RIP, James Watson - Scientist

[Talent312]

James D. Watson, whose co-discovery of the twisted-ladder structure of DNA in 1953 helped start a revolution in medicine, crime-fighting, and genealogy, has died. He was 97. The breakthrough — made when Watson was just 24 — turned him into a hallowed figure in the world of science for decades. But near the end of his life, he faced condemnation and censure for saying Black people are less intelligent than white people.

Watson shared a 1962 Nobel Prize with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins for discovering that deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is a double helix, consisting of two strands that coil around each other to create what resembles a long, gently twisting ladder. That realization was a breakthrough. It instantly suggested how hereditary information is stored and how cells duplicate their DNA when they divide.

 

[Snazzylass]

Ugh! And, nearly as discouraging, "The key came when Dr. Wilkins gave them access to certain images of Dr. Franklin’s, one of which, Photo 51, turned out to be the clue to the molecule’s structure."
While Watson, Wilkins, and Dr. Crick all shared in the Nobel Prize in 1962, it seems Dr. Rosalind Franklin was given no credit for her work. So sad when it was her photo /X-ray allowed them to put the pieces together. She died in 1958, at the age of 37, from Ovarian Cancer. It seems the access to the information might have been unauthorized.
However, apparently 50+ years later, he did giver her credit.