, um, that might be

462
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: great for for those of you who love these science

463
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 1: gamed episodes. That's very true. And if any of you

464
00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: guys have any more episode suggestions, whether science or otherwise.

465
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: Please write us where History podcast at how staff works

466
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: dot com or we're on Facebook and we're also on

467
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 1: Twitter at Myston History. And I'm sure we have articles

468
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: on on DNA and we have how DNA works. In fact,

469
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: if you want to find out a little bit more

470
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: of the technical side of what we talked about, that's

471
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: the homepage editor in Dublina coming through. It knows exactly

472
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: what articles are on the right, so you can go

473
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: check that one out. It's called how DNA Works and

474
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: you can find it by searching on our homepage at

475
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 1: www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure to

476
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

477
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: Join how stup work staff as we explore the most

478
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works

479
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes

480
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 1: in