DNA diffraction image (labeled as "Photo 51") taken by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling in May 1952, and the information that the DNA bases are paired. On 28 February 1953 Crick interrupted patrons' lunchtime at The Eagle pub in Cambridge to announce that he and Watson had "discovered the secret of life". Months earlier, in February 1953, Linus Pauling and Robert Corey proposed a model for nucleic acids containing three intertwined chains, with the phosphates near the axis, and the bases on the outside. Experimental evidence supporting the Watson and Crick model was published in a series of five articles in
Non-helical models of DNA structure as evidence that the strands were plectonemically wound together ("i.e.," topologically linked). The publication of the Rodley structure produced a small but significant ripple of interest in the molecular biological community. However, the level of interest was sufficiently high so that Crick - by that time one of the world’s most influential scientists - publicly suggested that the SBS structure (whose existence he doubted) should be laid to rest by intentionally creating it. Then, he reasoned, its properties could be ascertained, and then shown to be abnormal with respect to the known properties of native DNA. An investigation by Stettler