How bizarre that I should be teaching myself how to fold origami DNA helices for use as somewhat unconventional Christmas tree decorations when I heard the news this weekend about scientist James Watson

Usually if I write to newspapers, it’s to bang on about long dead scientists who no-one has heard of…but while a bit outside my home turf of history of science, review of new film Tron Ares in recent weekend Financial Times prompted me to write in response to make what (I hope!) is a serious point…

Wonderful talk by author @lamornaash.bsky.social on Sat @ilkleylitfest.bsky.social about her new book - courageous, honest & uplifting. Thanks not just for signing copy for my son but also for unpacking what ‘The Grand Inquisitor’ is all about - after reading your book I finally get it! (at last!)

And everyone legged it on arrival of a deer. Best nights TV viewing I’ve seen in years!

Mind you - fox made itself scarce when the badgers pals showed up…

Have spent the week in remote #Northumberland where #foxandbadger captured on cottage wildlife camera show that nature need not always be so brutally ‘red in tooth and claw’. Surely a pub name in there somewhere, if not an example of harmonious co-existence from which we would do well to learn...

And having written a book that contains both science - thanks to Astbury & Bell’s work on DNA - and cricket thanks to the legendary 1981 Headingley Ashes, I was delighted to have been there myself yesterday - right over the road from Astbury’s former home on Kirkstall Lane! #ENGvsIND

And a MASSIVE thanks also to Butlers & Boundary Hotel on Cardigan Road, Headingley Leeds who helped save the day (along with England’s batting!) by kindly providing secure laptop storage for those of us who'd come along hoping to sneak some work in during lunch & tea! www.boundaryhotel.co.uk

Had they still been around, am sure that, as keen cricket fans, Leeds based scientists #WilliamAstbury & #FlorenceBell would have taken a break from work on #DNA structure & wool to be at #Headingley yesterday for victory in #ENGvsIND Test Match...

Apple crumble or pie? 50 years of Jaws. Am loving Test Match Special commentary! Here’s hoping history can be made in Headingley once again! (Although thanks to cricket-loving 1930s DNA scientists William Astbury & Florence Bell commemorated right opposite Len Hutton gates…it already has…)

Enjoyed this luxury 5-star accommodation last night in order to be up in time for live stream of summer Solstice sunrise over Stonehenge. Well worth it! A big thanks to #englishheritage for this!

And finally let's not forget father & son science team, William & Lawrence Bragg who lived on Grosvenor Rd, Headingley & jointly won 1915 Nobel in Physics. So good luck England in #cricket, but even if things don’t work out - plenty still for #Headingley to be proud of! #EnglandvsIndia #testmatch

Don’t know whether scientists Archer Martin & Richard Synge were #cricket fans meanwhile, but their 1952 Nobel Prize awarded for work done in lab only 5 mins walk from #testmatch ground another reason for #Headingley to be on the map today! One for the crowds at #EnglandvsIndia to look out for!

And as she was reputed to be a bit handy with a #cricket bat (as well as X-ray crystallography), I reckon that physicist #FlorenceBell who made first X-ray studies of DNA structure in Astbury’s lab in 1938 might well have joined him at #EnglandvsIndia #testmatch in #Headingley today

If he were still around today, am sure that keen #cricket fan & physicist William Astbury would have taken a break from trailblazing science to stroll through Len Hutton gates opposite his home on Kirkstall Lane #Headingley and watch #England vs #India #Testmatch

After telling story last week to #ClothworkersCompany of acrimony that erupted over who should get credit for insulin discovery, big thanks to Emilie Lucchesi who interviewed me about this very same subject for her great article in ‘Discover’ magazine www.discovermagazine.com/health/insul...

Great article by @bmclain.bsky.social has given me new found respect for trusty workhorse of every molecular biology lab, the centrifuge. Endless DNA preps might have seemed a little less tedious had I known all this stuff back when I was grafting at lab bench…https://www.asimov.press/p/centrifuge

Bank holiday stroll led me to this historic curiosity in woods near #Garforth east of Leeds - triumphal arch put up by Gascoigne family in 1783 to celebrate victory of American colonists over George III!!! As historian, why they would have done this leaves me most intrigued…

Am sure that similar scenes of jubilation erupted on streets of #Leeds back in 1915 to celebrate Nobel Prize in Physics for X-ray crystallography, & again in 1952 for Nobel in Chemistry - both of which unravelled our understanding of #insulin & #DNA! Well done #LUFC!!!

So how did 2 scientists doing wool research in 1940s, in a former stable filled with chloroform fumes help transform insulin from 'thick brown muck' into Wall St gold...??? Delighted to explain all to the #ClothworkersCompany next Wed (30th)... www.clothworkers.co.uk/history/hist...

From taking X-ray pics of haemoglobin for Nobel laureate Max Perutz, to pioneering computing in biological structures - all with a little help from a Meccano set on the way - a real honour to interview Prof. Tony North for @LeedsPhilandLit earlier this year www.kerstenhall.com/2025/04/04/r...

Congrats to my colleague @JonTophamHPS for great interview in latest issue of ‘Viewpoint’ @BSHS v much looking forward to his inaugural lecture ‘Science & Religion from the Ground Up’ in which he reveals how this isn't quite the historical punch-up often believed… www.eventbrite.com/e/science-an...

