On Feb. 28, 1953, Francis crick walked into the Eagle pub in Cam-bridge, England, and announced that he and James Watson had "found the secret of life." At least that's what Watson remembers; Crick's memory is different. The exact words don't matter that much because the fact is, they had done it. Earlier that day, the two scientists had pieced together the correct solution to a problem that researchers around the world were racing to solve. They had built a model of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that showed by its very structure how DNA could be everything they fiercely believed it to be: the carrier of the genetic code and thus the key molecule of heredity, developmental biology and evolution. Watson and Crick weren't necessarily the smartest scientists in the contest (though they were plenty smart). They weren't the most experienced; their track records in this area of science, in fact, were essentially nonexistent. They didn't have the best equipment. They didn't even know much biochemistry.
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