DNA: Greatest discovery of the past 100 years

Did you know that the discovery of the DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is considered the most important biological work over the last 100 years?

Dr. Eufemio T. Rasco Jr., “The Unfolding Gene Revolution” author, said it was considered the greatest scientific discovery much later after Nature, a prestigious scientific journal, published an article on it on April 25, 1953.

American James Watson, then a 23-year Ph.D. holder on biology, and British physicist Francis Crick, both at the University of Cambridge came out high-profile after they showed proof of the structure of the DNA.

They illustrated that the DNA is a molecule made up of two chains of helix-forming nucleotides interlocked with each other, each a template for the other. When the two chains separate in cell division, a new set of chain exactly the same as the original is formed, making DNA multiply itself faithfully. An exception, though, is mutations at unpredictable times.

But Watson and Crick, as they are now collectively known, didn’t do it all twosome but were inspired by many people in their DNA discovery even prior to their receiving a Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1962.

That award they shared together with Maurice Wilkins of King’s College in London who studied DNA by looking at DNA’s x-ray diffraction photos.

First, they were inspired by the work of Linus Pauling who found out in 1948 that proteins have an alpha helix shape that spirals. Then Erwin Chargaff, an Austrian biochemist, showed that the nitrogen bases (the pairs adenine (A)and guanine (G) and cytosine (C) and thymine (T)) are arranged in different ways. But the amount of the bases, the A in a DNA sample, was always equal to that of T; similarly, the amount of C was the same as the amount of G. That he found out through the use of chromatography which enables separation of a mixture’s substances.

The DNA structure appears to be so simple, composed of only four bases, A, G, C, T, so as to represent a vast data of trait in plant, animal, and human life. But isn’t the Morse Code also composed of only four symbols (dot, dash, short spaces, and long spaces) which can represent all encyclopedia of human knowledge?

Watson and Crick never did any experiment on their work but only seriously examined others’ works!

Their other inspirations were the works of Hershey and Chase; they read scientific papers of chemists from the US and England. But most of all, according to Rasco, they “made sketches and three dimensional models, and spent a lot of time discussing their ideas in the office and elsewhere, notably Cambridge Campus’ Eagle Pub over martini and beer.”

But then, another very important stimulus for them was the work of Rosalind Franklin, also of King’s College, whom Watson and Crick listened to in a lecture in a rather critical way, owing partly to her (maybe shabby) physical appearance.

Franklin showed through x-ray diffractions the wet form of DNA which was in a helix form with the outside part of the molecule formed by phosphates.

Unfortunately, Franklin had died by the time Watson and Crick received the Nobel Prize which is only being given to people who are alive and only to be shared by three.

Thanks to Dipti, a friend who studies at Harvard, I managed to get a coveted pass to watch a discussion between two scientists, who rank unequivocally among the most influential biologists of the 20th century – James D. Watson and E. O. Wilson. It was an hour long,  free flowing conversation on no particular topic and was moderated by award winning journalist Robert Krulwich. The venue was Sanders Theater, a beautiful 19th century Hall that looks straight out of a Harry Potter book. For the first time in my twelve months in Cambridge, I felt envious of Harvard over MIT. The Mahogany seating rows with leather cushions, the Greek statues flanking the brightly lit stage and the grand chandelier that dropped from the roof seemed to possess an unusual power to confer an aura of elevated grandiosity to any happening in its confines. I am certain even Rakhi Sawant’s swayamvar would have seemed a very scholarly enterprise if it was conducted in this beautiful sanctuary(Now that’s how you stick a fart in the orchestra ). Stop.

Though both biologists by profession, Wilson and Watson represent two very different domains of the subject. Wilson did pioneering work in entomology (particularly on ants) and is famous for his writings on biodiversity and conservation. Watson on the other hand is a molecular biologist, most famous for his contribution in predicting the structure of the DNA molecule for which he shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with physicist (and later neuroscientist) Francis Crick and biologist Maurice Wilkins. The two were young professors back in the 50’s in Harvard and while they did not see eye to eye back then (mostly because of Watson’s fervent attempts to encourage recruitment of molecular biologists over other kinds whom he described as ’stamp collectors’), they developed a warm and friendship as their careers matured. They apparently met for a similar discussion at the same venue about fifteen years ago. Considering their present age (and with due respect to propriety), a third reunion seems unlikely and at any rate my being witness to it is uncertain. Therefore, it was quite fortunate that the opportunity to attend presented itself.

Having said that, I was mildly disappointed (but only a teeny-weeny bit) by the way the conversation turned out. Don’t get me wrong, it was extremely enjoyable to see the two old scientists engaged in an animated conversation that  hopped flippantly between their personal philosophies and attitudes towards science, their deep reverence for scholarship, why scientists deserved to be paid more if not equal to business school faculty, what problems they considered worthwhile, all decorated with intermittent scientific bitching (which seems to be more fundamental to any competitive enterprise than a deeper philosophy, academic or corporate). What I was hoping for was a possible discussion of the immediate big challenges confronting the fields of their respective expertise; while there was some venture into those areas, the moderator maneuvered from more probing details – possibly out of design, given the composition of the audience was predominantly lay. There were many little anecdotes that I should like to narrate but that would demand more length and better structure than this half-baked midnight ramble. Just one for the sake of it.

