Q 01/05

With Watson and which other scientist did Crick share the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine?

A) Maurice Wilkins

B) John Kendrew

C) Linus Pauling

D) Max Perutz

Answer · why

A) Maurice Wilkins

Maurice Wilkins, who took the first sharp X-ray pictures of DNA, shared it; the same year Max Perutz and John Kendrew of Crick's own Cambridge unit wo...

Q 02/05

What two-word term did Crick coin for the idea that information in a polypeptide cannot flow back to nucleic acid?

A) Genetic code

B) Molecular clock

C) Central dogma

D) Selfish gene

Answer · why

C) Central dogma

Central dogma was a name Crick came to regret: he meant a grand idea with little evidence behind it, until Jacques Monod pointed out that a dogma is a...

Q 03/05

Crick's father and uncle ran a family factory in Northampton making what?

A) Bottled beer

B) Boots and shoes

C) Red bricks

D) Woollen cloth

Answer · why

B) Boots and shoes

Boots and shoes made Northampton the capital of British shoemaking; Crick's grandfather founded the firm, and a share in it kept the family comfortabl...

Q 04/05

Which naturalist's last published paper described a water beetle sent to him by Crick's grandfather?

A) Charles Darwin

B) Alfred Russel Wallace

C) Thomas Huxley

D) Joseph Hooker

Answer · why

A) Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin seized on the beetle, which had a tiny cockle clamped to its leg, as proof that molluscs hitch lifts between ponds; his letter ran in N...

Q 05/05

In Who's Who, Crick listed his recreation as what, 'especially with pretty women'?

A) Conversation

B) Dancing

C) Dining out

D) Sightseeing

Answer · why

A) Conversation

Conversation was how Crick did his science as well as how he relaxed: he worked out ideas in long talks with collaborators, and Watson wrote that the ...