double helix at 60

The Double Helix
by James Watson 

my little poem is not much to match

but hey it's a genuine show of love. :-)

Ode to DNA

Head to tail, tail to head

Featuring a doubly-stranded

Holding tight, not to tread

Physical strains o'er chemical bands

Spiraled over, that thread

living in a cellular land

I say a "Zipper!"

Only so pret-tier

one can never be tired of the story on the discovery of the DNA structure. and it's not mainly because of its supreme importance. the double helix is also incredibly beautiful:  elegant, intricate, mysterious, complex and simple,  and perfect.

how to figure all these out is of course a detective thriller of the highest order. that it had had to take the brainiest, the eccentric, the paranoid, the beautiful to crack its secrets comes as no surprise.

for all his faults, Watson is a brilliant story-teller. this anniversary edition has also provided additional or new historical documents to put his viewpoints in perspective - now readers can judge for themselves who is right, who is wrong, would have, could have... at the end of the day though, the double helix triumphs over human beings. and one is just too happy to behold that grandiosity of a molecule - the blue print of life.

a signed copy