Archive for the ‘History’ Category
How Plasmids Became Embroiled in The Cold War
by Nick on February 17, 2010
The humble plasmid. We now know it so well, but as little as 60 years ago the field of extra-chromosomal heredity was decidedly murky. Not only was it the subject of great debate, conflict and friction within the scientific (read on...)
The Taq behind PCR
by Andrew on June 10, 2009
Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis is generally credited with inventing the polymerase chain reaction, but his discovery owes a lot to a microbiologist who loved to travel, some refuted assumptions of what can live in hot springs, and a (read on...)
Nobel Prizes in Molecular Biology
by Dan on April 15, 2009
There are a lot of places to read about the history of molecular biology, but one theme that generally seems to emerge is that discoveries are dependent upon the experimental technology. Take this list of Nobel prizes for (read on...)
NIH and English as the Language of Science
by Dan on August 26, 2008
Last October, Nobel laureate and biochemist Arthur Kornberg passed away, and I've finally gotten around to reading his book For the Love of Enzymes.
While there's a lot in the book to talk about, for this post I'm focusing on (read on...)
