Re: Nominate the most beautiful biology experiment ever

Before reading all of your post my immediate reaction was to think of the
Meselson and Stahl experiment.
(I was unaware that Frederic Lawrence Holmes had already characterized this
experiment in that way.)

I'm an older dude and get the impression that too many of our young people,
though they know "everything" about genetics, haven't learned of this
experiment.  Sad.  I don't think you will find a close runner up-- but then,
beauty is in the eye of the beholder.





"Tim Beardsley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Biology's Most Beautiful
>
> BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of
> Biological Sciences, presents readers with an unusual challenge: to
> nominate candidates for a short list of the most beautiful biology
> experiments. Essays on those that we judge most plausible will be
> published in future issues of BioScience.
>
> The notion of selecting experiments by such a subjective criterion as
> beauty may seem surprising, but it is not original. The late science
> historian Frederic Lawrence Holmes used the characterization for the
> subtitle of his 2001 book, "Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of
> DNA: A History of 'The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology.'" And a
> year ago, Robert P. Crease asked readers of Physics World for
> nominations of the most beautiful experiment in physics.
>
> BioScience hopes this criterion will allow latitude for some
> less-well-known experiments to be honored and described, as well as
> for some famous ones to be considered anew.
>
> We will not announce vote counts or rank the nominated experiments in
> any way; there will be no "winner." We encourage readers to suggest
> beauteous experiments from all fields of biology, as we intend to cast
> a wide net. Experiments from any period in history may be nominated.
>
> We will be guided in our consideration of which nominees are worthy
> contenders by four distinguished experts: Richard M. Burian, Professor
> of Philosophy and Science and Technology Studies at Virginia
> Polytechnic Institute and State University (and a member of the
> BioScience editorial board); Jane Maienschein, Regents' Professor of
> Biology and Society at Arizona State University; Scott F. Gilbert,
> Professor of Biology at Swarthmore College; and John Beatty, Professor
> of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia.
>
> Readers should submit their nominations to [EMAIL PROTECTED] by the
> end of 2003. Nominations must include proper citations to the
> experiment and a brief account (up to 500 words) of why it should be
> considered one of the most beautiful experiments in biology.
>
> Tim Beardsley
> Editor-in-Chief
> BioScience
> http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/current_issue.html