He learned all about anatomy, many aspects of biochemistry, and cell biology. He was also taught the number of chromosomes in a human cell. The problem was, he learned that it was forty-eight. Biologists had first visualized the nuclei of human cells in 1912 and counted these forty-eight chromosomes, and it was duly entered into the textbooks. In 1953, a well-known cytologist—someone who studies the interior of cells—even said that “the diploid chromosome number of 48 in man can now be considered as an established fact.” But in 1956, Joe Hin Tjio and Albert Levan, two researchers working at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Cancer Chromosome Laboratory in Sweden, decided to try a recently created technique for looking at cells. After counting over and over, they nearly always got only forty-six chromosomes. Previous researchers, who Tjio and Levan spoke with after receiving their results, turned out to have been having similar problems.
What do You think about The Half-Life Of Facts (2013)?
