{"id":555832,"date":"2025-11-07T20:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555832\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T20:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:53:11","slug":"dna-pioneer-james-watson-dies-at-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/555832\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA pioneer James Watson dies at 97"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watson shared the Nobel in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick for the DNA&#8217;s double helix structure discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We have discovered the secret of life,&#8221; they said at the time. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His comments on race led to him saying that he felt ostracised by the scientific community. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the University of Cambridge&#8217;s Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times newspaper that he was &#8220;inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa&#8221;, because &#8220;all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours &#8211; whereas all the testing says not really&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The comments led to him losing his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His additional comments in 2019 &#8211; when he once again suggested a link between race and intelligence &#8211; led the lab to strip his honorary titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace professor emeritus and honorary trustee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Dr Watson&#8217;s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science,&#8221; the laboratory said in a statement, adding that they effectively reverse his apology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">DNA was discovered in 1869, but researchers had yet to discover its structure, and it took until 1943 before scientists realised that DNA made up the genetic material in cells.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Working with images obtained by King&#8217;s College researcher Rosalind Franklin, without her knowledge, Crick and Watson were able to construct a physical model of the molecule. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watson shared the Nobel in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick for the DNA&#8217;s double helix structure&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-555832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115510405068142808","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}