WebProNews

Tag: rosalind franklin

  • Nicole Kidman Receives Rave Reviews For Her Performance in ‘Photograph 51’ in London’s West End

    Nicole Kidman has received rave reviews by critics for her portrayal of British scientist Rosalind Franklin in the London’s West End production of Photograph 51.

    Hailed as “luminous” and “compelling,” the Oscar-winning star plays the only woman involved in the discovery of DNA’s double helix in 1953, as reported by the BBC.

    The play, written by Anna Ziegler and directed by Michael Grandame, opened on Monday at the Noel Coward Theatre to several four-star reviews.

    According to The Guardian, Kidman gives “a commanding, intelligent performance” in her return to the West End stage, after a 17-year absence.

    “My only complaint about Anna Ziegler’s intriguing, informative 95-minute play is that it is not longer,” wrote Michael Billington.

    Praising Kidman’s portrayal of the ecstasy of scientific discovery, Billington said her features “acquire a luminous intensity” as she stares at the now-famous photograph that reveals the DNA’s helix pattern.

    “It is a fine performance in which Kidman reminds us that the scientific life can be informed by private passion,” the review continued.

    Other reviews followed suit.

    Kidman has said the play is a way of acknowledging the work of her late biochemist father.

    “Kidman beautifully captures the prickly defensiveness, the lonely dedication and the suppressed emotional longings of the scientist,” wrote Paul Taylor, theater critic for The Independent.

    While Kidman was praised, the Daily Express critic said the production was “let down by Michael Grandage’s spectacularly unimaginative direction.”

    “If ever a production was crying out for some technical flair in the design, this is it,” he continued.

    Nicole Kidman will continue her run in Photograph 51 until Nov. 21.

  • Rosalind Franklin, DNA Pioneer, Gets a Google Doodle

    Today, Google is using their homepage real estate to honor British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin with a Doodle. Franklin’s studies on DNA, RNA, and viruses helped later scientists (most notably Watson and Crick) better understand the structure of these basic molecular structures.

    Franklin was born into a wealthy family in Notting Hill, London in 1920. She excelled in science from and early age, and when she was 18 began to study chemistry at Newnham College, Cambridge. Franklin worked in a series of labs and also as a research officer at the British Coal Utilization Research Association. In 1951, Franklin began work at King’s College in London at the MRC’s Biophysics unit.

    Franklin’s DNA modeling was used by Watson and Crick when they built their DNA model in 1953, but her contributions often go overlooked. In fact, the first real mention of Franklin’s impact on those DNA studies didn’t come until 25 years after the fact.

    For this, she was never even nominated for the Nobel Prize.

    Franklin died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, among other complications. It’s thought that her early development of such cancer (in her 30s) can be explained by her exposure to X-ray radiation, but it’s known that her family had a history of cancer as well.

    Today’s Google Doodle celebrates what would be her 93rd birthday.

    The Doodle shows Franklin looking at a double helix structure, as well as an X-ray diffraction image on DNA taken under her direction known as Photo 51.