Just before Dr Franklin was to leave King's College, Dr Wilkins wrote to the Cambridge scientists that "the smoke of witchcraft will soon be getting out of our eyes". Explaining the situation to BBC News, Nature's commissioning editor Sara Abdullah said it added to "the canon of awful things said about [Dr Franklin]". "I think 'sexist' is what we are groping around for. "Obviously, this is a different time, it's 1953. There was personal tension; she was very unusual in being a leading woman in science at that time. - 'Lost' letters show strain between DNA pioneers, Katia Moskvitch (Science reporter, BBC News, 29 September 2010) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11438569
In early 1953, Maurice Wilkins showed James Watson the famous "Photograph 51". It was the crucial X-ray image of DNA made by Dr Franklin in the previous months, and it helped the two Cambridge biologists to develop the historic - and correct - double-helix model. - 'Lost' letters show strain between DNA pioneers, Katia Moskvitch (Science reporter, BBC News, 29 September 2010) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11438569