Both Watson and Wilson’s scientific careers have been associated with a certain degree of flamboyance, possibly because they have not shied away from the media – controversy or otherwise. Further, both agreed from a personal philosophical standpoint that in addition to intelligence, strong ambition and competitiveness were essential for what they considered the route to success in a scientific enterprise (More so with Watson than Wilson). Krulwich then put forward a cheeky question to both(rephrasing) – “Now the two of you seem to advocate shine over simmer. But surely you have noticed the case of Darwin whom both of you undoubtedly revere but who was exactly opposite in personality. He showed neither ambition nor competitiveness in the conventional sense. He simmered for years, through silent persistence despite having landed at the holy-grail of the life sciences.” After a couple of moments of silence, Watson exclaimed, “Sure he simmered, but when he heard of Wallace he did not lose any more time and published immediately!“. The audience clapped.

Da Capo:  America’s Unfinished Revolution

by

R.E. Prindle

http://contemporarynotes.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/greil-marcus-bob-dylan-bill-ayers-barry-obama/

http://idynamo.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/a-review-reconstruction-americas-unfinished-revolution/

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=1891

In historical order:

1.   Africans sell Africans to the West.

2.   Africans set to work in the US per terms of sale.

3.   USA fights CSA over Africans.

4.   US imposes ‘Reconstruction’ on defeated CSA according to law.

5.   CSA imposes Jim Crow on Africans.  (N.B. Jim Crow was a lawful state of affairs.)

6.   Period of discrimination.

7.   African revolt begins c. 1954

8.   Civil Rights Act of 1965 kicks off armed rebellion of Africans.

9.   Barack Obama is elected president in 2008.

10. The completion of  America’s Unfinished Revolution begins.

     The whole series of events resulted in an insatiable desire for revenge by Africans with point 1.  The key period is 4. Reconstruction in which the USA strips Whites of the CSA of any rights imposing African rule on them.  This was quasi-legal but still done in a lawful manner.  Beware of laws.

     The Whites threw off the African yoke using the legal system to impose Jim Crow laws on Africans as Get Whitey laws had been imposed on them by USA.  Jim Crow was a defensive maneuver against Reconstruction laws.

     In 10. Obama will reimpose Reconstruction laws on the White population thus completing the unfinished revolution.  This is a psychological necessity for the Africans and must be resisted by ‘any means necessary.’

     Apparently Obama’s ‘Health Care Bill’ is a grim joke and key legal maneuver to strip Whites of any rights, subjugating them to the Africans.

     Now, in my essay: Greil Marcus, Bob Dylan, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama, I pointed out that Obama, at the very least, knew of 9/11 before it happened and allowed it to happen.  This is now confirmed by Bobby Eberle’s essay linked above.  Bear in mind the historical outlines of Negro history in the US.

     On 9/11 of this year Obama is calling on his supporters to pressure the Senators to pass the Health Care Bill, now.  How are the two items reconciled?  It is a fact that on 9/11/01 the United States was attacked with the WTC towers being destroyed.  I am nearly sure Obama knew of the attack beforehand- he and Ayers for sure, probably Marcus and possibly Dylan although Dylan may have been used.  Doubtful.

     If the Health Care Bill is meant to deprive Whites of their rights or enslave them, then that is why Obama links  9/11 with the Bill.  In other words this is the follow up attack everyone has been expecting.  With a whimper not a bang.

     In an attempt to polarize the country (tactics from the Jewish culture) Obama’s website (view Eberle’s article) is characterizing the ‘loyal opposition’ as Right Wing Domestic Terrorists.  As we all know we are at war with ‘Terrorism’ but we aren’t allowed to call the Moslems terrorists.  It now becomes clear who Obama thinks the terrorists are.  This is now transparent.  Obama promised us transparency.  It also tells you who he thinks his friends and enemies are.

     There is no longer any question.  Obama should be put on a plane and flown back to his beloved Kenya on ‘the Continent.’  His day is over.

Critical Theory, Science And Common Sense

by

R.E. Prindle

Wheatland, Thomas, The Frankfurt School In Exile, UMinnesota, 2009.

     Wheatland explains the Critical Theory school’s understanding of science, p. 130:

     Instead of seeking conversion to the catechism of a theological system, science demanded absolute faith in the observable facts that formed the basis of the experimental method.

     In fact, Science has nothing to do with faith.  It leaves the unobservable notions of religion to faith.  One does not ‘believe’ in a scientific fact.  A fact is or isn’t.  The fact of DNA is a demonstrable reality.  The action of DNA can be accurately observed, photographed and shown in a clear incontradictable manner.  If DNA was not so there could be no scientific compulsion to accept it on ‘faith.’  A fact either is or isn’t.  The Jewish mind infatuated by the speculative tenets of the Talmud is incapable of dealing with unsystematized reality.

     An open end distresses the Jewish mind (and one might add the Moslem or Semitic mind in general) compelling them to close thought in systems and condemning anyone who questions the system.  Hence the Jewish concept of anti-Semitism.  Is there a rational reason anyone shouldn’t be opposed to such a system?

          The correlation, however between method and truth had never been developed.

     What the Frankfurt School meant by ‘truth’ was never defined.  What is clear however is that ‘truth’ is believed to be the sole possession of Jewish priests.   DNA, as a scientfic  instance, is an absolute truth requiring correlation to nothing.

     Lacking the elaboration of this concrete relationship, science represented a new authoritarian mythology.

     Science is not a system and need not ‘elaborate a concrete relationship.’   Nor is Science a mythology authoritarian or not.  The School’s ‘thought’ is fuzzy thinking at its worst.  Fearing Science as a destroyer of religion in general and Judaism in particular the School attempts to turn Science into a competitive religion and then demean it beneath Judaism as it had done with Christianity and Moslemism.  While the approach is specious the results have been dramatic.

