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In Our Time: Science

Rosalind Franklin

In Our Time: Science

BBC

History

4.51.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958). During her distinguished career, Franklin carried out ground-breaking research into coal and viruses but she is perhaps best remembered for her investigations in the field of DNA. In 1952 her research generated a famous image that became known as Photograph 51. When the Cambridge scientists Francis Crick and James Watson saw this image, it enabled them the following year to work out that DNA has a double-helix structure, one of the most important discoveries of modern science. Watson, Crick and Franklin's colleague Maurice Wilkins received a Nobel Prize in 1962 for this achievement but Franklin did not and today many people believe that Franklin has not received enough recognition for her work. With: Patricia Fara President of the British Society for the History of Science Jim Naismith Interim lead of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Director of the Research Complex at Harwell and Professor at the University of Oxford Judith Howard Professor of Chemistry at Durham University Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.

0:04.7

Join me as I serve up personal conversations with my sensational guests.

0:08.8

Do a leap interviews, Tim Cook.

0:11.2

Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.

0:15.0

It's in the hands of the creator.

0:16.7

It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

0:20.7

If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes,

0:24.6

you're doing the wrong thing.

0:25.9

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0:31.3

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0:33.0

Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.

0:36.0

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0:40.0

if you follow us on Twitter at BBC in our time. I hope you enjoy the programs.

0:45.0

Hello in 1952, Rosalind Franklin was at Kingess College London investigating

0:50.4

the structure of DNA creating images for analysis.

0:54.0

One of the images made of that work,

0:56.0

Photograph 51, has become famous.

0:59.0

It provided information needed to reduce the structure of DNA

1:02.0

one of the great achievements of

1:03.5

20th century science which Francis Crick, James Watson, and Morris Wilkins

1:07.6

later received the Nobel Prize. But not frankly, who moved on from DNA structure to do pioneering research into coal and viruses.

1:15.6

And since her death, when she was only 37, many have argued that she deserved greater recognition

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