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mskhelad:

Feb 28, 1953:
Watson and Crick discover chemical structure of DNA.
Rosalind Franklin controversy. 

A larger controversy arose over the use Watson and Crick made of research done by another DNA researcher, Rosalind Franklin, whose colleague Maurice Wilkins showed her X-ray diffraction images of DNA to Watson just before he and Crick made their famous discovery.

Her data, according to Francis Crick, was “the data we actually used” to formulate Crick and Watson’s 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA. Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images confirming the helical structure of DNA were shown to Watson without her approval or knowledge.

Franklin, who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer and was thus ineligible for the award, never learned of the role her photos played in the historic scientific breakthrough.

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A great Science Heroine.

(via project-argus)