James Watson Suggested Rosalind Franklin Missed the DNA Double Helix. Her Notes Say Otherwise

Biologist James D. Watson is famous for co-discovering DNA’s double helix structure. However, Watson appears to have greatly underplayed Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to the Nobel-winning discovery, which hasn’t gone unnoticed by historians and scientists. But a new study offers an unusual bit of evidence—hidden between the lines of Franklin’s lab notes.

Published in the Journal of the History of Biology, the essay argues that Rosalind Franklin did not miss her image’s significance as evidence of DNA’s helical structure, as Watson’s…