Hummingbirds

easily fill an article or, indeed, a monograph. This systematic screen for developmental mutations has revolutionized developmental genetics, and it provides a veritable Who’s Who of developmental regulatory genes, each of which has given rise to an entire cottage industry of research. Of course the two papers also led directly to a Nobel Prize, which just means that they have good taste in Stockholm. I also have a favorite lecture. The clear choice is Francis Crick in 1962, presenting genetic studies on the triplet nature of the genetic code in a blackboard lecture without slides. The clarity, elegance and excitement of this talk that guided the audience through the logic of the experiments has remained vivid in my memory ever since.