So why didn't Meselson and Stahl finally explain this mechanism until 1958? Semiconservative replication was not the only model of DNA replication proposed during the mid-1950s, however.

Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl's 1957 demonstration of DNA replication is considered "the most beautiful experiment in biology." Their density-shift demonstrations not only have stood the test of ...

Meselson, now Thomas Dudley Cabot professor of the natural sciences at Harvard University, persisted in investigating the largest-known epidemic of deadly human inhalational anthrax. "We had no idea ...

FURTHER RESEARCH: If you continued this experiment for two more generations (as Meselson and Stahl actually did), what would be the composition (in terms of low- and intermediate-density ...