James D. Watson. Watson was in his playful and spunky mood again (blog on his child-like mind). He kicked off the TED brain spa with a recount of his life, from ornithology to the discovery of the double helix, with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor and honest admissions of open competition with Linus Pauling and mood swings derived from the trials and tribulations of his dating life.

“We needed a shortcut, so we build a model instead of solving a formula. Our three strand model was crap, so I was told to build no models. I was incompetent, so I did nothing. I just read a lot.”

“It all happened in about two hours. We went from nothing to thing.”

“All of us have ten places where we have lost a gene or gained another one. We are all imperfect.”