Rosalind Franklin, best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to the discovery of the DNA double helix, is the subject of Thursday's Google doodle on the occasion of her 93rd birthday. Franklin was born in Notting Hill, London on 25th July 1920. Her father was Ellis Arthur Franklin, a London merchant banker, and her mother was Muriel Frances Waley. Rosalind was the second child of the family of five children. From early childhood, Franklin showed exceptional scholastic abilities and it was no surprise when she went up to Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1938 and studied chemistry within the Natural Sciences Tripos. After finishing her eduction, she met the requirements of the National Service Act by working as an Assistant Research Officer at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA). Her work with BCURA became the basis of her thesis The physical chemistry of solid organic collo