Quotes from Walter Isaacson

It turns out that tracrRNA performs two important tasks. First, it facilitates the making of the crRNA, the sequence that carries the memory of a virus that previously attacked the bacteria. Then it serves as a handle to latch on to the invading virus so that the crRNA can target the right spot for the Cas9 enzyme to chop.

the skills possessed by a designated leader or the holder of an office may make him well-qualified to perform important group functions under certain conditions and poorly qualified under others…. The specific requirements of the group's tasks demand that members possess certain skills in order to serve the appropriate functions. If the task changes, different behaviors are required, and the same person may or may not be able to perform in the new way.

This distinction has been described as differentiating task-oriented and process-oriented leadership attributes. The identification of these discrete components of leadership has been empirically documented in laboratory studies of group behavior by psychologists Robert F. Bales and Philip E. Slater.

Being a Jew was a disadvantage; being a nonbeliever who claimed no religion was a disqualifier. The empire required that all of its servants, including professors, be a member of some religion. On his official forms, Einstein had written that he had none. "Einstein is as unpractical as a child in cases like this," Friedrich Adler's wife noted.

It is a glorious feeling to discover the unity of a set of phenomena that seem at first to be completely separate

I hope that some day scientists can be considered heroes again, instead of Paris Hilton.

Another way to describe the Second Law is in terms of entropy, the degree of disorder and randomness in a system. Any spontaneous process tends to increase the entropy of a system.

Long live impudence! It is my guardian angel in this world." That

RNA (ribonucleic acid) is a molecule in living cells that is similar to DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), but it has one more oxygen atom in its sugar-phosphate backbone and a difference in one of its four bases.

James was the first great fighter for an independent press in America, and he was the most important journalistic influence on his younger brother. He

DNA doesn't do much work. It mainly stays at home in the nucleus of our cells, not venturing forth. Its primary activity is protecting the information it encodes and occasionally replicating itself.

Build something of value and deliver a service compelling enough that people would just use it.

As the evening droned on, Einstein turned to a Dutch diplomat seated next to him and said, "I've just developed a new theory of eternity.

De hecho, fue precisamente por descubrir la ley del efecto fotoeléctrico por lo que se concedería a Einstein su único premio Nobel.

RNA, on the other hand, actually goes out and does real work. Instead of just sitting at home curating information, it makes real products, such as proteins.

Each period is dominated by a mood, with the result that most men fail to see the tyrant who rules over them.

When Lafayette was first planning his mission, Franklin told him that "much will depend on a prudent and brave sea commander who knows the coasts." They settled instead for a commander who was, as Franklin was already well aware, more brave than prudent: John Paul Jones.

Indeed, phage viruses are by far the most plentiful biological entity on earth. There are 1031 of them—a trillion phages for every grain of sand, and more than all organisms (including bacteria) combined. In one milliliter (0.03 ounces) of seawater there can be as many as 900 million of these viruses.7

I speak to you today not as an American citizen and not as a Jew, but as a human being

As a Jew who had grown up in Germany, Einstein was acutely sensitive to such discrimination. "The more I feel an American, the more this situation pains me," he wrote in an essay called "The Negro Question" for Pageant magazine. "I can escape the feeling of complicity in it only by speaking out.

A small segment of DNA that encodes a gene is transcribed into a snippet of RNA, which then travels to the manufacturing region of the cell. There this "messenger RNA" facilitates the assembly of the proper sequence of amino acids to make a specified protein.

But they both believed that a divine design was reflected in the elegant laws that governed the way the universe worked.

The crimes of the Germans are really the most abominable ever to be recorded in the history of the so-called civilized nations," he wrote the physicist Otto Hahn. "The conduct of the German intellectuals—viewed as a class—was no better than that of the mob.

But she became more interested in DNA's less-celebrated sibling, RNA. It's the molecule that actually does the work in a cell by copying some of the instructions coded by the DNA and using them to build proteins.