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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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This Day In History - February 28, 1953 1
#14042199 - 02/28/11 01:45 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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February 28,
1953
Francis Crick first
conceived of the double-helix shape of DNA while
under the influence of LSD.
Francis Crick was a British molecular biologist, physicist, and
neuroscientist, best known for being one of two co-discoverers of the
structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. This accomplishment became a
cornerstone of genetics and was widely regarded as one of the most
important discoveries of 20th-century biology.
The abrasive and unorthodox Crick and his brilliant American
co-researcher James Watson famously celebrated their eureka moment
in by running from the now legendary Cavendish Laboratory in
Cambridge to the nearby Eagle pub, where they announced over pints of
bitter that they had discovered the secret of life.
He told a fellow scientist it was LSD, not the Eagle's warm
beer, that helped him to unravel the structure of DNA, the discovery
that won him the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Despite his Establishment image, Crick was a devotee of novelist Aldous
Huxley, whose accounts of his experiments with LSD and another
hallucinogen, mescaline, in the short stories The Doors Of Perception
and Heaven And Hell
became cult texts for the hippies of the Sixties and Seventies. In the
late Sixties, Crick was a founder member of Soma, a legalise-cannabis
group named after the drug in Huxley's novel Brave New World. He
even put his name to a famous letter to The Times in 1967
calling for a reform in the drugs laws.
http://www.hallucinogens.com/lsd/francis-crick.html
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4runner


Registered: 07/16/10
Posts: 15,406
Loc: State of Jefferson
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: veggie]
#14042337 - 02/28/11 02:02 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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 Wow, I never knew that...
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Trufflicious
Truffle Hunter


Registered: 09/25/10
Posts: 60
Loc: Central California
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: 4runner]
#14042356 - 02/28/11 02:05 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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I love these posts
-------------------- “He is like a man using a candle to look for the sun”
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braingain11
Skeptic
Registered: 01/06/11
Posts: 17
Loc: New Caledonia
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: Trufflicious]
#14042624 - 02/28/11 02:35 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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One little known fact is there was a third person involved in the research, and it happened to be a woman. I can't remember her name but it's funny how this guy seems to get all the credit along with Watson. I guess she wanted some credit in it too but they wouldn't give it to her.
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Conaman12



Registered: 06/25/07
Posts: 367
Last seen: 10 years, 10 months
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: veggie]
#14042656 - 02/28/11 02:39 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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The dude who developed PCR, a very important tool in DNA replication, also attributed his use of lsd to his invention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#PCR_and_other_inventions
he also saw a glowing racoon...
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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: braingain11]
#14042670 - 02/28/11 02:40 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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You are referring to Rosalind Franklin. Her research with DNA is pretty well documented. I'm guessing she might have shared in the Nobel except that she died frst. Although without an LSD connection, she wouldn't have been mentioned here.
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braingain11
Skeptic
Registered: 01/06/11
Posts: 17
Loc: New Caledonia
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: veggie]
#14042927 - 02/28/11 03:26 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Oh ok well my memories a bit vague. Its cool that he saw it on lsd!
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Toreador
over educated



Registered: 02/26/11
Posts: 1
Last seen: 10 years, 4 months
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: veggie]
#14043385 - 02/28/11 04:40 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Excellent!
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Dave Bowman
Albert Hoffmans Apprentice




Registered: 08/30/07
Posts: 2,104
Loc: Your Imagination
Last seen: 3 months, 24 days
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: Toreador]
#14043490 - 02/28/11 04:58 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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Never knew this incredible piece of knowledge.
Great Read!
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bait_
AllSpice

Registered: 04/24/07
Posts: 2,292
Loc: This Cannot Be Happening
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Re: This Day In History - February 28, 1953 [Re: Dave Bowman]
#14044855 - 02/28/11 07:58 PM (12 years, 10 months ago) |
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"today a young man on acid realized that all dna is merely amino acids condensed to a double helix, that genetic information expresses itself through ATG&U, there is no such thing as creationism, and we are a combination of cells. Here's Tom with the weather"
a play on Bill Hick's Positive Drug Story I thought up. The last 2 lines are a little weak. Can anyone help me out?
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