James Watson, Nobel laureate, approves DNAle!

If you're not in the sciences the name James Watson might not ring a bell. Watson, Francis Crick, and Rosalind Franklin published a paper back in 1953 that changed the way every biologist thinks about life, inheritance, evolution, and disease. Their contribution to science was to solve the structure of DNA, the molecule that contains almost all of the information needed to make a virus, a dinosaur, a mushroom, and you (yes, you! Awwww).

Watson came to Genentech a couple of weeks ago to give a lecture on cancer, where he presented what he thought were some overlooked remedies from his day and age. He drew a humongous crowd. The only other person that might have had the same effect would be the exhumed corpse of Darwin himself. The nerd paparazzi followed him relentlessly, snapping photos of him, or of his back, whatever they could get.

After his lecture he stuck around to do book signings. Many people had brought their beloved copies of the Double Helix (his personal and controversial account of how they cracked the DNA structure). Some were lovely vintage paperbacks, first edition. I had my copy signed, plus I brought along a printout of my DNAle beer label that Marc designed. I explained it to Watson and he got a kick out of it. His neat, modest signature is in the lower right corner. It's too bad I didn't have any beer to give him!