Curiosity is the key trait of the people who have fascinated me, from Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci. Curiosity drove James Watson and the Phage Group, who wanted to understand the viruses that attack bacteria, and the Spanish graduate student Francisco Mojica, who was intrigued by clustered repeated sequences of DNA, and Jennifer Doudna, who wanted to understand what made the sleeping grass curl up when you touched it. And maybe that instinct—curiosity, pure curiosity—is what will save us.
