Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock was born in 1902, the third of four children. From an early age, she possessed a preference for being alone and the extraordinary ability to not only not mind solitude but actively enjoy it. Partly due to her mother's emotional distance and partly due to her personality, McClintock did not naturally gravitate to the activities and interests of girls in her time and area. Instead, she became interested in science and plants. Despite her mother and father's concerns, she went to Cornell and studied botany, focusing on cytology, the study of chromosomes. She eventually went to graduate school to study chromosomes as her career. McClintock was a notoriously eccentric woman, preferring to keep to herself, often overly blunt in conversation and unable to pick up on social cues. She was also often discriminated against due to her gender, despite her incredible skills as a scientist. McClintock's...