NOVA - Official Website Cracking the Code of Life. Cracking the Code of Life. PBS Airdate: April 1. ROBERT KRULWICH: When I look at this—and these are the. But when scientist Eric Lander looks at this he sees stories. ERIC LANDER (Whitehead Institute/MIT): The genome is a storybook.

Watch the latest Featured Videos on CBSNews.com. View more videos on CBS News, featuring the latest in-depth coverage from our news team. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-star Bill Pullman admitted that he didn’t watch Star Wars before co-starring in Spaceballs, meaning he didn’t. Watch Shrek Forever After - Animation on DIRECTV. It's available to watch on TV, online, tablets, phone. Forgotten Genius. Against all odds, African-American chemist Percy Julian became one of the great scientists of the 20th century. Airing February 6, 2007 at 9 pm.

And you could take it to bed. A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and read a different story in. ROBERT KRULWICH: This is the story of one of the greatest.

Dr. George Church is a real-life Dr. Frankenstein. The inventor of CRISPR and one of the minds behind the Human Genome Project is no longer content just reading and. A lawyer defends a man he's known since serving together in Vietnam, who has been accused of murdering three Vietnamese immigrants. Now he'll have to fight against a. NASA astronaut and biochemist Peggy Whitson will return to Earth as the planet’s new record holder for longest time cumulatively spent on space by an American or a. Cracking the Code of Life. PBS Airdate: April 17, 2001. ROBERT KRULWICH: When I look at this—and these are the three billion chemical letters, instructions for a.

For the past ten years, scientists all over the world have been. DNA. And. now, finally, the "Human Genome" has been decoded. J. CRAIG VENTER (President, Celera Genomics): We're at the moment.

This is what we wanted to do, you know? We're now. examining and interpreting the genetic code.

FRANCIS COLLINS (National Human Genome Research Institute): This. ROBERT KRULWICH: And what it's telling us is so surprising and. Fifty percent of the genes in a banana are in. ERIC LANDER: How different are you from a banana? ROBERT KRULWICH: I feel.. I feel I can say this with some.

ERIC LANDER: You may feel different.. ROBERT KRULWICH: I eat a banana.

ERIC LANDER: All the machinery for replicating your DNA, all the. ROBERT KRULWICH: So what does any of this information have to. Perhaps more than we could possibly imagine. Which one of us. will get cancer or arthritis or Alzheimer's?

Will there be cures? Will parents. in the future be able to determine their children's genetic. ERIC LANDER: We've opened a box here that has got a huge amount of. It is the key to understanding disease and in the long.

But having opened it, we're also going to be very. ROBERT KRULWICH: Yes, some of the information you are about to. On the other hand, some of it I think.

I'm Robert Krulwich. And tonight we will not only report the latest. Human Genome project, you will meet the people who made. And as you watch our program on the human genome, we will be raising a. And we'd like to have your thoughts. So please, if you will, log on to NOVA's Website—it's.

The results will be immediately. We'll be right back. Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Park Foundation, dedicated to. This program is funded in part by the Northwestern Mutual Foundation.

Some. people already know Northwestern Mutual can help plan for your children's. Are you there yet?

Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. Scientific achievement is fueled by the simple desire to make things clear. Sprint PCS is proud to support NOVA.

Major funding for this program is provided by the National Science. Foundation, America's investment in the future. And by the Corporation for. Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like. Thank You. ROBERT KRULWICH: To begin, let's go back four and some billion. That speck did something that has gone. It wrote a message.

It was a chemical message. The message has passed from the very first organism. It's more elaborate now, of course, but that message, very simply, is the. And here is that message contained in this stunning little.

DNA. You've seen it in this form, the. DNA, I wondered, "What does it look like when it's raw, you know. So I asked an expert. ERIC LANDER: DNA has a reputation for being such a mystical.

It's actually goop. So this here's DNA. ROBERT KRULWICH: Professor Eric Lander is a geneticist at. MIT's Whitehead Institute. ERIC LANDER: It's very, very long strands of molecules, these double. DNA, which, when you get them all together, just look like little. ROBERT KRULWICH: And these strands were literally pulled from.

