“April 25, 1953”

On this date, Nature published the paper you are reading.

According to science historian Victor McElheny of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the publication of this paper helped change how scientists approached biology. Increasingly in the 1950s, biologists were working out the fundamental mechanisms of life—an undertaking that involved figuring out how genetic information is stored and transmitted. The discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA gave momentum to this kind of work.

Historians wonder how the timing of the DNA race affected its outcome. After years of being diverted by the war effort, scientists were able to focus more on problems such as those affecting human health. Yet, in the United States, many research fields were threatened by a curb on the free exchange of ideas. During the McCarthy era in the early 1950s, the U.S. State Department denied American researcher Linus Pauling a passport to travel internationally. Some think Pauling might have beaten Watson and Crick to the punch if Pauling’s ability to travel had not been hampered.

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