This is no ordinary paper.

Published 50 years ago in the journal Nature, James Watson and Francis Crick’s description of the double helix transformed our understanding of life.The paper is concise—only 128 lines—but behind each line is a story. We’ve filled in the space between the lines to shed light on the personalities and politics, the competition and collaboration that fueled this discovery and fuels the process of science itself.

Follow the links to our annotations.

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