How I Discovered the DNA Double Helix While Tripping on Shrooms
In the years that I have been a member of the Tufts community, I have been truly astonished and impressed by a student body that is passionately involved in academics. Whether it’s mixing new alternatives to fossil fuels, flinging up zip lines and flash mobs, or crunching numbers in the computer lab, Tufts students are passionately engaged in their academic world. But sometimes, being an active Tufts citizen can get in the way of acknowledging my personal accomplishments. So, I thought I’d share my proudest moment of my career as a geneticist: discovering the double helix.
Before my Fateful “Shrooms” Trip, nobody knew what DNA looked like. Generations of scientists had tried for years to crack the code, and many of them went mad in the process. It was the 70s, times were changing, and a lot of new ideas were floating around the scientific community back then. Some people thought that DNA covered the cell like a Milk-Dud covers stale caramel or an M&M covers chocolate. Otherwise, it was hypothesized that DNA was actually microscopic creatures, and that perhaps there were other small creatures elsewhere in the body. People were questioning their beliefs and experimenting–in the laboratory.
So one day, a few friends of mine and I bought about an ounce of Peruvian Godseeds and drove up to Big Sur
in our van, Icarus. Just like you Jumbos on an average weekend, we were already a little bit cryodomed and were looking to fully disassociate; we headed up into our mountain cabin, munched down the blitzcandies, and started to drop out.
At first, I felt of the way many Tufts students feel during their first days on campus…I was sweating profusely, my pupils were dilated, and I was having trouble distin-guishing reality from hallucination. After watching the purple sunset bathe the mountains while contemplating
Yes’s seminal 1972 album Close to the Edge, I began to grapple with the problem that had defeated Leibniz, Fermi, and even Einstein before him: the structure of the DNA molecule. I felt my body disintegrate, and I began to expand my conscious awareness beyond my own corporeal boundaries and into the surrounding wilderness. Suddenly, I realized that human life is a constant struggle between the primal animal that seeks to conserve itself, and the higher conscious mind that desires the nullification of physical constraints. The double helix followed very naturally from this battle, and appeared in the sky above the Santa Lucia mountains.
I published my work and revolutionized the field of genetics, like many of you Jumbos will after graduation,
Stay active, stay involved with global issues. But don’t forget to seek out meaningful experiences in your own life, and to always pursue those things that interest you. Like Shrooms. You never know, you might make a career out of it. I sure did.