ERIC LANDER: Whoever contributed this DNA, you can tell from this. Alzheimer's disease, you can. And there's. probably about 2. And it's really incredibly unlikely that you can. But that's DNA for you.

That apparently is the secret. ROBERT KRULWICH: And already DNA has told us things that no. It turns out that human beings have only twice as. Now how can that be? We are such complex and.

DNA also. tells us that we are more closely related to worms and to yeast than most of us. But how do you read what's inside a molecule? Well, if it's DNA, if you. Each step is made up of two chemicals. They come always in pairs, called.

C and G, or T and A for short. This is, step by step, a.

ROBERT KRULWICH: We're all familiar with this thing, this. ERIC LANDER: .. double helix.. ROBERT KRULWICH: .. First of all, I'm.

DNA molecule. Is this, by the way, what it. ERIC LANDER: Well, give or take. I mean, a cartoon version, yeah. ROBERT KRULWICH: Cartoon version? ERIC LANDER: A little like that or so, yeah.

ROBERT KRULWICH: So there are.. ERIC LANDER: Oh yes, stuck in the nucleus of your cell. ROBERT KRULWICH: Now how small is this, if in a real DNA. ERIC LANDER: Oh golly.. ROBERT KRULWICH: Look at this. He's asking for. help. ERIC LANDER: This distance is about from..

ROBERT KRULWICH: That's one billionth of a meter when it's. ERIC LANDER: Well no, it's curled up some like that but you see it's. You can't curl it up too much because these little negatively. I'm going to break. ROBERT KRULWICH: No, don't break my molecule.. ERIC LANDER: You got this. And then it's folded up like this.

And then. those are folded up on top of each other. And so, in fact, if you were to. DNA it would run, oh, I don't know, thousands and. ROBERT KRULWICH: But the main thing about this is the. If I knew it was A and T and C and C and G. G and A.. ERIC LANDER: No, no.

It's not G and G, it's G and C. ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm sorry, whatever the rules are of the. I could read each of the individual ladders, I might find. ERIC LANDER: Well, of your children. This is what you pass to your.

You know people have known for 2. Well it's because you must pass them something, some instructions. And the only way you pass it to them is in these sentences. That's it. ROBERT KRULWICH: And to show you the true power of this. As and Ts and Cs and Gs and the classic double spiral.

And. then it starts the mysterious process that creates a healthy new baby. And the. interesting thing is that every human baby, every baby born, is 9. Watch Don`T Go In The House Online Mic. So the tiniest differences in our genes can be hugely important, can.

Cracking the code of those minuscule differences in DNA that influence. Human Genome Project is all about. Since 1. 99. 0. scientists all over the world in university and government labs, have been.

As, Ts, Gs, and Cs of. They predicted it would take at least 1.

That was partly because in. It took 1. 0 years. Watch Redemption Road Online IMDB there.

Another 1. 0 years. Huntington's disease.

Fifteen years to find one of the. One letter at a time, painfully.

ROBERT WATERSTON: One, two, three, four, five.. ROBERT KRULWICH: .. ROBERT WATERSTON (DNA mapping pioneer): .. Cs in a row. NARRATOR: .. We asked Dr. Robert Waterston, a pioneer in mapping DNA, to show us the way. ROBERT WATERSTON: The original ladders for DNA sequence, we actually.

It's. horrendous. ROBERT KRULWICH: And we haven't mentioned the hardest part. This here, magnified 5. DNA, chromosome 1.

Now. if you look inside you will find, of course, hundreds of millions of As, and. Cs, and Ts and Gs, but it turns out that only about one percent of them are.

These are the genes that scientists are searching for. So. somewhere in this dense chemical forest are genes involved in deafness. Alzheimer's, cancer, cataracts. But where? This is such a maze scientists need.

