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BERNAL, John Desmond (1901 – 1971)

1901 – 1971

4 entries in the GMN corpus.

1934 CE

#6923

X-Ray photographs of crystalline pepsin.

Bernal and Hodgkin took the first X-ray photograph of a protein structure—crystalline pepsin. They showed that crystals of pepsin give an X-ray diffaction pattern, beginning protein crystallography. This may als…

1936 CE

#12005

Liquid crystalline substances from virus infected plants.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Bawden, Pirie, Bernal, Fankuchen. The authors isolated and crystallized tobacco mosaic virus, finding for the first time that a virus contained nucleic acids, when othe…

1939 CE

#8120

The social function of science.

This pioneering sociological study contained two large folding information graphics. The first was one of the first attempts at a "map of science." It divided science into physical, biological, and social sectors, and…

1967 CE

#7466

The origin of life.

An outstanding illustrated synthesis of the topics as they stood in 1967, including Chapter 2: "Notions of the origins of life in the past," summarizing prior theories. Appendix 1 publishes the English translation of …