     Religion in general and Judaism in particular are authoritarian mythologies that the School appears to deny in relation to Judaism when it describes Science as a ‘new’ authoritarian mythology.  New, one supposes in relation to Fascism.

     There is no way a rational mind could confuse Science with mythology, hence Jews must be irrational.

     The resulting scientific preference for commonsense, observation and description justified and legitimated the censorship of all complex and abstract ideas.

     On wonder whether Wheatland read this over before sending the book to press.  One wonders if an editor at UMinnesota read this through.  About all I can say is- compared to what?

Pastel depiction of the DNA base pairs by Roger Hayward.

The solving of the double helix structure of DNA is now considered to be one of the most important discoveries in modern scientific history. The structure itself suggested a possible mechanism for its own replication, and it also opened up a huge window of opportunity for advances in multiple fields ranging from biology to genetics to biochemistry to medicine. Almost immediately after James Watson and Francis Crick announced their structure, new research began based on the structure’s specifications.

An Early Idea from George Gamow

The Pauling Papers contain an interesting example of research done on the structure of DNA mere months after its discovery. On October 22, 1953, the Russian-born physicist (and founder of the “RNA Tie Club“) George Gamow sent a letter to Linus Pauling that mentioned some work he had been doing with DNA. Gamow explained that he had found a manner by which the twenty amino acids that make up proteins could be related to different combinations of the four nucleotides found in DNA.

At this time, it wasn’t known that the DNA strands unwind during replication, and Gamow assumed that protein synthesis occurred directly on the double helix. He suggested that a “lock and key relationship” might exist between each amino acid and that the “holes” formed between each complementary base pair in the DNA chain. Science is now aware that this is not the case, but Gamow’s letter is nicely demonstrative of the innovative research ushered in by Watson and Crick’s solving of DNA.

Excerpt from Gamow's letter to Pauling, October 22, 1953.

Click here to view Gamow’s entire letter, and here to read Pauling’s response.

RNA

As the buzz around DNA started to die down, scientists began to move toward the next logical step: RNA. By then, Watson and Crick’s structure was widely accepted, and it had been clear for some time that DNA was the site of the gene. So, then, how did DNA transfer its information to RNA, and finally on to proteins?

Gamow’s above suggestion was a possibility, but it didn’t even involve RNA. Watson spent some time playing with the matter, but was not able to equal his luck with DNA. Unfortunately, it would be quite some time before this mechanism was elucidated. Even now, some of the finer details of how this is accomplished are not completely understood.

Four members of the RNA Tie Club, 1955. Clockwise from upper left: Francis Crick, Leslie Orgel, James Watson and Alexander Rich. Founded by George Gamow, the RNA Tie Club met twice a year in pursuit of greater understanding of RNA.

Eventual Honors

Unsurprisingly, as time went on, Watson and Crick began to accumulate awards for their work with DNA. On December 15, 1959, Linus Pauling responded to a previous letter sent to him by Sir William Lawrence Bragg soliciting Pauling’s support of the nomination of Watson and Crick for the Nobel Prize. In this letter, Pauling stated that he would indeed be willing to write the requested letter of support. However, contrary to Bragg’s suggestion that they be nominated for the prize in chemistry, Pauling stated his belief that a prize in physiology or medicine would be much more fitting.

Several months later, on March 15, 1960, Pauling finally sent his letter to the Nobel Committee.  By the time of its authorship, Pauling’s feelings about the importance of Watson and Crick’s work had become even more tepid.

While acknowledging that “the hydrogen-bonded double-helix for DNA proposed by Watson and Crick has had a very great influence on the thinking of geneticists and other biologists,” Pauling notes that their work was, at least to some degree, “stimulated” by his and Robert Corey’s incorrect triple-helix structure, and abetted by Maurice Wilkins‘ x-ray photographs.  Pauling also points out that Wilkins, Corey, Karst Hoogsteen and himself had already tweaked the Watson-Crick model a bit, “which suggests the possibility that a further change in the structure of nucleic acid may be found necessary.”

In the end, Pauling couldn’t bring himself to go through with the promised nomination.

It is my opinion that the present knowledge of the structure of polypeptide chains in proteins is such as to justify the award of a Nobel Prize in this field in the near future, to Robert B. Corey for his fundamental investigations of the detailed molecular structure of amino acids and the polypeptide chains of proteins or possibly divided between him and Kendrew and Perutz. On the other hand, I think that it might well be premature to make an award of a Prize to Watson and Crick, because of existing uncertainty about the detailed structure of nucleic acid. I myself feel that it is likely that the general nature of the Watson-Crick structure is correct, but that there is doubt about details.

Pauling’s hesitations served only to delay their inevitable receipt of a Nobel Prize for a short time. In 1962, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins shared the award in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.”

The discovery of the structure of DNA was clearly one of the most important discoveries in the modern scientific era. Not only was it a huge breakthrough in itself, but it also opened the door for major advances in numerous other science-related fields. For more information on DNA, check out the rest of the posts in our DNA series or the website on which they are based, “Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History.” For more information related to Linus Pauling, please visit the Linus Pauling Online portal.

In 2002 berichtte de Melbourne Age dat er documenten waren gevonden waarin gedetailleerd een plan van microbioloog en nobelprijswinnaar Sir Macfarlane Burnet werd beschreven. Het betrof de ontwikkeling van biologische wapens die ingezet zouden moeten worden tegen Indonesie en andere overbevolkte landen in Zuid-Oost Azië.

