battledore (plural battledores) 1  A game played with a shuttlecock and rackets (properly battledore and shuttlecock); a forerunner of badminton. 2  The racket used in this game. ( 3 obsolete) A child's hornbook for learning the alphabet. ( obsolete) A bat or beetle used in washing clothes.
Watson is a U.S. molecular biologist, geneticist and zoologist, best known as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA in 1953 with Francis Crick. In 1998, the Modern Library placed The Double Helix at number 7 on its list of the 100 best nonfiction books of the 20th century.
Unravelling the double helix. The discovery of the structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 is one of the most famous scientific discoveries of all time. X-ray diffraction of DNA crystals results in a cross shape on the X-ray film, which is typical of a molecule with a helix shape.