iansmith said:I think the Avery, MacLeod, McCarthy (1944) is most elegant. Simple and anybody should read the paper.
Hershey and Chase (1950) would be my second choice.
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty show that DNA is the transforming material in cells. They use the observations of Griffith and show the transformation of Streptococcus pneumoniae from an avirulent phenotype to a virulent phenotype is the result of the transfer of DNA from dead smooth organisms to live rough ones. They also show that the transforming principle is destroyed by pancreatic deoxyribonuclease, which hydrolyzes DNA, but is not affected by pancreatic ribonuclease or proteolytic enzymes. Macleod was Avery’s research assistant until 1941. By the time he left, he and Avery suspected that the vital substance in bacterial transformation was DNA. McCarty confirmed their hypothesis.
Oswald T. Avery Collection
Avery, O. T., C. M. Macleod, and M. McCarty. 1944. Studies on the chemical nature of the substance inducing transformation of pneumonococcal types. Induction of transformation by a deoxyribo-nucleic acid fraction isolated from pnuemococcus type III. J. Exp. Med. 79: 137-157. In Microbiology: A Centenary Perspective, edited by Wolfgang K. Joklik, ASM Press. 1999, p.116
Obviously, the initial image of the genome replication would be very different.iansmith said:Hershey and Chase were lucky in a way. Imagine that they were working with an RNA viruse rather than a DNA viruse?
ryokan said:Obviously, the initial image of the genome replication would be very different.
Does luck tarnish elegance in an experiment?
"The most beautiful experiments" is a book written by George Johnson that delves into the history of science and highlights some of the most groundbreaking and aesthetically pleasing experiments in various scientific fields.
George Johnson is a science writer and journalist who has written for publications such as The New York Times and Scientific American. He has a degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
In this book, Johnson defines a beautiful experiment as one that not only produces significant results, but also has an elegant design and a clear and simple explanation. It is an experiment that captures the imagination and inspires awe.
Some of the experiments featured in the book include Galileo's inclined plane experiment, Newton's prism experiment, Lavoisier's combustion experiment, and Einstein's gravitational lensing experiment.
This book serves as a reminder that science is not just about facts and formulas, but also about creativity and wonder. It showcases the human side of science and how these beautiful experiments have shaped our understanding of the natural world.