At the recent Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, 2009 chemistry laureate Thomas Steitz recalled that at one institution in the 60s, he saw how informal scientific collaboration fostered an incredible environment for discovery.

 

"The most magnificent place I've ever been was the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge where everybody had lunch together in the canteen and coffee and tea and…You know, I wondered how they ever got their research done, 'cause they were always up there talking to each other. But it wasn't about the movie last night and wasn't about anything else, it was always talking science. And then I realize that they were helping each other by talking to each other and suggesting experiments had been told and led to the better experiment than you thought at this experiment. And what I witness now is people eat their lunch in their office doing email, which I think is a lousy way of doing science in my opinion. You know, you can't learn anything by doing email. "

 

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American's 60-Second Science, I'm Steve Mirsky.