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JAMES WATSON

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JAMES WATSON AKA James Dewey Watson Born: 6-Apr - 1928 Birthplace: Chicago, IL Gender: Male Religion: Atheist Race or Ethnicity: White Occupation: Scientist Nationality: United States Executive summary: Co-Discoverer of DNA James Watson was a bright young American who entered the University of Chicago at the age of 15. He was particularly interested in birds, and quickly earned a BS and Ph.D. in zoology, then went to Europe to study genetics. At Cambridge, he met a Brit named Francis Crick , and together with their colleague Maurice Wilkins , they tried to elucidate the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). They felt Linus Pauling , then the world's most famous chemist, was breathing down their necks, and they desperately wanted to solve the DNA riddle before he did. Pauling had already come close, but it was Crick, Watson, and Wilkins who first showed that the collected clues only made sense if DNA were structured like two twisting, spiral ladder

HAROLD UREY

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HAROLD UREY   Born: 29-Apr - 1893 Birthplace: Walkerton, IN Died: 5-Jan - 1981 Location of death: La Jolla, CA Cause of death: Heart Failure Remains: Buried, Fairfield Cemetery, Fairfield Center, IN Gender: Male Religion: Atheist Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Chemist Nationality: United States Executive summary: Discovered Deuterium American chemist and physicist Harold C. Urey studied under Niels Bohr at Copenhagen, and is best known for his 1931 discovery of deuterium (heavy hydrogen, the isotope of hydrogen, with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus). He later said he had hoped that this discovery "might have the practical value of, say, neon in neon signs", but its principle use has proven to be in nuclear fusion reactions. Urey won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1934, and also isolated heavy isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, conducted respected rese