Hier volgen een paar citaten uit het artikel;

“Sir Macfarlane gaf in een geheim rapport in 1947 de aanbeveling om biologische en chemische wapens te ontwikkelen waarmee voedselgewassen konden worden aangevallen en besmettelijke ziektes konden worden verspreid. Zijn belangrijke rol als adviseur voor biologische oorlogsvoering werd ontdekt door Historicus Philip Dorling in de Nationale Archieven in 1998.”

[Hier volgt een quote van Sir Macfarlane Burnet;]

“Wat betreft de situatie voor Australië, de meest effectieve tegenaanval tegen de mogelijke invasie vanuit overbevolkte Aziatische landen zou gericht moeten zijn op vernietiging van voedselgewassen doormiddel van biologische of chemische middelen, en op de verspreiding van besmettelijke ziektes die in staat zijn zich te verspreiden in de tropische gebieden maar niet in het klimaat van Australië.”

“Sir Macfarlane won in 1960 de Nobelprijs voor de geneeskunde. Hij stierf in 1985 maar zijn theoriën over klonen vormden de basis voor de moderne biotechnologie en genetische manipulatie.”

Rondom een andere ‘lieveling’ van de academische wereld, James Watson, ontstond op een gegeven moment een controverse nadat hij een journalist van de Sunday Times had medegedeeld dat zwarten van nature minder intelligent zijn dan blanken. Dit kwam niet als een verrassing voor degenen die op de hoogte zijn van de rol die Watson speelde in het promoten van de eugenetica agenda. Watson verklaarde de Journalist dat hij zeer somber was over de toekomst van Afrika. Dit omdat “ons gehele sociale beleid gebasseerd is op de aanname dat hun intelligentie gelijk is aan die van ons (…) terwijl uit alle onderzoeken het tegendeel blijkt.”

Watson was tot 1992 hoofd van de Human Genome Project, maar hij is het best bekend van zijn bijdrage aan de ontdekking van het DNA, een prestatie die hem in 1962 de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede opleverde.

Wat de meeste mensen niet weten is dat Watson decennialang een grote, wezenlijke rol heeft gespeeld in het bevorderen van de legitimiteit van de eugenetica beweging.

Watson is een groot voorstander van genetische screening, dit is een test waarbij wordt vastgesteld of een (echt)paar een verhoogde kans heeft op een kind met een erfelijke genetische afwijking. Genetische screening is door velen fel bekritiseerd omdat het het aantal abortussen verhoogd van babies die niet ‘perfect’ zijn. Er zou volgens de tegenstanders sprake zijn van gecamoufleerde of vrijwillige eugenetica zoals de Britse filosoof Philip Kitcher het noemt.

Watson heeft ooit opgeroepen tot het genezen van de domste 10% van de bevolking. Daarnaast heeft hij gepleit voor het creeëren van een superras. Dit superras zou volgens Watson met behulp van genetische manipulatie in een laboratorium gecreeërd moeten worden.

“Mensen zeggen dat het verschrikkelijk zou zijn als we alle vrouwen mooi zouden maken. Ik denk dat het geweldig zou zijn.” Aldus Watson.

Dr. Eric Pianka’s waarschuwing voor de bevolkingsexplosie (zie deel 02), waarvoor hij geen enkel bewijs levert, is gebasseerd op absolute pseudo-wetenschap. De bevolkingsaantallen in de ontwikkelde landen lopen terug, alleen in ontwikkelingslanden is er sprake van een explosieve groei. Industialisering heeft een stabiliserende werking op de bevolkingsomvang, daarnaast laten bevolkingsmodellen regelmatig zien dat de wereldbevolking bij 9 miljard in 2050 zal stabiliseren. En dat het bevolkingsaantal daarna langzaam zal afnemen. Het bevolkingsaantal van de meest ontwikkelde landen zal praktisch gelijk blijven tot 2050, aldus een rapport van de Verenigde Naties. Een studie van Conservation International onthulde dat 46% van het aardoppervlak (het zeeoppervlak niet meegerekend) nog steeds een onaangetaste wildernis is. Ondanks dat wil Pianka 9 op de 10 mensen opruimen op de meest pijnlijke manier die er is, namelijk doormiddel van een dodelijk ebola virus. Deze boodschap brengt hij op een vreugdevolle manier die je zou verwachten van een krankzinnige seriemoordenaar vlak voordat hij zijn slachtoffer aan stukken snijdt. Het plan om 90% van de wereldbevolking te vernietigen is zo ernstig dat je op zijn minst zou verwachten dat de lieden die dit voorstellen dit op een sobere ingetogen manier doen. Het tegendeel blijkt waar, het onderwerp wordt besproken met smakkende lippen en wrijvende handen alsof men aan een feestmaal begint.

Meer Voorbeelden van Bevolkingsreductie en Eugenetica

- De Tuskegee Study Group heeft van 1932 tot 1972 opzettelijk zwarte gemeenschappen in Alabama besmet met syfilis en ze vervolgens gezondheidszorg geweigerd terwijl hele families stierven.

- De Israelische overheid gebruikte in 1951 technologie uit de Verenigde Staten om 100.000 Joodse kinderen te bestralen in een nucleair experiment. 6.000 kinderen stierven direct en de anderen leden de rest van hun leven aan verzwakkende en dodelijke ziektes zoals kanker.