But at the old pace that would take close to forever. ROBERT WATERSTON: C and then an A. ROBERT KRULWICH: And then came the revolution. In the last ten. years the entire process has been computerized. That cost hundreds of millions. But now, instead of decoding a few hundred letters by hand in a.

ROBERT COOK- DEEGAN (National Research Council): This is something. Everybody knows that. Everybody, when the. Genome project was being born, was consciously aware of their role in. ROBERT KRULWICH: Getting the letters out is.. What's your. metaphor? ERIC LANDER: Oh, golly gee.

I mean, you can have very high falutin'. This is basically a parts list. Blueprints. and all these fancy.. It's just a parts list. It's a parts list with a lot of. If you take an airplane, a Boeing 7.

I think it has like 1. If I gave you a parts list for the Boeing 7. You'd know 1. 00,0.

NOVA - Official Website Forgotten Genius. Forgotten Genius. PBS Airdate: February 6, 2. NARRATOR: 1. 93. 9: A chemist at a midwestern paint company makes. The company wants him to stick to making paint, but this man has always gone. He was the grandson of Alabama slaves, yet he went on to become.

America's great scientists. HELEN PRINTY (Julian Laboratories Chemist): He had to fight to. America. JOHN KENLY SMITH (Historian): The chemical world was a club, and.

PETER WALTON (Julian Laboratories Employee): We lived, for the. NARRATOR: Outside the laboratory, he faced challenges of a.

PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): Once the violence began, Anna and I. PERCY JULIAN, JR.: My dad was angry when he came home, and clearly ready. PERCY JULIAN(Dramatization): For more than a century we have. NARRATOR: He found freedom in the laboratory. His science helped. GREGORY PETSKO (Chemist): This is one of the towering figures of.

African American scientists of. NARRATOR: A brilliant chemist, a volatile personality, a man. WILLIE PEARSON (Sociologist): This man was "Exhibit A" of.

V/O (Dramatization of Senate Hearings): Please state your full. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): My name is Percy Julian. NARRATOR: Every spring, in Oak Park, Illinois, people from all. East and Chicago Avenues. PERCY JULIAN, JR.: The tulips just went on forever. My dad, he'd be out.

NARRATOR: What many passersby didn't realize was that the. America's great scientists. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): Well, ladies and gentleman. I'm going to talk to you about three plants, three marvelous. Psalmist come true. Consider the lilies of the field: they toil not, neither.

Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of. NARRATOR: It was not simply the beauty of plants that. Percy Julian, but their ability to produce an endless variety of. In the 1. 93. 0s, Julian set out to tap what he called the.

PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): Spoiled? What do you mean. NARRATOR: Julian fought through extraordinary obstacles to. JAMES ANDERSON (Historian): The message from white society is. GREGORY PETSKO: Yet over and over again, he doesn't let this stop him. He presses on, sure that his vision of where he wants to go and how he wants to. JAMES SHOFFNER (Chemist): After Percy Julian, nobody could say.

PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): The story I will tell you tonight. It is a story. of laughter and tears.

It is a story of human beings, therefore, a story of. One beautiful morning, when I was 1. I went berry- picking on my. Alabama. I shall never forget how beautiful life seemed.

Alabama forest. But in the midst of. I came across a Negro body hanging from a tree. He had been. lynched a few hours earlier. He didn't look like a criminal; he just looked. On the way back, I encountered and killed a rattlesnake. For years afterward. I saw a white man, I involuntarily saw the contours of a rattlesnake.

Many years later, a reporter asked me what were my greatest. South. I told him, "White folks and. NARRATOR: Percy Lavon Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Jim Crow. JAMES ANDERSON: I think the greatest consequence of Jim Crow is fear.

You knew if you said the wrong thing or went in the wrong door or drank out of. NARRATOR: To shelter his children from this oppressive. Julian's father turned to the world of ideas. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): Every penny my father could scrape.

My father created, in my imagination, brave. NARRATOR: As a young man, James Julian had been a. His wife Elizabeth was a teacher, too. They believed education. Denied his own chance to go to college, James made it his mission to send.

