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  • The Man in the Monkeynut Coat: William Astbury and How Wool Wove a Forgotten Road to the Double-Helix

    The Man in the Monkeynut Coat by Hall, Kersten T.;

    William Astbury and How Wool Wove a Forgotten Road to the Double-Helix

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 35.49
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        16 955 Ft (16 147 Ft + 5% VAT)
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    16 955 Ft

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP Oxford
    • Date of Publication 12 June 2014

    • ISBN 9780198704591
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages256 pages
    • Size 224x141x19 mm
    • Weight 460 g
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 24 b/w illustrations
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    Short description:

    Tells the story of the English physicist and molecular biologist William T. Astbury and how his work forms a previously untold chapter in the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA.

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    Long description:

    Sir Isaac Newton once declared that his momentous discoveries were only made thanks to having 'stood on the shoulders of giants'. The same might also be said of the scientists James Watson and Francis Crick. Their discovery of the structure of DNA was, without doubt, one of the biggest scientific landmarks in history and, thanks largely to the success of Watson's best-selling memoir 'The Double Helix', there might seem to be little new to say about this story.

    But much remains to be said about the particular 'giants' on whose shoulders Watson and Crick stood. Of these, the crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, whose famous X-ray diffraction photograph known as 'Photo 51' provided Watson and Crick with a vital clue, is now well recognised. Far less well known is the physicist William T. Astbury who, working at Leeds in the 1930s on the structure of wool for the local textile industry, pioneered the use of X-ray crystallography to study biological fibres. In so doing, he not only made the very first studies of the structure of DNA culminating in a photo almost identical to Franklin's 'Photo 51', but also founded the new science of 'molecular biology'.

    Yet whilst Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize, Astbury has largely been forgotten. The Man in the Monkeynut Coat tells the story of this neglected pioneer, showing not only how it was thanks to him that Watson and Crick were not left empty-handed, but also how his ideas transformed biology leaving a legacy which is still felt today.

    Hall draws on a much wider context, integrating events of broad societal interest during the time, which makes for an engaging read. ... will leave the reader richer for the experience of having read them.

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    Table of Contents:

    A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words
    Germany Has Much to Teach us
    A Keen Young Man
    Into the Wilderness
    The X-Ray Vatican
    A Pile of Pennies
    Avery's Bombshell
    Nunc Dimittis
    One Grand Leap ... Too Far
    The Road Not Taken
    The Man in the Monkeynut Coat

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