Tools for directly examining the genetic sequence, letter by letter, base pair by base pair, did not exist. But by painstakingly crossing the idiot r’s with the original virus, Feynman was able to show that his second guess was correct: two mutations, situated close to each other on the gene, were interacting. Furthermore, he showed that the second mutation had the same character as the first; it was another rII mutation. He had discovered a new phenomenon, mutations that suppressed each other within the same gene. Friends of his in the laboratory called these “Feyntrons” and tried to persuade
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