De elite is behoorlijk open over haar koortsachtige drang om zich schuldig te maken aan genocide en etnische zuivering. In het voorwoord van zijn biografie “If I were an animal” schreef Prince Philip: “Als ik zou reïncarneren dan zou ik willen terugkomen als een dodelijk virus om een bijdrage te leveren aan de oplossing van het probleem van de overbevolking.” Dit is slechts één van de vele verklaringen die Prince Philip on the record heeft gegeven waarin hij zijn verlangen om een deel van de bevolking ‘op te ruimen’ uit.

In een andere toespraak keurde hij het feit af dat er levens waren gered in Sri Lanka doormiddel van malaria-behandelingen. Want dat hield in dat er nu drie keer zoveel mensen moesten worden gevoed.

Een van de meest beklemmende bekentenissen vanuit de elite waaruit de intentie blijkt dat men van plan is op grote schaal genocide te plegen om de hoeveelheid mensen op aarde drastisch terug te brengen, kwam van de ‘heilig verklaarde’ milieudeskundige Jacques Cousteau. In een interview met de UNESCO Courier van November 1991 verklaarde hij het volgende;

“De schade die mensen deze planeet berokkenen heeft te maken met de werking van de demografie (…) het is gelijk aan de mate van ontwikkeling. Één Amerikaan belast de aarde zwaarder dan twintig Bangladezen. Onze maatschappij beweegt zich in de richting van meer en onnodige consumptie. Het is een vicieuze cirkel die ik vergelijk met kanker (…)”

“Het is verschrikkelijk om het te moeten zeggen. Om de wereldpopulatie te stabiliseren moeten we 350.000 mensen per dag uit de weg ruimen. Het is afschuwelijk om dat te moeten zeggen, maar het is even erg om het niet te zeggen.”

Het is belangrijk om te benadrukken dat dit artikel enkel de oppervlakte behandelt van de door de elite en insiders verklaarde doelstellingen aangaande bevolkingsreductie en van concrete voorbeelden van programma’s die nu worden uitgevoerd of in het verleden zijn uitgevoerd. Dit zou nooit allemaal in één artikel behandelt kunnen worden. Men zou er een encyclopedie mee kunnen vullen.

Voor meer informatie over dit onderwerp verwijs ik U naar de documentaire Endgame van Alex Jones, gratis te bekijken op video.google.

Linus and Peter Pauling at Warwick Castle, England. 1948.

“You know how children are threatened ‘You had better be good or the bad ogre will come get you.’ Well, for more than a year, Francis and others have been saying to the nucleic acid people at King’s ‘You had better work hard or Pauling will get interested in nucleic acids.’”

-Peter Pauling. Letter to Linus Pauling, January 13, 1953.

Normally, when Linus Pauling became interested in something, he would dive headlong into it. Hours and hours of his time, over weekdays and weekends, would be committed to research in pursuit of fleshing out every last useful detail. This arduous process is best illustrated by his work on the nature of the chemical bond, work which would later win him a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Pauling’s experience with DNA, however, was not an example of this typical approach.

First, it should be noted that Pauling did not have years to spend working on DNA. Its importance was fully realized in the summer of 1952, less than a year before Watson and Crick elucidated its structure, and although Pauling actually began studying nucleic acids as early as 1933, he wasn’t able, or willing, to spend a significant amount of time on a molecule that was perceived to be relatively unimportant.

Even after learning of the importance of DNA, Pauling still didn’t make time for it. As emphasized in earlier posts on Linus Pauling and DNA, Pauling remained very much preoccupied with his work on the nature of proteins.

An examination of Pauling’s correspondence with his son Peter – a man uniquely positioned in the middle of the DNA story – reveals that other matters, many of them trivial, also took precedence over Pauling’s pursuit of the structure of DNA.

In the fall of 1952, Peter Pauling, an aspiring crystallographer and the second oldest of the four Pauling children, began his graduate studies at the University of Cambridge. Coincidentally, James Watson and Francis Crick were also at Cambridge at this time, and not long after his arrival, Peter had met them, become an office-mate, and was spending off-hours time with the duo.

Because Linus Pauling and the Watson-Crick tandem were both attempting to solve the structure of DNA, Peter’s arrival at Cambridge gave his father an excellent opportunity to keep tabs on the work being done by his competitors in England. A close examination of the voluminous father-son correspondence from this era suggests, however, that DNA was far from a pressing topic in Pasadena.

Also, as to your curtains: will you check the dimensions and let us know. You say in your letter two windows 6’ 6” high, 50” and 37” wide respectively, in other words four curtains each 48” wide. Mama thinks that you probably mean four curtains each 36” wide. It would be hard to get the wider material.

Also, would you write us as to the exact points between which the vertical dimensions are measured. What is the distance from, say, the top of the window frame (or some other exactly specified locus) to the floor, and also to the bottom of the window frame? Mama thinks that probably the curtains should reach all the way to the floor, but in any case they should extend from the top of the window frame to the bottom of the window frame (if you have window frames), or from a point a little below the opening at the bottom. She suggests that one of your old curtains might serve for one of the windows, and that she would then have to make only a pair for the larger window.

I sympathize with you about the bed. I remember sleeping on a bed which had a two by four across under my ear; it was not very comfortable.

-Linus Pauling, letter to Peter Pauling, October 22, 1952.

Linus first wrote to Peter in England on October 22, 1952. By this time, the elder Pauling was well aware of the importance of DNA, but had not yet devised a structure. Watson and Crick, on the other hand, had developed a structure for DNA a year earlier. Although their model turned out to be incorrect, the two men continued their work with nucleic acids. Clearly, for Watson and Crick, DNA was becoming extremely important. For Pauling this did not appear to be the case – although Watson and Crick were both mentioned in this first letter, DNA was not.