Looking 4ward to speaking at #IntelligenceForums Weightmans Law Firm, Leeds Mar 6 on ‘An Unusual Young Man - & a Life-Saving Failure’ - or, how scientist Craig Jordan's story is not just a tale of drug development, but one with lessons for us all…https://www.intelligence-forums.com/upcoming-forums

Big thanks to Harrogate Medical Society not only for their hospitality when I gave a talk to them last night on story of insulin, but also to Prof. A. Stuart for kind surprise gift of this 1962 book ‘Story of Insulin’ - signed by none other than Charles Best himself!

So what has wool ever done for us? (Apart from weave path to unravelling structure of DNA & helping forge molecular biology) Looking forward to Monica Stenzel @hpsleeds explain all this eve in 'Fuzzy Logic: History of Wool Science in Leeds' @thoresbysoc www.ticketsource.co.uk/thoresby-soc...

Inspired by writing about #Sisyphus from Greek mythology for new book on discovery of DNA that I’ve been working on, here’s AI generated tribute to all volunteers in Leeds who take on the truly Sisyphean task of filling #LitterFreeLeeds purple bags with litter they’ve collected #LitterbagSisyphus

A very big thank you to 2022 #GBBO winner Dr. Syabira Yusoff & LoveProductions for kindly allowing use of her double-helical cake as example of #DNA as icon in popular culture. Very much the icing on the cake (oh dear!) for our new book about discovery of DNA geneticsunzipped.com/transcripts/...

Hear those champagne corks popping! On this day in 1922, teenager Leonard Thompson underwent first successful treatment for #diabetes with #insulin - plaque unveiled in Aberdeen, last Sept is 1st in world to commemorate all four scientists involved in this achievement @diabetesuk.bsky.social

For moment, thought I was on bridge of Starship Enterprise yesterday…but was actually launch of Leeds Electron Microscopy & Spectroscopy Centre @braggroyceleeds.bsky.social. We’ve come long way since WT Astbury first installed em in toilets of Textiles Dept @universityofleeds.bsky.social in 1943!

…and if you’re wondering why Sisyphus has been transformed into a crash-test dummy…well, all is explained in the intro to our book…(in my first sketches, he looked too much like Iron Man!)

… I took up my pencil and paper and have been busy not just writing the book, but also drawing these figures for the close of each chapter…

Discoverer of DNA, Friedrich Miescher who is subject of new book by myself & Ralf Dahm, tragically compared himself to Sisyphus in Greek mythology. Was hoping to get Sisyphus rolling his boulder up DNA double-helix on front cover of our book, but as that hasn’t proved possible…

@LeedsPhilandLit next week - Prof. Tony North shares reflections of his life in early days of structural biology - from using X-ray crystallography to pioneering application of computing to protein structure - & meeting a few Nobel winners on the way! www.leedsphilandlit.org.uk/shop/rubbing...

Should have added to previous post - Sisyphus was condemned by gods of Olympus to spend eternity rolling a boulder up a mountain slope, only for it to roll back down again. A feeling no doubt painfully familiar to all PhD students & post-doc researchers who’ve ever toiled at a lab bench…

Using ChatGPT came up with this idea for cover of new book about tragic discoverer of DNA, Friedrich Miescher that I’ve been writing with Ralf Dahm which we’re hoping to have published this year. Unfortunately it turns out we can’t use this image on the cover (shame!) but wanted to share it anyway.

Such a shame however that Astbury never did anything with Beighton's photo…as for why, well ...apparently someone has written a book all about this very question… podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

So, no Florence Bell, no ‘Photo 51’? Well, not quite. A year before Franklin & Gosling took ‘Photo 51’, Elwyn Beighton in Astbury's lab at Leeds took new X-ray image of B-form DNA that was almost identical to ‘Photo 51’ with the same striking cross pattern characteristic of a helical molecule!

...ears pricked up during 'Life Story' when Goldblum’s Watson dismisses DNA work by Leeds scientists W Astbury & Florence Bell as ‘lousy data.’ Little unfair - with her 1938 X-ray pics, Bell had after all shown this method could be used to reveal DNA structure! theconversation.com/florence-bel...

Watson & Crick often erroneously credited with discovery of DNA - but spare thought for poor 19th C Swiss scientist Friedrich Miescher who actually first isolated the stuff back in 1869 having washed pus from discarded surgical bandages...just finishing new book about his (rather sad!) story...

...In 2009 biog by R. Olby Crick said he had no recollection of having said this! And Watson has since admitted that the tale of bursting into ‘The Eagle’ is heavily laden with poetic license…(scroll down to para ‘Watson’s own description of the discovery…) whyevolutionistrue.com/2016/06/08/h...

...…But as former biochemist-turned-historian-of-science I must advise taking scene in which Watson & Crick make dramatic slo-mo sprint through Cambridge to burst into ‘Eagle’ pub & announce to all & sundry that ‘We’ve discovered the secret of life’ not with a pinch, but a truck-load of salt...

Long before warning about cloning dinosaurs, Jeff Goldblum had early on screen brush with #DNA as scientist James Watson in 1987 BBC drama 'Life Story'. Great to see that, 37 years later, it was shown again this week…https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0025xxc/horizon-life-story-a-horizon-special