50: This Mortal Coil

As a celebratory episode, reaching number 50 in this podcast, we talk about the history of DNA, from its discovery by Dr. Friedrich Miescher in the 1860s, to the race to uncover its correct structure in 1953, between the Great and Powerful Linus Pauling, and the less-great and certainly non-powerful James Watson and Francis Crick. Along the way, we learn of the fits and starts in figuring out what DNA's real function was, and how it differed from RNA (originally lumped together with DNA as "nucleic acid"). Among the scientists we find along the way are Frederick Griffith, Oswald Avery, Erwin Schrödinger, Erwin Chargaff, Edward Ronwin, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, and Peter Pauling.

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