Crick's immodest ambitions

摘要

Winning a Nobel Prize is a life-changing event. It instantly accords influence and status to its recipient in domains far outside the realm of the discipline being honoured. Some use this status to influence science policy. Many use it to attract donations or investment to their institutions or other worthy causes. More rarely, a laureate will apply the same principles that guided them to Nobel honours to continue their groundbreaking career in another scientific field. Francis Crick is one of the latter: decades after his discoveries about the root of life, DNA, he continues to investigate deep scientific questions by turning his talents to the root of consciousness, the brain.