Biology's Most Beautiful

BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of
Biological Sciences, presents readers with an unusual challenge: to
nominate candidates for a short list of the most beautiful biology
experiments. Essays on those that we judge most plausible will be
published in future issues of BioScience.

The notion of selecting experiments by such a subjective criterion as
beauty may seem surprising, but is not original. The late science
historian Frederic Lawrence Holmes used the characterization for the
subtitle of his 2001 book, "Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of
DNA: A History of 'The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology.'" And a
year ago, Robert P. Crease asked readers of Physics World for
nominations for the most beautiful experiment in physics.

BioScience hopes this criterion will allow latitude for some
less-well-known experiments to be honored and described, as well as
for some famous ones to be considered anew.

We will not announce vote counts or rank the nominated experiments in
any way; there will be no "winner." We encourage readers to suggest
beauteous experiments from all fields of biology, as we intend to cast
a wide net. Experiments from any period in history may be nominated.

We will be guided in our consideration of which nominees are worthy
contenders by four distinguished experts: Richard M. Burian, Professor
of Philosophy and Science and Technology Studies at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University (and a member of the
BioScience editorial board); Jane Maienschein, Regents' Professor of
Biology and Society at Arizona State University; Scott F. Gilbert,
Professor of Biology at Swarthmore College; and John Beatty, Professor
of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia.

Readers should submit their nominations to by the
end of 2003. Nominations must include proper citations to the
experiment and a brief account (up to 500 words) of why it should be
considered one of the most beautiful experiments in biology.

Tim Beardsley
Editor-in-Chief
BioScience
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/current_issue.html