A schoolgirl so bad at music that composer Gustav Holst asked if she had hearing loss went on to decode the ultimate music of biology. This deep dive looks beyond the myth of Rosalind Franklin as merely the wronged, overlooked figure in the shadow of the DNA double helix.

Drawing on biographical sources and new 2023 analyses, we trace her scientific toolkit from wartime coal research to pioneering virus mapping. Her mastery of physical chemistry and X-ray crystallography was the exact instrument needed to unlock DNA's structure, and her notebooks reveal she was deriving the helix mathematically.

• Measuring coal porosity with helium to improve wartime gas mask filters
• Mastering X-ray crystallography on amorphous substances in Paris
• Her humidity chamber isolating the A-form and B-form of DNA
• Photo 51, shared  ...