As it turns out, other subjects – including, but not limited to, curtains for Peter’s new apartment, recent travels and upcoming travel plans, finances, and, of course, cars – were much more prevalent than was DNA in the Paulings’ early correspondence.

As time went on, nucleic acids naturally became a slightly larger topic, though never did they assume center stage. Take, for example, this letter sent from Linus to Peter on February 4, 1953. By the time of its authoring, Linus Pauling had completely developed his structure, and had also sent off his manuscript for publication, a development which merited one paragraph worth of description. The rest of the letter is used to discuss, in great detail, Pauling’s plans to travel to England and also his keen interest in purchasing a new Riley from the U.K.-based International Motors. (Being something of a family obsession, cars were a very popular subject in many of the letters between Linus and Peter.)

In another letter from Pauling to Peter written on March 10, 1953, DNA plays a much larger role. This time, about half of the three-page document is dedicated to discussing various aspects DNA; the remainder focuses on travel plans and automobiles.

Peter Pauling, December 1954.

The other letters follow this same trend. Clearly, Linus and Peter’s lengthy discussions on subjects such as cars, traveling, curtains, and other aspects of science suggest that Pauling wasn’t interested in DNA on the level of certain other scientific pursuits.

Another interesting aspect of the correspondence between Linus and Peter Pauling is the opportunity that it provides for tracking the evolution of the consensus response to Pauling’s structure.

As might be expected, Peter’s reaction stayed upbeat throughout all of their letters. However, as time progressed, it is clear that Peter became less-confident that his father had solved DNA. For example, in a few of the earlier letters, Peter mentions that Watson and Crick earlier devised and discarded a structure similar to the Pauling-Corey triple helix, but that the opinion at the Cavendish Laboratory is that Pauling’s structure is a good one, albeit “pretty tight.”

From that point on though, Peter begins talking less about Pauling’s structure, and more about work being done by Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin. One might deduce that, although Peter didn’t specifically issue a disagreement with his father’s structure, he did develop a certain degree of skepticism as time progressed. Peter also does not often mention other opinions of his father’s structure, most likely because, upon further examination, it was not well-received by the English contingent.

Peter Pauling Discusses His Father’s Strengths and Personality

For more information on DNA, please visit the Race for DNA website. For more information on Linus Pauling, check out the Linus Pauling Online portal.

Erwin Chargaff, 1930.

“We have created a mechanism that makes it practically impossible for a real genius to appear. In my own field the biochemist Fritz Lipmann or the much-maligned Linus Pauling were very talented people. But generally, geniuses everywhere seem to have died out by 1914. Today, most are mediocrities blown up by the winds of the time.”

-Erwin Chargaff, 1985.

Erwin Chargaff, (1905-2002) a biochemist born in Austria, became interested in DNA earlier than most. In the 1930s, while he was working with the bacteria Rickettsi, he became aware of nucleic acids, and decided to educate himself about them.

In 1944, after Oswald Avery published his paper detailing the transforming principle of the Pneumococcus bacteria, Chargaff decided to devote his laboratory almost entirely to the chemistry of nucleic acids. Experimenting with these delicate substances was not an easy task, but eventually a chromatographic technique was developed that would allow for the separation and analysis of the base rings in DNA. This work would later lead to the development of Chargaff’s Rules, the topic of today’s post.

The guanine-cytosine base pair.

DNA has two main structural components – a backbone made up of sugar and phosphate groups, and a series of bases found in the middle of the molecule. There are four different bases found in DNA: Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), and Thymine (T). These four bases can be divided into two categories, pyrimidines and purines. The pyrimidine bases, Cytosine and Thymine, contain only one ring, while the purine bases, Guanine and Adenine, contain two rings. In the DNA structure, the bases pair complementarily, meaning that a purine base will bind with a pyrimidine base. More specifically, Adenine binds with Thymine and Cytosine binds with Guanine.

The adenine-thymine base pair.

Although this information is now considered fundamental biology, it wasn’t fully understood until after Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA in 1953. However, Chargaff’s research in the late 1940s had suggested that the four bases paired in the manner described above.

When Chargaff first decided to devote his laboratory to nucleic acids, he allowed a postdoctoral student named Ernst Vischer to choose his research program from a list of suggested topics. Vischer decided to analyze the purines and pyrimidines in nucleic acids, and went to work developing the chromatographic technique so crucial to isolating the bases. Although his technique was rather crude, it did the trick and Vischer achieved great success. The results of the base analysis showed that the amounts of Adenine and Thymine were about equal, and also that the amounts of Guanine and Cytosine were about equal. Eventually, Chargaff came to the conclusion that in a single molecule of DNA, Guanine/Cytosine = Adenine/Thymine = 1. This concept would later become known as Chargaff’s Rules.

Chargaff’s Rules were officially announced in a lecture delivered in June of 1949 and were first published in May of 1950. However, Linus Pauling had heard about the ratios much earlier – straight from Chargaff in late 1947, while traveling to England for his six-month stay as a professor at Oxford University. Pauling, who considered the trip by ship across the Atlantic Ocean with his family to be a vacation, did not pay attention to what Chargaff told him.

Crellin Pauling, the youngest child of Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, mentioned the remarkable background to the incident in a speech given during a symposium to celebrate Pauling’s life that was held here at Oregon State University in 1995.

