Critical Thinking Blog Post #7

This weeks blog I wanted to write it on a female scientist named Rosalind Franklin. With a short life span of thirty-seven years, Franklin was a distributer to the structure of DNA. She had a tough life growing up with the fact that she was a woman. At the time women where not taken seriously in the scientific field. She did not receive fair treatment but she was able to contribute an understanding of “essential roles in cells metabolism and genetics.” She was intelligent and the structure helped scientists understand how genetic information is passed from parents to children. During her life’s work she faced sexism and she was not recognized for her work. She did not always see eye to eye with her male scientist. Raymond Gossling took a picture of Franklin’s image of an x-ray diffraction of DNA. With out her knowledge it was distributed around to James D. Watson, Maurice Wilkins, and Francis Crick where Franklin was not recognized. She did help bridge both cultures between science and humanities because of photo 51 that concluded the discovery of the double helix.

In the reading “Defending Franklins Legacy” it gives additional background on her life with science and discussion of her ideas, life and death. Franklin was young and it has been said that she died of ovarian cancer from the radiation of her work. Depending how a person lives today, whether they are healthy and maintain a good balance on life there knowledge of disease that can be passed down from generation. There are technological advances in which the structure of DNA is used. DNA helps scientist determine how genes work. They also helps to determine health issues, mutations and some inheritance from parents. For example schizophrenia is believe to be hereditary and that it can skip a generation. Scientist are still trying to figure that out today. There is a possibility but only time will tell.