Books by James Watson

“Before Watson and Crick began their work, it was realised that genes are made of DNA; the double helix structure revealed two things. First it tells us how genes replicate—which was what Watson was particularly obsessed about—because the two strands of the molecule are reciprocal and so, if the cell can read what’s on one strand, it can then copy it and you get two daughter double strands. That’s what happens in the cell every second, it’s happening in your cells right now. What I think is even more exciting is that Watson and Crick realised that the order of bases—the rungs that hold the ladder of DNA together—is highly significant. The sequence of those bases is what they called in their second 1953 article in Nature (after they had described the double helix structure) ‘genetic information.’ This is what genes contain. This realisation was an incredible moment in human history. In his book, Watson described what was a very exciting time to have been alive. Anybody who reads The Double Helix is drawn into this world of competition and excitement and academic existence, much of which no longer exists because of the changes in the way that science is done, and the increasing pressure on academic time from various sources.” Read more...

The best books on The History of Science

Matthew Cobb, Scientist