[Click here to view the rest of Crellin's talk]

Over time Chargaff mentioned his work to individuals beyond Pauling. In the spring of 1952, Chargaff met James Watson and Francis Crick.  A prickly character, it is clear that Chargaff didn’t think much of the duo. In his truly remarkable autobiography Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life before Nature, Chargaff calls Watson and Crick “a variety act” and further describes them as:

One 35 years old (Crick), with the looks of a fading racing tout. . .an incessant falsetto, with occasional nuggets gleaming in the turbid stream of prattle. The other (Watson), quite undeveloped. . .a grin, more sly than sheepish. . .a gawky young figure.

He further notes that:

I never met two men who knew so little and aspired to so much. They told me they wanted to construct a helix, a polynucleotide to rival Pauling’s helix. They talked so much about ‘pitch’ that I remember I wrote it down afterwards, ‘Two pitchmen in search of a helix.’

[More samples from Chargaff's acid pen are available here]

Regardless of what he thought of them, Chargaff still mentioned his work to Watson and Crick. The information, although published almost two years earlier, seemed to be new to the pair.

Though Chargaff himself didn’t speculate much on his rules, and Pauling completely ignored them, they did prove to be extremely useful to Watson and Crick. With this new knowledge, the feedback they had received from Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, and data obtained through their own research, Watson and Crick were soon able to correctly deduce the structure of DNA.

For more information on DNA, please visit the Race for DNA website, or check out the other posts in the DNA series. For more information on Linus Pauling, visit the Linus Pauling Online portal.

Bonzo And His Clowns In Washington

by

R.E. Prindle

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23237.htm

     While Bonzo and his clowns are worried about foisting a ‘healthcare’ bill on the American people that nobody wants and the country can’t pay for, events that really require his notice are going without his attention.

     Paul Vallely of ICH (linked above) points out some really ominous events in Africa.  As James Watson said the news coming out of Africa isn’t good and this confirms his opinion.

     Asians are buying up the food producing land of Africa leaving the swamps and deserts to the Africans.  Check out this hot deal granted to the Koreans.  Forget South, South and North will be one Korea within a decade.  Change we can believe in is happening fast folks, let’s hope Bonzo the changemaster can see it.

     (The government of Madagascar (Malagasy Republic) signed a deal  with a giant Korean multinational, Daewoo, leasing 1.3 million hectares of farmland- an area almost half the size of Belgium and about half of all the arable land on the island- to the foreign company for 99 years.  Daewoo had announced plans to grow maize and palm oil there- and send the harvests back to South Korea…

     The firm had paid nothing for the lease…’We will provide jobs for them by farming it’ a Daewoo spokesman said.

     So the Madacascans are going to slave on Daewoo’s farm.  The country has been successfully invaded by Korea.  The Africans will be slowly starved to death so that the island will be annexed by Korea providing an outlet for its population.

     James Watson has his finger on the pulse of Africa.  More.

     That was the kind of big billing which the government in Kenya (Bonzo’s home away from home) gave to the deal recently with the state of Qatar.  The deal was that Qatar would get 40,000 hectares of land to grow food in return for building a 2.5 billion dollar deep-water port at Lamu in Kenya.

     Let me get this straight- the Africans drove off White farmers (Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa) that were producing bumper crops for home consumption and export because Africans were entitled to the land- the same land they are now giving gratis to Asians who will grow food only to export to their own countries and populations.  Plus they’re guilding ports to load the stuff as ‘gifts.’  Hey, tell me James Watson was a bigot.

     Are the Africans dumb?  You bet.  But don’t let’s be harsh in our criticism- oops, Bonzo is an African from Kenya.    While Bonzo and his Cl0wns in Washington are concentrating on Cash For Clunkers, a useless healthcare bill and teaching homosexuality to kindergartners the farmland of the US is up to any bidder.  This is globalism is action folks.  Think globally, act locally.  Ah ha!  Ever heard that one before?

          Veteran speculators such as George Soros, Jim Rogers and ‘Lord’ Jacob Rothschild are snapping lup farmland right now.

    And are they going to build a ‘free’ deep water port to ship American grown food to Israel or the highest bidder?  The good news, the really good news, is they don’t have to, the ports already exist, readymade.  What a good deal, hey?  Free. Free. Free.

     When the Chinese ask for a few million acres what is Bonzo going to say?  Or has he even thought up an answer?  You can bet his clowns Pelosi and Reid haven’t.  They’re too busy trying to get into kindergartners pants.  First things first.

In 1901, Ivan Pavlov began his historical research into Classical Conditioning. In short, the experiments involved a form of neutral unrelated stimulus together with a separate stimulus (such as food). Pavlov discovered that whilst a dog would innately salivate at the sight of food; after a while the dog would salivate at the sight of lab technician whom provided the food. In short, Pavlov discovered that the mind can be conditioned.

Similarly, James Watson proved the case for classical conditioning in humans, using his famed “Little Albert Experiment” in which a child was presented on a table with a rat. The child showed no sense of fear toward the animal. After a while, the lab assistant would make a loud sound the moment the rat was presented, which distressed the child to the point of tears. Within a short span of time, the child became distressed and began to cry simply at the sight of a rat.

I am coming to the rather unnerving conclusion that my mind is masterfully deceitful in so much as it airs a Pavlovian-type response without much effort whatsoever. For example, as a child my parents would drink a lot of alcohol. Not necessarily to the point where they were struggling to walk a straight line, but just enough to allow them to lose all sense of rationale. They would argue constantly. There would be mental abuse from both of them, there would be throwing of objects. The arguments were childish, the bickering was ridiculous, they would keep threatening to split up, and for a young child it has quite a worrying affect. And it was all because of the alcohol.

