The Molecular Structure of DNA
James Watson & Francis Crick · 1953
"DNA's double-helix structure — two complementary strands wound around each other — immediately suggested how genetic information could be both stored and accurately copied, turning Mendel's abstract 'units of inheritance' into a physical, mechanistic explanation."
In a paper barely a page long, Watson and Crick described a molecule's shape — and in doing so, answered a question biology had circled for decades: what is a gene, physically, and how does it copy itself?
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Experiments on Plant Hybridization
"Traits are passed from parent to offspring as discrete, countable units — not as a smooth blend of parental characteristics — following statistical ratios predictable enough that Mendel derived the basic laws of inheritance from pea plants alone, decades before genes or DNA were known to exist."