Sixty years ago, Francis Crick and James Watson announced their discovery of the structure of DNA. The academics themselves were an international pair: one was American, the other British. Back then, both needed to be in Cambridge to work together. Things had changed little in the 250 years since Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz argued about calculus. Today, however, duos such as Crick and Watson can work in different countries because technology has slashed the cost of collaborating among research leaders.
60年前，弗朗西斯•克里克(Francis Crick)和詹姆士•沃森(James Watson)宣佈，他們發現了去氧核糖核酸(DNA)的結構。這兩位學者是一對國際合作夥伴：一個是英國人，另一個是美國人。當時，這種合作是建立在兩人都身在劍橋大學(Cambridge University)的基礎上。自艾薩克•牛頓(Isaac Newton)和戈特弗利德•萊布尼茨(Gottfried Leibniz)討論微積分以來的250年裏，這種情況基本上沒有什麼變化。但如今，像克里克和沃森這樣的合作伙伴可身在不同的國家工作，因爲科技的發展大大降低了研究帶頭人之間的合作成本。