In Montgomery, and across most. South, public schools for black children simply stopped after the eighth. JAMES ANDERSON: The message from white society, to black students, was.

NARRATOR: With no high school to attend, Percy Julian. Negroes. In 1. 91.

Percy Julian became the first member of his. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): During the hectic week of. This is the. greatest moment of your life," he told me. But it is also a great. There they were, three generations of hope and prayer, waving to a fourth. And why? Because they had the simple. Earth is education for all the people.

NARRATOR: Julian's destination was De. Pauw University, a small. Greencastle, Indiana. De. Pauw had accepted a few black. Civil War, but expected them to know their place.

JAMES ANDERSON: A black student entering a white university, if they. NARRATOR: Instead of being assigned to a dorm like his white. Julian was shown to an off- campus room with a slop jar for a. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): I soon got up enough courage to ask. Mrs. Townsend what time we would have dinner, but she tersely informed me that. NARRATOR: Julian wandered the streets of Greencastle for a day.

Negro. He would continue to take his meals off- campus until he learned of an. Sigma Chi fraternity.

In exchange for waiting on his housemates. Julian could have a room in the basement.

He soon. felt at ease in the fraternity; the classroom was a different matter. JAMES ANDERSON: You sit in a classroom with kids who have read things. NARRATOR: For two years Julian would take remedial classes at. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): I remember writing to my father, "I. Mother have always known what was best for me, but I think you.

They are so. brilliant that I am always hopelessly behind."NARRATOR: But by his sophomore year, Julian was gaining fast. William Blanchard. Blanchard had what one student called "a.

Under his tutelage, Julian. Only one African American had ever earned a doctorate in chemistry. His. name was St. Elmo Brady. Julian decided that if Brady could do it, so could he. After four years, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and first in his class. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): At commencement time, my. Civil War, she went through the Negro quarters.

Get yourselves ready, children. The Yankees are coming. The. Lord has heard our prayers!".

And then, proudly, she took my Phi Beta Kappa key in her hand and said, "This. NARRATOR: Encouraged by Percy's success, his father moved the. Greencastle to send the rest of the children to De.

Pauw. Eventually, Julian's two brothers would become doctors, and his three sisters. PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): I shall never forget an anxious. I would get into graduate school. I stood. by as, day by day, my fellow students in chemistry said, "I am going to. Illinois," "I'm going to Ohio State," or "I'm going to Michigan." "Where are. And they answered for me: "You must be waiting for the. I could stand the suspense no longer.

I went to Professor Blanchard. And there. he showed me numerous letters from men who had really meant "god" to me, great. American chemists of their day. Discourage your bright colored lad," they.

We couldn't get him a job when he's done, and it'll only mean. Why don't you find him a teaching job in a Negro college in the. South? He doesn't need a Ph. D. for that."JAMES ANDERSON: What happened to Julian was something that would have. To have a good college education was way.

African American. And so there's. the sense that he'd had enough. Stop here. Be content with this. Go back and. teach your people."NARRATOR: In 1. Julian reluctantly returned to the south to. Ph. D. At 2. 1, he was embarking. His first stop was Fisk University in Nashville, one of the best Negro.

His idol, St. Elmo Brady, had studied at Fisk. But. Julian chafed at the limitations of the black college system: overcrowded. After two years, he was on the move again. Julian had won a scholarship to. America's most famous universities.

PERCY JULIAN (Dramatization): No Negro has yet obtained his. Harvard, and so I'm up against a hard situation. JAMES ANDERSON: When Julian arrived at Harvard, in 1. NARRATOR: President Abbott Lawrence Lowell had set the tone by. Harvard Yard. Julian sailed through his first year and earned his master's degree in the. He continued his studies for three more years but left Harvard without his. Years later, he would bitterly tell friends he had been denied the.

JAMES ANDERSON: If you were going to be a teaching assistant and teach. That's just hardly acceptable at that time.