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Wendell Meredith Stanley
(16 Aug 1904 - 15 Jun 1971)
American biochemist.
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Science Quotes by Wendell Meredith Stanley (1 quote)
The fact that, with respect to size, the viruses overlapped with the organisms of the biologist at one extreme and with the molecules of the chemist at the other extreme only served to heighten the mystery regarding the nature of viruses. Then too, it became obvious that a sharp line dividing living from non-living things could not be drawn and this fact served to add fuel for discussion of the age-old question of “What is life?”
— Wendell Meredith Stanley
Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1946), 'The Isolation and Properties of Crystalline Tobacco Mosaic Virus', collected in Nobel Lectures in Chemistry (1999), 140.
See also:
- 16 Aug - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Stanley's birth.
- The Life of a Virus: Tobacco Mosaic Virus as an Experimental Model, by Angela N. H. Creager. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
