THE SHADOWS OF SCIENCE HISTORY
The most important discoveries in science history are known worldwide. However, some of these discoveries were made by women that have a minor role in the way history is told. This is the case of Rosalind Franklin.
Franklin was born on July 25, 1920, in London, to a wealthy Jewish family who highly valued education. She studied physics and chemistry at Cambridge University. After Cambridge she went to work for the British Coal Utilization Research Association. Finally, in 1946, Franklin moved to Paris where she perfected her skills in X-ray crystallography, which would become her life's work.
She worked hard all her life, but it can be said that she got a raw deal. Her contribution to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA was crucial. However, this participation in such a remarkable finding is little known.
After working in Paris, she also worked in London in Kings College. Her main achievement was the x-ray photographs she took of DNA where the double helix could be seen. This photograph, labelled 51, taken of B-DNA in 1952, was the first proof of the double helical structure of DNA and opened the way to other scientists to keep on studying the DNA structure.
Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life.
In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.
ARTURO&AINOA
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