Discovery
Nobel prize up for auction: The Nobel prize awarded to Francis Crick in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA has been put up for auction by his family along with one of his lab coats, his books and other memorabilia in New York.
It is believed to be the first Nobel prize placed at auction in more than 70 years and the opening bid is set for $250,000, Heritage Auctions said Monday.
Some of the proceeds from the April 10 auction in New York will help fund research at the new Francis Crick Institute in London set to be completed in 2015.
His family said Crick was a modest man who preferred to outfit his office with a big chalkboard and a portrait of Charles Darwin than to display his many awards.
The Nobel has been in storage for much of the past 50 years and his family hopes to sell it to a museum or institute where it can be on public display.
“Our hope is that, by having it available for display, it can be an inspiration to the next generation of scientists,” said granddaughter Kindra Crick.
Born in England in 1918, Crick’s graduate work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. He returned to research in 1949 with a position at Cambridge University.
A critical influence in his career was his friendship with the American zoologist and geneticist James Watson.
Together, they proposed the double-helical structure for DNA and the replication scheme in 1953. Crick and Watson subsequently suggested a general theory for the structure of small viruses.
Crick’s children have fond memories of the ceremony in Stockholm where the King of Sweden gave him the award, along with Watson and Maurice Wilkins, who also contributed to the discovery.
“It was a great honor to be there,” said son Michael Crick, who is also a scientist.
“My Dad dressed for the occasion, gave a speech and danced with my sister Gabrielle.”
His father then went right back to work. (AFP) Rover analyzing powder: The Mars rover Curiosity has successfully transferred a pinch of rock dust to its onboard laboratories for inspection, two weeks after drilling into its first rock.
NASA said Monday in Pasadena, California it received confirmation of the deliveries over the weekend. Scientists will spend the next several weeks studying the rock’s chemical and mineral makeup.
Curiosity landed in Gale Crater near the equator last summer on a mission to deter- mine whether the environment was favorable for microbes. It drilled into a flat rock earlier this month and collected a tablespoon-size sample from the interior — the first time this was achieved on Mars.
The car-size rover still has to drive to Mount Sharp rising from the center of the crater floor. The trip is expected to take at least nine months with stops. (AP) ‘Japan will never stop whaling’: Japan’s fisheries minister said Tuesday his country will never stop hunting whales, despite fierce criticism from other nations and violent clashes at sea with militant conservationists.
“I don’t think there will be any kind of an end for whaling by Japan,” Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told AFP in an exclusive interview in Tokyo.
Hayashi, who took the ministerial post overseeing the country’s whaling programmes in December, said the criticism of the practice is “a cultural attack, a kind of prejudice against Japanese culture”.
There is “a long historical tradition about whaling”, he told AFP in his large central Tokyo office, over which portraits of Japan’s revered Emperor and Empress gazed down.
“Japan is an island nation surrounded by the sea, so taking some good protein from the ocean is very important. For food security I think it’s very important.
“We have never said everybody should eat whale, but we have a long tradition and culture of whaling. (AFP)