Race for the Double Helix

John Klein Hour 6 “Race for the Double Helix” Video Worksheet While Viewing the Film 1. Name James Watson

First Impression Driven, loud, wanting to be famous, lonely Francis Crick Quirky, intelligent, fun, honest Rosalind Franklin Introverted, quiet, private, protective Maurice Wilkins Push over, quiet, lonely 2. Watson & Crick: speed, be first, share, get help from others. Franklin: slow, check every result, don’t jump to conclusions, get all the data before making a observation. It was good that Franklin wanted to test all of her results but that also would’ve taken much longer than Watson & Crick’s method which was to beat everyone else even if they were jumping to conclusions. 3. Yes I do think Rosalind should have shared her results more freely because these results could have been combined with others research to see even more potential of her results. Also I do think she should’ve worked more closely with Wilkins because the way she took over his lab was not right. 4. Yes I do think he was right because sometimes people get so caught up in their own viewpoints and biases that they can’t see anything else and that is why a fresh point of view is important in scientific research. 5. They discovered that they occurred in equal ratios between T’s and A’s and C’s and G’s by looking at the work of Chargaff. 6. Rosalind thought the final model was correct and was stunned by the fact that is was perfect. She also was disappointed that she didn’t see its shape first. Maurice Wilkins said that the model was beautiful. 7. Name First Impression James Watson Driven, loud, wanting to be famous, lonely, excitable Francis Crick Quirky, intelligent, fun, honest, kind Rosalind Franklin Introverted, quiet, private, protective, wanting to be right, angry Maurice Wilkins Push over, quiet, lonely, sad 8. It was called this because everybody was racing to be the first to discover the answer to this age-old question of the source of life. I do think scientific research should be viewed a race because it incentivizes people to move faster which can lead to more being discovered even though it can lead to more mistakes.

9. Watson, Crick , and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel prize because Franklin died before she could receive it which was not fair because she was the biggest contributor to the discovery of the structure of DNA. 10. I believe Rosalind Franklin played the biggest role in the discovery of the structure of DNA because without her there would be no concrete evidence of DNA’s helical structure. 11. I believe Maurice Wilkins played the least important role in the discovery of the structure of DNA because all he did was lay the foundation for its discovery and almost nothing more. 12. I liked Crick the best because he didn’t treat the discovery as a competition but instead as something everyone should share in. 13. I disliked Maurice Wilkins the least because he seemed like a sad and depressed person who didn’t do much during the movie. 14. Politics played a big role in the discovery of the structure of DNA. It was most prominently shown when Rosalind suggested that she could bring her work back to France with her but the head of the lab denied her request because he wanted all the glory for Britain and his own lab. I also think that today politics plays a even bigger role in science most evidently in stem cell research. 15. I learned that more people worked on this discovery than just Watson & Crick and that there was even a woman who made big contributions to the discovery.

After Viewing the Film A. Irwin Chargaff was a famous chemist who discovered that the was a ratio between the number of A’s and T’s and C’s and G’s. Another thing Chargaff discovered was that it was the DNA in the cell that carried the genetic information for the cell. He started examining DNA using ultraviolet spectroscopy and realized that the composition of DNA was similar in a species but very different from that of another species. Although he did find some consistencies in such as the number of purine bases was always equal to the number of pyrimidine bases. More specifically he found the number of Thymine bases was always equal to the number of Adenine bases and the number of Guanine bases was always equal to the number of Cytosine bases. B. 1. Without the acidic hydrogen atoms there is almost no force to keep the DNA together. 2. The way in which purine and pyrimidine bases hold the structure together. 3. An A must be matched to a T and a C to a G. 4. It allows the DNA to reproduce easily. 5. Because it shows what human and all living creatures are made up of at the most basic level, which is something I agree with, and therefore I believe that they deserved the Nobel Prize.