Watson and Crick's discovery didn't come out of the blue. As early as 1943 Oswald Avery proved what had been suspected: that DNA, a nucleic acid, carries genetic information. But no one knew how ...

The substance discovered was named “nuclein,” which would later be called nucleic acid and eventually, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The discovery was made in 1869 by then twenty-four year-old Swiss ...