遗传学家巴巴勒·麦克林托克今年79岁,她在科学上有点不合时宜。她和长岛冷泉港的著名生物实验室中极大多数的科学家不同,她不采用对病毒和细菌的基因进行拼接、剪切、重组的方法。在以往的五十多年时间里,她象100多年前奥地利修道士格里高·孟德尔在豌豆田里的作法一样,细心地对玉米进行育种和杂交育种,试图从中选择出一些含有遗传变异秘密的玉米粒。麦克林托克的同事,被遗传工程的强大魔力所吸引,他们对她追求这种经典遗传学的技术一直感到不可思议。不过,有时他们也对她的工作表示惊喜。但这毕竟已经完全离开了现在最热门的科学——分子生物学的主流。但是作这样的结论看来为时过早。在麦克林托 Geneticist Barbary McClintock, 79, is a bit scientifically outdated. Unlike most scientists in famous biology laboratories in Long Island Cold Spring, she does not use splicing, shearing and recombination of genes for viruses and bacteria. Over the past fifty years, she, like the Austrian monk Gregory Mendel more than 100 years ago in the pea field, careful corn breeding and crossbreeding, trying to select some contain genetic variation Secret corn kernels. McClintock’s colleagues, attracted by the magic of genetic engineering, have been amazed at her pursuit of this classic genetics technology. However, sometimes they also surprise her work. But after all, it has completely left the mainstream science nowadays, the most popular science of molecular biology. But it seems too early to make such a conclusion. In McClintown