The Unbelievable Truth about the Discovery of DNA Structure by Octavio Orozco Ibarra

Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA for short, is what makes up human beings. It contains the genes that make up people’s height, eye color, fingerprint, and numerous physical traits of the human body. The fact that DNA is responsible for the traits of our bodies is widely known, but the intensive and surprising research that was conducted to discover its structure is not known by many people. The Double Helix, by James D. Wattson, is an autobiography that expresses the optimism for discovery of unknown scientific information. Wattson personally claims that many scientists contributed to the discovery of the structure of DNA, with explanations and detailed reviews of the experiments along with stories of the machinery he used, where he traveled, and what life was like in the mid 1900’s. I give this book four out of five stars because it is personally written from the scientist who is mostly credited with the discovery, basic knowledge of science should be enough to understand majority of the book, and the author uses humor and the personal stories give the book some drama to keep the reader hooked to the book. I would recommend this book to students who are in Biology 1-2 and AP Biology because it makes the class a little more interesting and become more thankful because they do not have to go through the tiring process of discovering the double helix.