When I was 16, a group of kids who live close to me, and were my age were often very very drunk, they would fight, they would provoke innocent people, they would steal, they would just be absolutely disgusting. They threatened me a few times, and being the non-confrontational person that I am, I simply shrugged it off. But, on a weekend, I’d dread going out at night in case I bumped into them, I knew that they would beat the living shit out of me. Luckily, I avoided them, but they remain the only few people I’ve ever truly hated, and still hate. All because when they drink, they become scum.

When I was 14, walking my friend back to his house, through a graveyard, a group of around 15 guys stopped us. They were so incredibly drunk and stoned that they threatened me for absolutely no reason. “I’ll fucking cave your skull in” was one of the threats. One of the guys punched my friend right in the face and followed it up with one to the back of the head. As I stepped up to pull him out, one of the other guys (who was just intensely muscular) pulled me back and threatened to kill me. He then shouted to the other lads “We’ve got another here, watch me kick the shit out of him“. At this point, two older gentleman walked past and we were able to get away. My instant thought was “what have we done to deserve this?” Of course, the answer is that we’d done nothing to deserve it, we were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. For a 14 year old, it’s horribly scary. It consumes you. You feel unable to leave the house through absolute terror. These people suddenly have an intense control over your life, and you learn to deal with it, whilst all the time resenting the fact that you have to deal with it.

I distanced myself from a lot of “friends” by the time I was 17. I’m still trying to distance myself from certain people. I have become overly careful about who I trust, and who I associate with. Despite any front I may invariably put on, I’m disastrously insecure. And much of that insecurity can be traced back to bad experiences through alcohol. I do not want to end up like those kinds of people.

Since those days, I’ve developed a deep Pavlovian inspired hatred toward alcohol. I hate how people become after a few drinks. I hate how violent a night out can be, or how cruel people are to me when they’ve had a drink. I hate how abusive they become. I hate how then when they fuck up, the next day, they blame it on the alcohol. Why drink, if you can’t actually handle it? I hate how everyone around me, is more interested in talking about how much they drank on a Saturday night, than anything else in life. I find it boring, repetitive, and slightly pretentious. Why am I the boring one, when the extent of a conversation with a drunk after a Saturday night, is which gutter they threw up in? I couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried.

I am fully aware that the majority of people are perfectly able to enjoy a night out whilst knowing their limits with alcohol, and that’s fine. I certainly don’t have a problem with those people. And whilst I myself feel a sense of classical conditioning in so much as I’ve learnt to associate alcohol, with violence and a loss of humanity, I fear those who go out purely to get “hammered” have been conditioned to believe that a Saturday night must involve alcohol. I have also been horribly conditioned (I cannot change how I feel, I wish I could) to view all people out drunk on a friday night, as little clones of each other. No different.

I become horribly uncomfortable around drunk people. It is perhaps a fountain of paranoid misery raining down in my mind, that tells me that those around me who are drunk, are going to end up being abusive and threatening to me. I can’t actually handle it. It remains a predicament though, because on the one hand it is a little juvenile of me to blame a substance rather than the personality of the person abusing the substance, but on the other hand the substance is the catalyst for the immensely unpleasant change in personality that occurs. I suppose I’ll split the resentment between the personality, and the substance. Either way, I’m fully aware of how weak minded I am for allowing myself to fall victim to such simple conditioning.
Problem solved. Pavlov would be proud.

Israel Shamir, Enlightenment And Religion

by

R.E. Prindle

Shamir, Israel, Cabbala Of Power, Surge Books, 2008

     In this book Israel Shamir puts on his Good Jew hat and joins ‘us’ in deploring Jewish control of not only the US but, well, the world.  Although the result of Jewish control is bad for not only everyone they come into contact with but the earth itself  this is not because Jews themselves are bad, because they aren’t, Shamir tells us,  it’s just that they are fixated on a bad idea.  So was Hitler but that’s another story.  He was BAD.

     Old hat, actually, Shamir just regurgitates everything ‘anti-Semites’ have said in varying phrases over the last four thousand years as true.   What is of more interest is this quote, p. 97:

     Is there a way to decide objectively who is right, which model of the universe is true, Jewish or Christian, or is it a matter of taste, like a choice of coffee or tea?  And should we care about it at all?  Oh yes there is, and yes, we should.  If what the Jews say is true, and they are the True Israel, their presence should be a blessing for the people they dwell amongst…

     In point of fact all three of the Semitic religions were objectively proven to be nonsense with the rise of science during the eighteenth century European Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment (read: Illumination) received no contribution from the side of Jews, Moslems or Christians.  The Semitic world view whether Jewish, Moslem or Christian was proven to be founded on either an erroneous understanding of facts, or superstition.  However, rather than die and go away the Semitic religions have fought back in the attempt to bury Science.

     You will note that Shamir presents us with a choice between two religious viewpoints while ignoring the True Grail- Science.  Hence, regardless of claiming to be one of  ’us’ Shamir remains one of  ’them.’

     At this point the three Semitic religions have gone a long way toward burying objective Science.  It is no longer possible to put forward scientific realities if they conflict with religious prejudices or bigotry.  Thus we have the continuous and aggressive war against Evolution being conducted by all three Semitic religions.   Thus we have the results of genetic research shoveled under the carpet when they contradict religious superstitions.  While James Watson wasn’t crucified for expressing a scientific truth that ran counter to Semitic superstitions, he may as well have been.

     I find Shamir’s book hypocritical at best, while being deceitful in intent.  The worst part is that he just drivels on and on for nearly five hundred pages.  He calls this being ‘A Master of Discourse.’  A big five ***** raspberry for Israel Shamir.