Roots

Who or what we become in life is influenced by a bunch of factors that can be boiled down to genetics and environment. Genetically, both my parents were PhD scientists. As a geneticist, I can tell you that there are no genes known to be responsible for “science.” But of course, my home environment skewed scientific.

I grew up in Oak Ridge TN, which was a secret city during WWII and where the uranium was enriched for the Hiroshima atomic bomb. By the time I arrived in 1958 as a child, it was no longer a secret, but the X-10, Y-12 and K-25 plants were behind guarded gates. If your car broke down on the Oak Ridge reservation, you could be sure you’d be met with security within 15 minutes.

I went to Oak Ridge public schools, graduating high school in 1973. By the time I was in elementary school, science curricula had been updated to address the space gap that opened up with Sputnik. Was I (and my lovely and talented wife) steered into a science career because of the Oak Ridge culture, because of genetics, or both? Who knows? As we say in science, each life is an experiment without a control.

https://www.islands.com/1736725/oak-ridge-america-secret-city-hidden-tennessee-steeped-history-eerie-destination/