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Surprising Science

Barbara McClintock, Muse and Scientific Genius

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Barbara McClintock not only inspired a reclusive character in Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, she also advanced the study of genetics. McClintock was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1983. She is the only woman to receive an unshared prize in this category, and won it for her discovery of mobile genetic elements, as SciShow explains in this short video biography of McClintock’s remarkable life.


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