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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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DNA
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(deoxyribonucleic acid) The main constituent of chromosomes in living creatures, carrying the genetic code which passes on hereditary characteristics. The race to unravel the structure of this stuff of life was one of the great dramas of 20C science, hotly contested between two teams. One, at the *Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, included Francis Crick (b. 1916) and an American scientist, James Watson (b. 1928); the other, at King's College in London, was headed by Maurice Wilkins (b. 1916). In the event, with the borrowed help of x-ray pictures taken by Wilkins' colleague Rosalind Franklin (1920–58), the Cambridge team were the first to discover, in 1953, that DNA has a double-helix structure. In 1962 Crick, Watson and Wilkins shared a Nobel prize. Their discovery made possible the numerous subsequent developments in genetic medicine.
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