As a teenager in a South Dakota hamlet (Pierpont, population 326 in the 1940 census) I had no idea that I would become a scientist. The only formal science course my tiny high school (40 students in four grades, taught by three teachers) offered was physics, taught by the sports coach (a history major) and featuring the ‘‘dissection’’ of a 1928 Overland (teacher: ‘‘I have been told that the mod...